Elected leaders are being primed to hire the seventh downtown masterplan consultant — especially those that believe the future of Manteca’s central district lies with trendy dining spots and boutique stores — might want to follow such advice.
That’s because that is what the private sector has been doing for the last 12 years when it comes to the downtown core and the areas immediately surrounding it.
And the private sector is placing their money big time on traditional ethnic retail business — think Los Angeles’ Olivera Street but with a wider ethnic flavor as opposed to trendy San Jose’s Santana Row.
If you don’t count the new smoke shop that has essentially replaced other smoke shops that have come and gone the new businesses in the city’s core that have been launched in the past four years and are being teed up are all almost exclusively aimed at the ethnic market.
The latest is where a major renovation in the 400 block of West Yosemite Avenue across from the French Cleaners on the western edge of downtown is El Rincon Mexican Market. Translated into English, it is “The Corner Mexican Market”.
That investment pales compared to the multi-million dollar investment in creating the third act of the El Rey Theater built in 1937 as the Veranda Banquet & Events Center complete with second floor terrace dining.
It is by no accident that the highest profile building in downtown and arguably the most famous as it is included as a question on an edition of Trivial Pursuit — (What movie was playing at the El Rey Theatre in Manteca on Aug. 6, 1975 the night it burned?) — is geared primarily toward the Sikh and Latino markets with the conversion of the El Rey into an events center.
This is not a small sign in terms of the direction the private sector is taking downtown as opposed to what some city leaders and their gaggle of outside consultants want to take the central district.
When the El Rey opened in the depth of the Depression, it became the focal gathering spot for not just Manteca, but much of the surrounding communities. Included were ethnic gatherings — weekly Portuguese movie nights.
For just over two decades after the El Rey was gutted by fire it stood as a sign of downtown’s slow decline at the time as new retail and new movie houses started unraveling the central district’s importance for day-to-day shopping and entertainment.
When Kelly Brothers Brewing Company & Brickyard Oven Restaurant opened in the waning days of the 20th century, it quickly became a gathering spot for low key concerts and even community events such as the popular Manteca Idol competition that enjoyed a five year run.
There has been talk that the Veranda could also assume the mantel of a concert hall as well with possible appearances by the Stockton Symphony and other musical groups.
Altogether the are 14 businesses — restaurants, markets, and shops — that are ethnically oriented in the immediate downtown area. That is in addition to a number of minority owned businesses such as hair stylists and services that have been flourishing for years.
And that does not include four event halls run by two Portuguese ethnic-social organizations — the Manteca Ripon Pentecost Society as well as the Festa do Espírito Santo de Manteca — that for 50 years plus have been consistently the biggest weekly draws downtown for events, weddings, comedy shows, dances, craft fairs and more
Why this is important is simple. While downtowns need to be a low crime and pleasant area, they do not need a high dose of “walkability” to be successful in today’s changing brick and mortar environment. They simply have to provide products and services consumers want.
What the businesses already downtown and those posed to open need is much of the same elements Manteca needed when it was “the” retail and community gathering hub of the community. That includes access and parking.
If downtown was dead or dying and a hideous place to open there would not be an investment of $2 million plus in private sector money to open an events center where the owners intend to target cultural events that — while relying heavily on Sikh and Latino celebrations — will aim to serve the entire spectrum of Manteca’s well-versed and growing ethic mixture. And, as the investors on the events center know, are fairly well off financially.
It also will give Manteca a regional reach that a trendy remake of downtown into a version of downtowns in Pleasanton, Livermore, Lodi, Tracy, and even Turlock wouldn’t do. The burgeoning ethnic business wedded with strong traditional concerns such as seven financial institutions, four furniture stores, hair stylists, specialty retailers, and services means the heart of Manteca is beating strong. By building on that, as Bulletin letter writer Bill Barnhart suggested, Manteca can make its downtown stronger by fine tuning and not conducting a massive overhaul.
The key to downtown’s
future might be even more
robust arterial street access
from all four directions
The future — thanks to more affordable square foot options for buildings where landlords are cooperative and realistic and the fact Manteca is adding more than 2,200 new residents each year —will include “trendy” concerns such as the Brethren Brewery gearing up to open in the 200 block of North Main Street.
To succeed businesses need to have a strong base of weekday businesses and not just Friday and Saturday night traffic and a weekend surge feed by commuters dealing with a time-strapped work week.
It is one reason why downtown should be treated like a modern-day “retail center” where access — read that being on a major arterial such as North Main Street — is essential for easy access for day-to-day shoppers and diners.
It would also drive how the east-west travel should be handled with the solution being driven by parking and travel flow.
It is where two solutions by council members come into play.
One is Mayor Ben Cantu’s solution to divert through traffic heading west in Yosemite Avenue to turn onto Fremont and then Center Street by creating improvements that encourage just that at Frémont and Yosemite.
Center Street is much wider than Yosemite and connects with Union Road, one of the city’s two other major north-south roads. It has the added bonus of sending more traffic past the Manteca Civic Center.
