BLOOMINGTON - Budget cuts will keep the city's Fire Station No. 5 closed during the next fiscal year.

Fire Chief Mike Kimmerling announced Monday night that the $3 million station would remain closed as the city continues to fight costs.

Extending Mitsubishi Motorway is needed to make the station useful in the overall network of stations, he said. It may be several years, however, before the extension would be built.

"Residential growth we anticipated that was behind the construction of Station 5 has not happened yet," Kimmerling said.

When asked by the council about public safety, Kimmerling said that current response times from Station 4 on Morris Avenue to Fedor Circle, which is adjacent to Station 5, is 4.5 minutes. Other parts of the city have response times as high as seven minutes, Kimmerling added.

Without the Mitisubishi extension, Station 5 fire vehicles would need to take Six Points Road. As a result, response times from Station 4 remain shorter.

The city will not hire six firefighters in the coming fiscal year. Those firefighters were originally slated for Station 6, a new station expected to opent year by the airport.

Firefighters already hired in anticipation of the opening of Station 5 will be reassigned, Hales said.

Construction on Station 5 started in 2008, but the city has not taken possession of the building. The city is working with contractors because water repellant concrete blocks were not used in the construction of the building as specified in the contracts.

Kimmerling said the building could be used by other city departments until the fire department is ready to use it.