Lathrop High School students walking from school to the existing houses in the Mossdale Landing area will now have curbs, gutters, and sidewalks to keep them safe.

Lathrop City Council has accepted almost $1.3 million in improvements installed by Saybrook, LLC – the Central Lathrop Specific Plan developer that has almost singlehandedly breathed new life into the ruins of what was to be one of the city’s larger residential developments and added improvements around Lathrop HIgh School that were long needed but shelved indefinitely when the last developer pulled out.

The improvements along Spartan Way from the traffic signal at Land Park Drive to the existing segment of Lathrop Road in the existing Mossdale Landing neighborhood – which includes roadway pavement, sidewalks, curbs and gutters, streetlights, potable water mains, hydrants, and valves – will help provide an additional access point to the high school while at the time ensuring that students walking along that path will have all of the amenities necessary to ensure their safety.

And Saybrook has played a big role in making sure that students at Lathrop High School have what they need.

As a sign of good faith even before it secured permits to begin construction in the area known as Central Lathrop – which was supposed to be built out by Richland Planned Communities before the economic downturn – the developer completed a number of important infrastructure projects including the sewer lift station near Lathrop High School that was left uncompleted just weeks before the high school was to open.

It was a subcontractor that had stopped working on the project for lack of payment from Richland that tipped off the Manteca Unified School Board that things weren’t going to be fully functional at the district’s newest comprehensive high school less than a month before it opened – septic trucks routinely pumped out waste at the site until the work on the sewer lift station as completed years later.

As part of the necessary improvements, Saybrook is also providing the city a maintenance bond of nearly $130,000 to keep up the new additions in the area over the course of the next several years.

To contact reporter Jason Campbell email jcampbell@maantecabulletin.com or call 209.249.3544.