On Valentine’s Day 2026, the Troy Proctor’s Foundation filed a 91-page lawsuit against the Troy Local Development Corporation, asking a state court to halt all construction inside the former theater until a proper environmental review was completed. The plaintiffs were the Foundation, John Delconte, and J. Brant Caird. The target was the LDC’s October 24, 2025 approval of the development agreement – the action that triggered the four-month window to file under Article 78.
Mantello’s response: “Filings like this are emblematic of why Troy hasn’t had a real city hall in 15 years.”
What the Lawsuit Argues
The Foundation’s core claim was that the LDC violated the State Environmental Quality Review Act. The complaint alleged that the agency took a “hard look” at some issues while ignoring others, and that it wrongly classified the project as an unlisted action rather than a Type 1 action, which would have required a full Environmental Impact Statement given the scope of the work.
The suit also argued the LDC approval caused irreversible damage to the historic character of the building – damage that was ongoing and could not be undone by the time any court ruled.
The Material Risk Argument
The lawsuit flagged risks the LDC had not publicly disclosed: asbestos, lead paint, and 1914-era steel beams. The Foundation argued those undisclosed hazards represented real cost exposure that the environmental review had never accounted for, and that the $8 million construction estimate could not hold once they were properly reckoned with.
This tracked what preservation engineer Michael Lynch had been saying publicly. When architect John White testified at the November 6, 2025 Finance Committee meeting, he called the $8 million construction figure implausible, noting a 2010 assessment had put full restoration at $10 million. The administration pointed to the guaranteed maximum price contract, which requires the contractor to absorb overruns up to the GMP ceiling. The Foundation’s position: the ceiling may not be high enough, and no one had done the math on the undisclosed risks.
The SHPO Dispute
Deputy Mayor Donnelly told the council at the November 6 Finance Meeting that the State Historic Preservation Office supported the project as an adaptive reuse model and that a SHPO letter had been shared demonstrating that support. Council President Steele disputed this on the floor. The letter does not commend the project. It does not call it a model.
What SHPO actually said was that reversible work would have no impact on the historic property. Lynch identified the problem: “The city took that and said, ‘we are doing it reversibly,’ and that’s where there’s a disconnect.”
Because the LDC did not apply for historic tax credits, SHPO has no enforcement role regardless. The administration can call it preservation without any legal obligation to preserve.
Donnelly, for his part, said the Foundation’s legal claims “lack merit.”
Why It Reached This Point
The Troy Proctor’s Foundation formed in 2009 specifically to save Proctor’s Theatre as a performing arts venue. For 17 years, the building sat – foreclosed in 1978, dormant for decades, partially reactivated by Columbia Development but never restored as a theater. When Mantello announced city hall would move there in June 2025, some people were relieved. At least something was happening with it.
The Foundation’s concern was what exactly that something was. Foundation president Erica Veil raised it plainly: “It’s not even just the fact that it’s the building that it’s too late for. It’s taxpayers, what we’re going to be saddled with.”
The Foundation raised more than $6,000 through a GoFundMe to help fund the legal action. The lawsuit was not about opposing the building’s use. It was about what was going up inside the auditorium and whether anyone had properly reviewed what that would cost – financially and historically.
Lynch also flagged the structural accountability problem. LDC ownership of the building, he said, “places some limitations on what the taxpayers of the city can do to influence the elected officials in making decisions, because now it’s the LDC, not the City Council.” An unelected development authority approved a 30-year lease on a historic building. The city council voted on a draft contract. A court is now being asked to weigh whether the review that preceded all of that met the legal minimum.
Where Things Stand
As of mid-2026, construction is ongoing. The administration is targeting a January 2027 completion. No ruling has been issued.
The community that spent years fighting to save Proctor’s as a performing arts space is now suing the LDC to stop a government office box from going up inside it. In 2004, that same community organized against an RPI proposal to gut the interior for office space while preserving the facade. They won. What is being built now is the same outcome, with different paperwork.
Partisan angle: The Foundation formed to save a theater. It is now suing to stop a city government from building a box inside it with no legal obligation to preserve the historic features that made the building worth saving. The LDC – not the city council – approved the development agreement. The council that might have asked harder questions was replaced by a lame-duck Republican majority that voted on a draft lease two days after losing every seat it held. The new council had no vote on any of it.
Sources: CBS6, lawsuit; WAMC, December 18, 2025; CBS6, acquisition; Troy City Council Finance and Regular Meeting, November 6, 2025 (transcript)