In an unusual move, the City Council Finance Committee has rejected bids for the city’s ninth fire station, saying a 30 percent cost increase since 1994 was not acceptable.
The lowest bid for the station, to be built amid the Aurora Group Properties on the far southeast side, came in at $1.37 million, a 30 percent increase over the lowest bid of $1.05 million for the eighth fire station built in 1994. The stations would be nearly identical in construction.
“Sometimes it is a message we have to send that we’re not going to accept this kind of increase,” Finance Chairman Robert O’Connor said last week. He was concurring with Mayor David Stover, who urged rejecting the bids.
Fire Chief Jerry Stevens said contractors told him the prices were so much higher because contractors are busy in the booming local economy. He noted only three contractors bid on the station.
The city is required to build the fire station around July 1, 1998, at the northwest corner of Hafenrichter and Eola Roads as part of the series of annexations of 570 acres approved in late 1995.
Once all construction is done in the area, 2,000 new homes will have been added to the city.
