It’s more than simply six softball fields, an indoor soccer arena, and a pair of restaurants.
 The early success of the Manteca Big League Dreams sports complex at scheduling regional tournaments every weekend for a year out including holidays such as Christmas plus 400,000 plus annual paid attendees was one of the deal sealers that lured Bass Pro Shops to Manteca.
The BLD success story also is what helped catch the attention of firms now negotiating with McWhinney Development to build a 75,000-square-foot indoor water park as part of a 500-room resort hotel with a conference center adjacent to Costco.
Bass Pro Shops snags sales tax that Manteca wouldn’t have received since more than 97 percent of purchases there are estimated to be made by non-Manteca residents.
Modeling the city has used shows a water park resort could bring in $4 million to $6 million a year in room tax for the general fund if a deal is struck.
Manteca always has seen itself as the center of a lot of people with San Francisco, San Jose, and Sacramento all being within 60 miles. At one time the chamber used the slogan “Crossroads of California” thanks to the 120 Bypass connecting the state’s main north-south freeways that pass through the area plus connects the Bay Area with the Sierra.
But no one in the corporate world was getting the message.
The regional drawing power of BLD —  many weeknight league players come from as far as 60 miles away and tournament players often farther than that — got Manteca’s attention at a League of California Cities conference.
Ironically, the private-public partnership concept was first noticed by former Councilwoman Denise Giordano who suggested to her colleagues that it would make sense for Manteca. Giordano eventually became one of BLD’s most vocal opponents on the council while then councilman Willie Weatherford became the main champion for it.
The early numbers plus marketing research produced by BLD was used by AKF to snag the attention of shopping center developers Poag & McEwen. They took it from there pitching Manteca to Bass Pro Shops.
Again, city leaders provided data that showed people driving to Manteca from San Jose, Sacramento, Fresno, Oakland, Napa, and other locales to play softball.
BLD got Manteca into the game of big time retail and destination recreation. It used it to score Bass Pro Shops and the marketing success is what landed firms on the city’s door steps seeking to build a resort in Manteca.
BLD has helped fill Manteca restaurants and hotels on the weekend. It also is common now to see players dressed in team uniforms dining at restaurants throughout Manteca during tournament play breaks. They can even be spotted shopping in Kohl’s Old Navy, Costco and other stores.
Those are retail dollars being spent in Manteca and not places like Roseville and Walnut Creek.
That would not be happening if it wasn’t for BLD.
City leaders after using BLD to hit a home run to land Bass Pro and going for a grand slam in terms of what am indoor water resort could do for the city’s tax revenue are now going a step further. They are trying to put together a 90-acre family entertainment zone in addition to the resort.
If they manage to succeed, Manteca could become an even bigger regional draw with the only concentration of family-style recreation of its kind in Northern California.
If that happens, some of the credit needs to go to a man named Rick Odekirk.
Two years into the seven-year process, the city was starting to wonder whether it was worth it given the never-ending storm of controversy. While Weatherford was determined it was, BLD had already been dragged through the mud and had little to show for it. The prospect of getting deal done was looking dim at best.
That is when BLD founder Oderkirk — in making the rounds in Manteca — repeated his belief that Manteca was an ideal site for a BLD and that it could end up being its biggest success story.
He repeatedly told people, “if we can build a BLD in Manteca, we can build it anywhere.”
Oderkirk’s  personal determination to see the deal through  in the firm belief it made sense not just for his company but the city and community as well is what ultimately kept the deal going forward through some of the nastiest political fights Manteca has even seen.
In the end, that epic struggle and the final decision to proceed with BLD may go down as one of the best moves Manteca has ever made.