The Forest Preserve District of DuPage County’s 180-vehicle fleet will be getting a new $7.5 million home at Blackwell Forest Preserve in Warrenville.

The district’s Board of Commissioners on Tuesday unanimously approved the initial plan for a new fleet building, but some members expressed concerns about the price tag.

“I agree that we need the building,” Commissioner Joseph Cantore, R-2nd District, of Oakbrook Terrace, said. “I’m not in agreement with the amount of money because I think it’s way too much.”

The plan originally called for a 12-bay garage at a cost of about $5.1 million. But after meeting with district officials, the architects working on the project determined a 16-bay facility is needed to meet current and future needs.

The additional $2.4 million for the project will come from investment earnings from the district’s landfill environmental fund.

To help keep the cost of the project down, Jim Wolfe, president of Knight Engineers & Architects, told the board the firm will waive an additional $75,000 in engineering fees it normally would charge for the expanded project.

“The Forest Preserve District is an important client for us, not only for this project, but long term,” Wolfe said.

Currently, the district’s fleet of vehicles is divided between facilities at Blackwell and Churchill Woods Forest Preserve in Glen Ellyn.

Andrea Hoyt, director of planning, said the district’s fleet services staff will be able to work more efficiently once they are concentrated at more centrally located Blackwell. The building will be grouped with the rest of the district’s maintenance facilities, she added.

The new 29,000-square-foot facility also will be located near the compressed natural gas fueling station at Blackwell that is scheduled to be complete by the end of the year. About 12 percent of the vehicles in the fleet run on natural gas.

Construction of the new fleet facility is scheduled to begin in October 2009.