The Town of Manlius is trying again. A year after officials withdrew a nearly $40 million plan to build a new combined town hall and police headquarters, following a three hour public meeting where residents balked at the cost, the town has restarted the process from scratch, this time with a Syracuse University graduate student team and a five month public workshop schedule that runs through November 12, 2026.

The current Manlius Town Hall sits on Brooklea Drive in a building constructed in the 1960s and extended in the 1970s, according to town officials’ account at a July 30, 2025 informational session reported by Eagle News Online. Town officials have said the 14,000 square foot building does not comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act, lacks adequate space for court proceedings, has parking difficulties, outdated utilities and roof leaks. The town’s police department also operates out of the same aging complex.

The path to this point stretches back at least two years. On July 24, 2024, the Town Board voted down a $2.8 million purchase of seven acres of land for a new town hall site after residents objected that the price exceeded the property’s most recent appraisal, according to cnycentral.com’s reporting on the vote. “After hearing and listening to resident feedback, we’ve decided to not consider that agreement,” Town Supervisor John Deer said at the time. On the same night, the board voted to hire VIP Architecture for up to $55,000 to study the existing town hall and draft renovation and new construction options.

That study produced a building conditions assessment dated November 15, 2024, according to a copy referenced in the town’s Document Center and cross checked against a public timeline maintained by the citizen group Concerned Manlius Residents. The VIP assessment put the cost of renovating the current building at $4 million to $5 million, and the cost of an addition at $5 million to $7 million, for a combined range of $9 million to $12 million to fix the town’s existing facilities in place.

Rather than pursue that renovation path, the board moved toward new construction. On May 14, 2025, the Town Board approved a separate $51,150 payment to VIP Architecture to produce a formal cost estimate for a new, two story, roughly 20,000 square foot combined town hall and police headquarters on about 10 acres of town owned land north of the YMCA in Fayetteville, according to cnycentral.com’s account of that meeting and the Concerned Manlius Residents timeline.

The result of that work landed at the July 30, 2025 informational session, where officials presented drawings and a cost estimate that Eagle News Online reported as nearly $40 million for the new facility, a figure cnycentral.com described in its own coverage as a $39 million bond proposal. Supervisor Deer told residents that combining the town hall and police department on one site “would make the site more safe and secure, plus it would increase both coordination between the police and court and the efficiency of day to day administrative work.” Councilor William Nicholson said police officers had been “impeccable” despite cramped quarters but that the town needed to act before a “disaster.” But other board members pushed back on process. Councilor Mike Nesci called for “more regular updates about the project” and “a more realistic timeline.” Councilor Katelyn Kriesel said the resolution as written gave residents only 90 days to review a large capital plan. Councilor Ingrid Gonzalez-McCurdy urged the board to keep “tapping into all perspectives and expertise” before committing. Within weeks, according to the Concerned Manlius Residents timeline, the bond resolution was withdrawn.

What came next is the part of the story that has not been widely reported. Rather than shelve the facility question, the town rebuilt the process around public input collected before any design work, not after. In 2026 the Town Board established a Town Facility Study Group, described on the town’s project page as a community informed advisory body that develops recommendations rather than making final decisions. Applications to join the group were extended through May 20, 2026, according to cnycentral.com’s coverage of the relaunch.

The town also brought in help that cost nothing beyond staff time. A four student graduate capstone team from Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs has been working alongside the Study Group, producing a project the town’s website lists under the title “Town of Manlius Re-envisioning Project,” built on building tours, community listening sessions and research into the town’s options, according to the town’s own facility project pages. The students are completing the work as the culmination of their master of public administration program.

The 2026 process runs on a fixed public schedule, all sessions at 5:30 p.m. in the Manlius Town Hall boardroom, according to the town’s Town Facility Study Group project page. The kickoff meeting was held June 15. Facility needs and engagement planning reviews followed on July 7 and July 23. A Community Big Ideas Workshop was held August 6, with a feedback review set for August 19, eight days after this article was reported. Community outreach activities, including appearances at local festivals and events, are planned for September on a date the town has not yet set. A feedback review and key findings session is scheduled for October 7, ahead of a final presentation of recommendations to the Town Board on November 12. “Better decisions are made when residents have multiple opportunities to participate, ask questions, and share their perspectives,” the town wrote in describing its approach.

Two numbers frame what the Study Group is walking into. Renovating and adding onto the existing Brooklea Drive building was estimated at $9 million to $12 million in November 2024. A new combined facility was estimated at nearly $40 million eight months later. By CNY Signal’s calculation, the new build estimate runs more than three times the top of the renovation range, and close to nine times the bottom of it. Against the town’s 2020 Census population of 33,712, CNY Signal calculates the renovation path works out to roughly $267 to $356 per resident, while the new build estimate works out to roughly $1,187 per resident, again by CNY Signal’s calculation, using the same population figure.

There is also a running cost the town has already paid regardless of which direction it eventually chooses. Combining the two separate VIP Architecture contracts identified in board records, the $55,000 authorized in July 2024 and the $51,150 authorized in May 2025, CNY Signal calculates the town has spent $106,150 on outside consulting work since the search for a new or renovated town hall began, before any construction decision has been made or a single shovel has gone into the ground.

The building question is not new to 2024. Materials the town pointed residents to at the July 30, 2025 session included a 2018 feasibility study on the same Brooklea Drive site, meaning the town has now commissioned at least three rounds of outside study, in 2018, 2024 and 2025, on how to fix a building officials say has been falling short of the town’s needs for years.

Size is also part of what changed between the two approaches. The current combined town hall and police building is about 14,000 square feet. The new facility priced at nearly $40 million in 2025 was designed at roughly 20,000 square feet, according to cnycentral.com and the Concerned Manlius Residents timeline, an increase of about 6,000 square feet, or roughly 43 percent, over the existing footprint, by CNY Signal’s calculation. Eagle News Online also reported that residents raised the question of consolidating three separate village police departments into the new headquarters during the July 2025 session, a scope question that would affect both the building’s size and its eventual cost, though the town has not published an updated estimate reflecting that option.

What the Study Group recommends on November 12 is not yet known, and the town’s project materials are explicit that the group’s job is to hand the Town Board options and public input, not to pick a final design or site. The Maxwell School capstone document is described by the town as offering multiple possible paths forward, though the town has not published the specific list of options on its public facing pages reviewed for this story. Residents who want to weigh in before the process closes have one more scheduled public session on the calendar, the August 19 feedback review, with the September outreach events and the October 7 findings session still to come before recommendations reach the board.

Sources and verification

This story is based on the Town of Manlius’s Town Facility Study Group project page, a Town of Manlius building conditions assessment prepared by VIP dated November 15, 2024, town board action reported by cnycentral.com on July 24, 2024 and in 2026, Eagle News Online’s August 4, 2025 report on the July 30, 2025 informational session, and a facilities timeline maintained by Concerned Manlius Residents that was checked against the town’s own record of board actions. Population figures are from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2020 count for the Town of Manlius. Calculations of per resident cost, the renovation to new build cost ratio, and the combined consultant fee total are CNY Signal’s own, based on the underlying figures cited above.