Collapsed Core or Layer 3 to the Access Layer?

There's a bit of backstory to this, so bear with me. I work in a small IT department where we are in the process of replacing all of our network hardware (due to it being 10 years older or more). We have a hub and spoke topology with one central building and 13 outlying buildings, with fiber running between from each outlying building back to the central building. We have a mix of SFP's and converter boxes.

Currently, we have a flat layer 2 network across the entire network. Before anyone decries this, the network was put in close to 15-20 years ago, and hasn't seen any significant changes in topology or significant increase in users since then. We only have about a hundred users in the largest building, with only 5-20 users in each of the outlying building. Obviously, networking best practices have changed a lot in the last decade, but for now we have what we have. I started working there about two years ago, and with us needing to replace our network hardware, I suggested to my boss that we look into moving away from a flat topology and VLAN out the network. He liked the idea, and assigned me to spearhead the project since I am in school, working through my CCNA, and have the most recent networking knowledge.

I have two ideas floating around my head. First is a collapsed core design with layer 2 access switches at each of the outlying buildings going back to a layer 3 core switch (fiber uplinks go directly from access switch to core switch using SFP+s) in the central building, with the core switch handling all of the routing between VLANs. My second option is to put layer 3 access switches at the outlying buildings, let them handle the inter-vlan routing, and have layer 3 between the outlying buildings and the core switch at the central building. I've endeavored to do as much research as I can on the subject, and I'm still actively looking, but I am having a tough time finding what the current best practice is. I've searched the subreddit extensively, and found a lot of relevant but older threads with various opinions on the subject. One of the resources that I have been studying is the Cisco CVD Campus LAN design guide, and as best I can tell either of these two options that I'm thinking about are feasible. I'm leaning towards the second option with the layer 3 access switches, but can anyone give me some feedback on this and what current best practice is? We are actually going to be completely redoing our subnetting scheme from scratch (for multiple reasons, too long to get into), so the current IP addressing scheme doesn't really play a factor in the design process.

The equipment I currently have in mind is a HPE Aruba 5406R for the core switch, and either Aruba 2540's (layer 2 access) or Aruba 2930F's (layer 3 access). These are pretty much set due to budget limits, but if anyone has comparable alternatives I'm certainly willing to listen.

Thanks and I appreciate any feedback that anyone might have!