Proposed Manlius town hall site questioned

TOWN OF MANLIUS – For nearly two and a half hours, the Manlius Town Board got an earful from residents regarding a proposal to move forward with a $2.8 million purchase offer for two parcels on N. Burdick Street – a potential new home for Manlius Town Hall and the Town of Manlius Police Department.

The public hearing, which took place Wednesday, June 24, will remain open and will resume at the board’s next meeting on July 10. The gathered crowd far exceeded the seating capacity of the town board’s meeting space.

Most, but far from all, of the speakers opposed the board moving forward with the purchase agreement, citing the cost, the low quality of the land, potential for flooding and the agreement itself, which gives the town a 90-day due diligence period to back out of the deal. Several referenced the assessment of the parcels at around $330,000 and questioned why the town would move forward with a purchase for more than eight times that amount.

Others were very critical of the fact that both the seller, Twin Shores Properties, LLC, and the town are represented in the deal by lawyers from the same firm, Harris Beach PLLC. Manlius is represented by Joseph Frateschi, who is in Harris Beach’s Syracuse office while Twin Shores is represented by an attorney in the firm’s Rochester office.

“To me, that borders on municipal malpractice,” said Manlius resident and attorney Harris Lindenfeld.

The two parcels in the agreement – 5424 and 5430 N. Burdick St. – comprise about eight total acres. They are two of six parcels totaling about 132 acres that Twin Shores purchased in 2022 for $4.4 million. Twin Shores has already sold about 50 acres to Twin Ponds HB, LLC for $4 million. A 300-plus unit apartment development is currently working its way through the planning process on that parcel.

In what is now a separate agreement, the town would receive a donation of about 61 acres of undevelopable land in the Limestone Creek floodplain that could be used for a park or trail system. Several residents questioned whether the land would be an asset or a liability, considering it floods frequently and has no value to the developer.

Of the eight acres in the proposal, only about two are currently buildable. The remaining acreage would need to have significant grading work done to allow for the construction of a new town facility. Supervisor John Deer said the town would have engineers determine whether that plan is feasible during the 90-day due diligence period. If it’s not feasible or too expensive, the town could back out of the deal, he said.

In the meantime, said Councilor Ingrid Gonzalez-McCurdy, the town is also contracting with three firms that are providing a facilities analysis to determine the costs of rehabilitating the town hall on Brooklea Drive in Fayetteville to bring it up to Americans with Disabilities Act compliance and fix multiple issues with the building, which was built in the 1960s and expanded in the 1980s.

During that 90-day period, Deer said, the town would also gather additional information regarding the cost of building a new facility, which he estimated at around $30 million. The town has a conceptual plan for a two-story, 40,000 square foot facility that was created in 2018. The estimated construction cost at the time was $17.5 million.

“We have been kicking this can down the road for at least 25 years,” said former Manlius Supervisor Ed Theobald, who was in attendance and spoke in favor of the purchase agreement. “The longer we wait to do this, the more expensive it will continue to be.”

Since 1985, the Town of Manlius Police Department has been housed in the village of Manlius’ municipal building, a former elementary school. During that time, several iterations of the Manlius Town Board have sought facilities that are more appropriate for the department.

Fayetteville Trustee Casey Cleary-Hammarstedt, who represents the village on the intermunicipal police committee, recently toured the police department facilities, and came away dismayed by the work conditions the members of the department face.

“The town and three villages combined three police departments into a former elementary school and 39 years later we have still not delivered on a promise to provide them with an appropriate facility,” Cleary-Hammarstedt said. “I, living here for 25 years, have heard for a long time how bad the police facility was, but I can tell you that it was far worse than anything I could have imagined.”

She described the booking area as smaller than many walk-in closets, and the passage in front of the holding cell allows only a few inches of space for officers to pass safely out of arm’s reach of any suspects held in the cell.

“That booking room is dangerous,” Cleary-Hammarstedt said. “Our law enforcement can not be in a facility that does not meet legal requirements.”

Several in the audience – even those who opposed the purchase – echoed the sentiment that the police need a new facility, but many expressed that the targeted parcels were too expensive and not suitable for that purpose.

“The parcel that you’re interested in purchasing is not the correct parcel,” said Mary Mulvasi. “The issue is, the parcel is wetlands.”