BRUNSWICK — Plans to build a new police station in Brunswick will be delayed after a building cost estimate presented Tuesday came in higher than expected.

Town Manager Gary Brown said the town will work over the next two months to shave approximately $ 2 million from an estimated project cost of $7.2 million to build the structure, which is proposed for the corner of Pleasant and Stanwood streets.

“We’re confident that we can still come forward with a modern police facility and we can do it within the number that I believe most people are going to find acceptable,” Brown said during Tuesday’s meeting of the Police Station Subcommittee, which has been studying the project for months.

That acceptable figure, Brown said, is $5.5 million.

Subcommittee member and District 2 Councilor Ben Tucker said he felt that figure “is really the upper limit of what this town could support.”

Sarah Brayman, a subcommittee member and District 7 town councilor, also said she thought that the target budget “would be lower than that.”

No decisions were made Tuesday about how to get to $ 5.5 million, but architect Brett Donham, of the firm Donham and Sweeney, answered questions about how it might be done.

Cutting a planned boat garage from the design is one option and reducing the area of the planned 26,000-square-foot building is another. Some of that space, Donham said, is intended to accommodate storage and future expansions of the department during the next 50 years.

Police Chief Richard Rizzo said Tuesday that his main concern in the process will be the functionality of a new building.

For changes like the removal of the boat garage, he said, the department could continue to store boats with the town’s public works department.

“It would be more convenient to have the boats at the police station if we need to access them quickly,” Rizzo said, “but we shouldn’t lose a whole lot without them there.”

Donham said cutting the size of the parking lot is also a consideration, an idea Rizzo said he is not worried about.

For a short window every day, when officers are switching shifts, demand for parking doubles. The current plans anticipate the future expansion of the department in 25 years, Donham said.

As for the loss of expansion space, Rizzo said that may present a concern for a later time.

With a $7.2 million bottom line, Rizzo said he thinks it is less likely that a building of any size would go up at the corner of Pleasant and Stanwood streets.

“I think if the police station (subcommittee) pushed for $7 million, it wouldn’t happen,” Rizzo said. “Now that we have the numbers, we’ll see where we go.”

Brown also said that reducing some cosmetic features of the building would need to be part of the cost-cutting mix. Those changes could include removing a tower planned for above the building’s entryway.

Brown also said that the subcommittee might need to forgo more detailed brickwork on the exterior of the building to cut costs. He also suggested that the committee will need to look at “lowhanging fruit” that can be cut from the project in the coming months.

Brayman voiced concern about how those priorities are defined on the project, which officials have termed a “gateway structure” for its location at the entry to inner Pleasant Street and the downtown area.

“It is a gateway structure and I want to be careful about what we identify as ‘ lowhanging fruit’ here,” Brayman said.

Donham said that his firm would bring back recommendations for how to come in under the $5.5 million bar in around three weeks.

“The good news here is that we know what we’re shooting for specifically,” Donham said.

On Monday, the Town Council approved a revised schedule that includes a special March 27 meeting to set a public hearing on a proposed bond ordinance for the project.

A presentation on the proposed municipal budget for the fiscal year that begins June 1 is scheduled for April 30.

dfishell@timesrecord.com