Douglas County commissioners on Monday approved building a fifth fire station despite cost concerns.

This rendering shows a proposed Lawrence-Douglas County Fire & Medical station to be built near 19th Street and Stewart Avenue. The Douglas County Commission on Monday approved moving forward with plans for the station, even though bids came in about a half-million dollars higher than expected.

On a 2-1 vote — Commissioner Jere McElhaney dissented — commissioners accepted the low bid of $4.57 million from First Management Inc. to build the fire station near 19th Street and Stewart Avenue. That’s about $500,000 more than the initially estimated cost of construction.

“This is not an overpriced building or a building that’s been poorly designed,” said Commissioner Bob Johnson. “It’s just coming in higher than what we’re wanting to spend.”

Commissioners ap-proved the project with the understanding that city officials and Sabatini Architects Inc. would work to negotiate a lower cost. The city of Lawrence is covering 75 percent of the project costs. Douglas County is paying 25 percent.

Last week, city commissioners agreed to work with First Management on the project.

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Commission Chairman Charles Jones said he thought the fire station project was “probably overpriced.”

“I know if this was a county project, we’d be whittling away at these numbers,” he said. But Jones said it also was important to maintain a good relationship with city officials and, in this case, that price needed to be paid. Johnson agreed.

McElhaney said he thought the project could be redesigned and rebid so that it would cost less.

“All along we told our citizens the cost on this and that’s what we would do,” McElhaney said. “We expect our citizens to pay their taxes and they expect us to stay in line.”

In addition to providing a new fire and medical station, the site also includes an administration building for the Lawrence-Douglas County Fire & Medical department. The project should be completed by spring 2006.

In addition to First Management, other bidders for the project were: Champion Builders, $4.64 million; McPherson Contractors, $4.65 million; and B.A. Green Construction, $4.87 million.