FARMINGTON — The Police Department moved another step closer Tuesday night to occupying new headquarters, after selectmen awarded the contract for general contractor to a South China company.

Blane Casey Building Contractor Inc. was the low bidder at $429,365, Town Manager Richard Davis said Wednesday. High bidder was The Penobscot Company, Inc. of Rockport at $524,033, he said.

Casey was one of eight companies to bid on the renovation project of the former medical office on Franklin Avenue donated by Franklin Memorial Hospital to the town for a new police station. Voters accepted the building in April.

Town officials, architect and the contractor sat down and made some changes to reduce the price by $8,541. The town has $431,715.58 to work with and the changes give the town a contingency of $10,891.58 for the project, Davis said.

Selectmen approved changing the vinyl siding from a heavier, cedar shake style to a standard vinyl clapboard style, he said. That reduced the price by $5,225. They also opted to go with a 1-inch rigid foam insulation behind the siding instead of Thermax, Davis said. It reduces the R-value from R-7 to R-5, he said. The higher the R-value the better the insulating ability. That change brought the price down another $1,273, he said.

They also eliminated a supplemental air conditioner for the reception area that could be added in the future, Davis said. That was a decrease of another $2,043.

The Police Department has been working in cramped quarters for decades at the Municipal Building. The station area will go from about 1,500 square feet to more than 6,000 square feet.

The renovation is expected to be done in early 2012 with police moving into the new space in February.

The debt service for the project will be for 15 years, Davis said. For the first five years, it will be $43,940 annually. After that, it goes to $45,735 annually for the remainder of the loan, he said. At the current valuation, this amounts to about 10 cents per $1,000 of valuation, he said.

If a property is valued at $100,000, a property owner would pay about $10 per year for the debt service, Davis said.

Deputy police Chief Shane Cote said Wednesday that the new building will give police more room to work.

Now, seven patrolmen share one desk and one computer. Cote shares an office with a detective and two sergeants, which makes it difficult when dealing with personnel issues. Chief Jack Peck, Cote and Detective Marc Bowering will have their own offices in the new complex. There will be adequate space for patrolmen and supervisors to work, too.

There will also be wired interview rooms for police to interview victims and suspects in cases, Cote said, instead of someone having to leave an office to make room for an interview. Another bonus is there will be different entrances to the building. Currently at the municipal building, people have to walk through the building into the Police Department and there is only one door into that office area.

Also, the entire building will be wired so officers can plug their laptops in anywhere and work on reports, Cote said.

“I would like to say how grateful the town is for the donation of this building from Franklin Memorial Hospital,” Davis said. “It was extremely generous and we appreciate it.”

In other business Tuesday, selectmen awarded the contract for a sewer main replacement on Perham Street to T-Buck of Auburn. The company was the low bidder of two at $139,496, Davis said. E.L. Vining & Son of Farmington was the other bidder at $192,777.

The town has $131,00 left from a grant that will be used for the work and will get the remainder from a sewer reserve account that has $36,81.61 in it, Davis said.

dperry@sunjournal.com