Manteca's economy reverses course
Bleak outlook in 1996 turns into promising future in 2008

Dennis Wyatt
Manteca Bulletin
Managing Editor

The year 1996 was a low point for Manteca.

Manteca's economy seemed to have promise but not much else.

Downtown was dominated by the burned out shell of the El Rey Theatre just a stone's throw away from the city's heart at Yosemite and Main. The theatre had been boarded up for nearly two decades after being gutted by fire.

Spreckels Sugar - a major employer that had literally grown up with Manteca - was closed for good leaving behind four 15-story concrete silos, an 80-year-old factory and thousands of tons of lime.

The abandoned Tidewater Railroad right-of-way cut through Manteca. Its path was strewn with garbage, weeds and homeless encampments.

Manteca consumers were taking what some city officials estimated at 45 cents of every dollar they spent out of Manteca to nearby cities such as Stockton and Modesto.

Downtown Manteca had a tired look. At one point in 1996 there were eight vacant storefronts on Yosemite and Maple avenues.

Potential employers looked at Manteca because of its location but quickly passed when the only land available did not have sewer, water or street access.

Highway 99 between Ripon and Manteca was a congested four-lane freeway. An antiquated interchange at Yosemite Avenue and Highway 99 created congestion and a negative impression of the city for those passing through on their way to Yosemite and the Sierra.

Major transformation

Today, it's a different story.

The El Rey Theatre eye sore has been transformed into a successful 450-seat brewery and restaurant that doubles as an entertainment venue.

Spreckels Sugar has been transformed into a major retail and employment center. The towers that city leaders feared would mark Manteca as a blighted city for decades are gone. The 200 lost jobs have been replaced 15 times with employers such as Ford Motor Co., Milliard Refrigeration Services, Dreyers Ice Cream, Frito-Lay, ADPS Packaging and others.

Spreckels Park demonstrated how putting infrastructure in first to attract employers is essential. As a result interest is high in the 1,080-acre Austin Business Park that is moving forward. And the extension of sewer and water lines afforded by Spreckels Park has made other projects possible including a proposed six-story Oak Valley Community Bank overlooking the Highway 120 Bypass and Highway 99 interchange.

The retail bled is rapidly disappearing. Four major shopping centers are in various stages of moving forward and will add a combined 1.8 million square feet of retail. Included is the Promenade Shops at Orchard Valley lifestyle center with its first stores - Bass Pro Shops, Best Buy and the 16-screen Kerasotes Theatre - opening in October at Highway 120 and South Union Road.

The abandoned railway has been transformed into a 3.1-mile greenbelt park complete with bike path. It was the impetus for an overall strategy that is making a true separated bike path loop of the city a reality as each development puts in the next segment. The new links are part of landscape maintenance districts that is allowing some of the most intense landscaping you'll find on an urban bike path in Northern California such as the segment on Spreckels Avenue.

Downtown has had a facelift complete with trees and benches as well as end- of-the-19-century-style street lighting that is being duplicated in new retail developments. There is also a vibrant mural project underway transforming the drab downtown walls into art.

You'll also be hard press to find vacant storefronts.

The Highway 99 interchange is being modernized and widened at the Yosemite Avenue exit. The freeway between Manteca and Ripon is now six lanes with part of the recycled concrete Spreckels Sugar silos - in crushed form - providing the base.

City entities expand during past 12 years

There are other major changes taking place on the landscape as well.

Manteca, which has over 40 neighborhood parks, hadn't developed a recreational park with sports facilities for over 20 years. In the past two years, the city has zoomed into the future with a 52-acre Woodward Park with eight soccer fields, a regional tennis center, the Big League Dreams sports complex with six replica Major League Baseball fields and an indoor soccer arena, three community gyms in partnership with the school district, and plans to develop a first-class BMX park for bicyclists.

The city three years ago finished its partnership project with nearby cities for a surface water treatment plant that essentially secures enough water for three times the city's current population.

A state-of-the-art wastewater treatment plant is nearing completion that will return water virtually clean enough for drinking to the San Joaquin River.

Manteca is also getting ready to renovate a former Manteca Industrial Park building as a new police station.

And that are just the major changes the City of Manteca has had a hand in helping make. It doesn't include two major intermodal truck-to-rail stations - Union Pacific right next door and Santa Fe 10 miles away - a major cargo airport just 10 miles to the north with a newer runway for bigger jets or proximity to success stories such as the City of Lathrop with Fortune 500 companies such as Damiler-Chrysler, Home Depot, and others in the Crossroads Commerce Park.

Manteca developers are now proposing nine projects in the next 10 years that could generate enough homes to house about a quarter of the city's existing population.

They also propose commercial and office space equivalent to building 54 more Manteca Wal-Mart stores. The South Main Street store has 80,000 square feet.

And the projects will include industrial and distribution space equivalent to 22 more Ford Motor Distribution Centers such as the one on Spreckels Avenue that has 550,000 square feet.

Projects coming up over next 10 years

The projects are:

? 1) Centre Point: An intermodal (freight train to truck) distribution center that would be built immediately east of the existing intermodal facility between Lathrop and Roth roads just northwest of Manteca. It has the potential for 4.5 million-acre feet of distribution and could create between 1,800 and 3,100 jobs.

? 2) Cardoza Ranch: The 770-unit senior community proposed by Meritage Homes on the east side of Airport Way immediately north of Del Webb at Union Ranch. It has the potential to generate 1,386 more residents who would all be over the age of 55.

? 3) Delta Community College: The college is proposing converting its land north Lathrop Road and west of Highway 99 into 350,000 square feet of commercial use that could generate 700 jobs.

? 4) Crivello Estates: The 62-lot subdivision on 18.7 acres is immediately north of where Vasconcellos Avenue now ends in East Manteca and would extend al the way to Louise Avenue. It could add 186 more residents.

? 5) Machado Estates: The 150-acre site on the southwest corner of Airport Way and Woodward Avenue could add 900 home and 1,725 more residents.

? 6) Union Crossing: It would encompass 400,000 square feet of general commercial and 90,000 square feet of office space immediately west of the Promenade Shops at Orchard Valley lifestyle mall now under construction. It would straddle the extension of Atherton Drive on the southwest corner of the Highway 120 Bypass and Union Road interchange.

? 7) Silva Estates: It is proposed on 59.9 acres on the southeast corner of Woodward Avenue and Union Road. It could yield 217 homes and 651 more residents.

? 8) Evans Estates/Pillsbury Estates: Located immediately south of Woodward West on the east side of South Main Street, the project could generate 586 homes and accommodate 2,853 more people.

? 9) Austin Road Business Park: The 1,050 acres abuts Woodward Avenue and Highway 99 to the north, an imaginary line if Highway 99 ran due south at the interchange with the 120 Bypass instead of angling off to the southeast, and future Ripon city limits on the south as well as the east.

It would have 3.5 million square feet of general commercial or about four times the amount of square footage as the lifestyle mall that is now under construction. It would also have 8 million square feet of industrial, Business Park, and office use plus 3,400 homes. This is also where the proposed Manteca Convention & Visitors Bureau events center and 5,000-seat amphitheater is proposed.

The industrial uses would generate between 3,000 and 6,000 jobs while the retail portion could yield up to 7,000 jobs.

The homes could accommodate up to 10,200 residents are just under a sixth of the city's current population.

The nine projects are in addition to those planned for land already within the city limits that have yet to be started or built out.

Search for Bank Owned Homes at wwwCentralValleyHomes.com

CAROL PERDEW
Prudential California Realty
(209) 239-7979
wwwCentralValleyHomes.com