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Construction on Colmar Manor's new $5 million community center and town hall is set to be completed in time for summer.

Town Clerk-Treasurer Dan Baden said the center's opening date is June 23. The facility will house the town's offices, police station and a full-sized gymnasium with indoor jogging track.

The project is being paid for in part by a mix of federal, state and county grants. The town is paying $2.7 million for the center.

In fiscal 2007, the town increased its real property tax rate from 37 cents to $1 per every $100 of assessed value to help pay for the center and to start the town's police department, Baden said. In fiscal 2010, the rate was increased slightly to $1.038.

Mayor Diana Fennell said the project began as an effort to replace the town hall. The town has been leasing office space since November 2007, costing $45,000 a year, and the old town hall was demolished August 2008.

"The old town hall was old and antiquated. It was falling down," she said. "We were trying to do an addition or add to it, but the foundation wouldn't support it."

Instead of building a new town hall, Fennell said the council thought it would be best to also build a center that could benefit the community at-large.

The 21,000-square-foot center will be owned and managed by the town, but will also serve area residents in all of Port Towns, which includes Bladensburg, Cottage City and Edmonston, Fennell said.

The closest community center to the area is in Bladensburg.

"There's not really anything like it close to us," Baden said. "It is something that's needed in our area of the county."

The YMCA has approached the town about managing recreational programs out of the center, but nothing has been finalized yet, Baden said.

E-mail Elahe Izadi at eizadi@gazette.net.