TROY – The city is working to keep $2 million in state funding to redevelop 1 Monument Square into a vast public plaza surrounded by three buildings and a tall clock tower set atop a 160-space parking garage.

The conceptual plans for the 1.2-acre site between River Street and the Hudson River at the southern end of Riverfront Park was presented to about 100 people Monday night at the Arts Center of the Capital Region.

“Don’t get to hung up on the presentation of the design,” Mayor Patrick Madden advised the crowd, which seemed to agree with the overall proposal that grew out of a week of public meetings in June.

The city is making its fifth attempt to attract a developer to build on the site where City Hall once stood. The city razed the government offices in 2011. A price for developing the site has yet to be set, although past proposals ranged from about $20 million to $30 million.

The state grants of about $2 million to the city for a parking garage and other work are set to expire at the end of the year. State Assemblyman John T. McDonald III, D-Cohoes, said he and State Senator Neil Breslin, D-Bethlehem, began work last week to secure an extension of the grants.

The conceptual proposal shows an eight-story mixed-use building of about 108,000 square feet on the south end of a 20,000-square-foot public plaza. A restaurant is included in the proposal. A clock tower with an observation deck would be placed at the west end of the eight-story building. The buildings and plaza would be built on a two-level parking garage of up to 160 spaces.

The overall concept presented by Place Alliance Northeast of Schenectady and River Street Planning of Troy also calls for changing Riverfront Park by removing some of the parking lots and replacing them with grass and a playground. The Vietnam Memorial would be relocated from the park’s southern end to its northern end. This would allow the grand staircase to make its way down from the plaza.

Ian Law of Place Alliance said the conceptual plan maintains a strong civic space with the plaza, the links to the park and the sight lines to the Hudson River.

Developers would work with the conceptual plans but could modify them.