Councilman’s Gary Singh’s suggestion is to send westbound through traffic behind the 100 and 200 blocks of West Yosemite to connect with Moffat.
It can be done with minimal impact to parking lots behind those buildings given the city’s right-of-way adjacent to the Tidewater Bikeway would allow for a two-lane road for travel.
It would enhance the potential for businesses to capitalize on two entrances — one facing Yosemite and the other the bypass street.
It would provide a quicker connection to the transit station where daily ACE commuter service to Sacramento and San Jose starts in 2023.
By taking through traffic off of Yosemite Avenue, it creates an opportunity for diagonal parking for seven blocks to substantially increase downtown parking.
And it could be done how Cantu once envisioned it along the curbs or a suggestion by Singh to push the travel lanes to the curb and have diagonal parking in the center of the street complex with trees, lighting, and pedestrian islands.
Building downtown’s
future could be synched
with upgrading, extending
redevelopment of Moffat
And it allows connecting to Moffat Boulevard that is a mile-long almost straight shot of no stop signs or signals until you reach Spreckels Avenue.
Moffat also connects with Woodward Avenue whose new alignment coming in the next two years will connect it to the remake of the Austin Road interchange and future neighborhoods in southeast Manteca.
Moffat Boulevard is wide enough to eventually accommodate four travel lanes along with a center turn lane with the elimination of street parking. Based on what is happening today, the vast majority of vehicles that would be forced to stop parking along Moffat would be semi-trucks which would upgrade the corridor’s appearance.
It has the added bonus of being a catalyst to upgrade the Moffat corridor that — unlike downtown — the city has invested in only one masterplan for a redo and that was in 2005.
That study looked at the vacant parcels as well as what could happen eventually if Eckert’s Cold Storage ceased to operate and the trailer parks were converted to other uses.
Since then, Manteca Unified has started work to reorient Manteca High to Moffat Boulevard by placement of its main student drop-off as well as a new gym and swimming pool.
Existing currently and future community use potential of the century-old campus creates another pool of potential customers the downtown area could tap into such as dining before or after games and such.
The fact the city is expanding the transit center parking for commuters may not create a boom per se for businesses, but it would add value as the heart of efforts to make the downtown area a transit village with a mixture of housing and business with more of a Central Valley flavor as opposed to urbanized Bay Area.
It would also extend upgrades almost 100 percent of the way to the southern edge of the grassy storm basin. It would help entice private sector investment along the corridor and might even set the stage for upgrading the unsightly barren stretch of the Tidewater linear park from Spreckels Avenue to just beyond Powers with drought resistant landscaping between the sidewalk and the bikeway.
Manteca has been steadily
investing to push along rebirth
of downtown, Moffat corridor
If you include the Moffat corridor, Manteca has invested well over $22 million into the central district and its immediate fringes in the past 23 years.
It includes streetscape improvements and other upgrades that simply have to be extended and not reinvented. There are also proven programs used in the past that can also be revived instead of re-invented by consultants.
The improvements include:
*The deliberate decision to create a transit station as a downtown focal point with a large community room complete with a four-faced clock tower and an appealing brick and steel architecture theme.
*The expansion and upgrade of Library Park complete with an interactive water play feature.
*Installing stylish traffic lights, street lights, and streetscape furnishings.
*Developing the 3.4 mile Tidewater Bikeway that connects southern and northern neighborhoods with downtown.
*Acquiring the county public health building on Sycamore Avenue to expand municipal presence downtown.
*Upgrading or building five municipal parking lots.
*Crosswalk and sidewalk pavers.
*Making the 100 block of Maple Avenue one-way to increase parking by making it diagonal and reduce traffic conflicts to make it more walkable.
*A downtown facade improvement program that met success but wasn’t renewed.
*The creation of mini plazas on Maple Avenue and in front of the Legion Hall in 200 block of East Yosemite Avenue.
*Highly visible overhead crosswalk signal on Yosemite at two intersections by Manteca High.
*Partnering with the Manteca Mural Society to help pay part of the wall prep costs that made possible placing 30 plus murals costing in excess of $900,000 to instill community pride by celebrate families Manteca’s history, economy, people, and culture.
*Major upgrade of Moffat corridor including storm drains pavement as well as adding curbs, gutters, and sidewalks.
*Planting more than 300 trees between the Tidewater Bikeway and the railroad tracks between Spreckels Avenue and Center Street.
*Building the Moffat Community Center that serves as the Manteca Veterans of Foreign Wars hall.
*Renovating the original hospital built in 1919 and then converted into apartments to 1920 grandeur on the outside as the HOPE Family Shelter.
*Building and then recently upgrading the Spreckels Park BMX Park.
*Upgrading the pavement on Yosemite Avenue between Main Street and Cottage Avenue.
*Locating a new animal shelter in a high profile location on the edge of downtown.
To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabullerin.com
