LEWISTON – Bids for a Southern Gateway parking garage came in about a $1 million over budget, city officials said Thursday.

Daniel Hebert Construction was the apparent low bidder on the planned 377-space Lisbon Street parking garage, with a base bid of $4.97 million.

The city had budgeted $4 million for the work. Finance Director Dick Metivier said staff will have to go back to the City Council for additional funding.

“We’ve done what we can to make the project as reasonable as possible,” Metivier said. “The only thing we can do at this point is to bring it to the council and ask for authorization, in order to award the project.”

As many as eight contractors had contacted the city about submitting bids before Thursday’s deadline. In all, five contractors bid for the project, including Reed and Reed, Consigli and Cianbro. Only Hebert had a base bid below $5 million.

The bid package included several cost-saving options the city could accept. Metivier said the city would eliminate plans for an elevator, a decorative glass block lighting system, landscaping and fences, and decorative steel and architectural columns on the northern and southern sides. Those deductions, and a 5 percent contingency budget, bring the cost to about $4.8 million.

Plans call for building the garage on the open lot between Andover College and the Pontiac Building on Lisbon Street.

The garage is part of the city’s Southern Gateway revitalization plan and a requirement of the development agreement between Lewiston and Oxford Networks. Norm Beauparlant, city director of budget and purchasing, said the city still hopes to break ground on the garage in September.

Beauparlant blamed the high bids on steel prices.

“We all know that the price of steel is nuts right now, and there is a lot of metal in this garage,” Beauparlant said. “All of the electrical work needs metal conduit, and there’s metal decking and metal on the roof. So when the price of steel is up like this, you can really feel it.”