It’s back to the drawing board for the new Deer Harbor Fire Station.

On Sept. 8, during its regular meeting, the Orcas Fire Board of Commissioners unanimously moved to reject all bids for construction of the station planned in Deer Harbor.

“I left our special meeting on Sept. 1 a little bit shell-shocked,” Commissioner Jim Coffin said. “Now we have to figure out exactly where we go from here. The bids were close enough that I think our specifications were clear.”

All six bids opened on Sept. 1 exceeded the station’s budget of $600,000. The highest bid was $1,363,727 and was submitted by contractor Justin Paulsen of Terra Firma NW, LLC. Tye Contracting Inc. submitted the lowest bid. At $923,150, the lowest bid was $323,150 over budget.

From public funds levied in 1999, Fire District 2 has $700,000 available for the entire project. About $100,000 has already been used for design and permitting costs.

“I believe we need that station,”Coffin said. “I want to look at what we can do to significantly reduce costs. It is a little bit painful, but before we can start any other process we need to end this process.”

Architect Bill Trogden stood by the design that his son’s firm created.

“They were a good set of drawings,” he said. “You have a good building, a good design. It’s what you wanted, what you needed, but you can’t afford it.”

Trodgen observed that some Orcas fire stations were built through volunteer labor and donated funds. He referenced the Doe Bay station.

“We’ve lost some time and we need contractors’ advice. We have a lot of ideas as well,” he said. “I would hope we can keep the structure as it is. It may not be completely finished, but at least it would be operational.”

Paulsen suggested that if all the bidders were able to sit down together they’d be able to come up with some solutions on cutting costs. He said involving the contractors at this point was vital.

Dwight Guss of Avalon Construction, who submitted a bid of $991,150, was also willing to help find solutions.

“We can save a lot of money on that station, but we’re gonna have to change the specifications,” Guss said. “We can still build it up to code. We can still build it up to our needs. The building is perfect. It just needs to be simplified a little bit. I’d be glad to give you a list of things that you could do to drop that bid considerably, but I don’t know if it’s fair for me to do that as a bidder on this project.”

Commissioner Clyde Duke said soliciting input from the construction community would not interfere with the bidding process, now that all bids had been rejected. He said it would help the commission to change the specifications before reopening another bid opportunity to all contractors.

Walt Corbin, member of the public, suggested the board negotiate with the lowest bidder to see if they can do the job closer to budget.

“It seems to me you’ve a had a year to figure out what this thing is going to cost,” he said. “It’s unfair when somebody is a low bidder and spends a lot of time. Why shouldn’t you negotiate with the low bidder to get the price that you guys want?”

The idea was rejected by Duke.

“When it’s significantly over, like this was, we have to start over,” Duke said. “We don’t have the luxury of being more than 5 percent over because it’s public funds.”

He continued, “We’ve spent a lot of time planning this. We hired an architectural firm based, not on a building design, but our need amount. This unfortunately is not uncommon in the workplace. Orcas Center went through this. The medical center did. None of us thought it would be this much but, that being said, we move forward.”

“It can be done,” Trogden said. “I think we just have to go back and work harder.”

Previously planned for earlier in the month, a work session on the Deer Harbor station will be held on Tuesday, Sept. 29 at 7:30 p.m. at the Eastsound fire hall.