The Oakland A’s might be pulling up stakes and moving out of Northern California to Las Vegas.
But if Norm Jarret had his druthers back nearly two decades ago, they could have moved to Lathrop instead.
Before River Islands moved forward there were two other concepts batted about to develop the 4,995-acre Stewart Tract — Gold Rush City and Califia.
Gold Rush City was by far the most intriguing of the two.
Gold Rush City was a planned amusement park that had a western theme.
Plans called for it to be joined by a wild animal park, a space themed amusement park, and a massive outdoor water park.
Gold Rush City — the overall name given to the endeavor as a nod to regional history — was going to be “the” amusement park in Northern California.
It was the vision of Jarrett who scoured the Greater Bay Area for a suitable location.
In 1989 he found the ideal site. It was Stewart Tract, one of 57 reclaimed islands in the Sacramento San Joaquin Delta that was being encompassed in the general plan of the City of Lathrop that that was formed in 1989.
His proposal triggered a series of lawsuits aimed at stopping the project including those filed by the Sierra Club and other environmental groups.
Undaunted, Jarrett pressed forward. At one point when both the Giants and A’s were looking to depart their perspective home stadiums at the time — Candlestick and the Coliseum, he floated the idea that Stewart Tract being roughly equal distant to markets in San Jose, San Francesco-Oakland, and Sacramento was an ideal spot for one of the two teams.
It was timed just as boosters in Sacramento were trying to make a play for a second major league sports team — possibly baseball.
Sacramento’s pitch was just as a long shot at best — just like a major league stadium on what is now River Islands.
After unsuccessfully trying to shop the theme park concept to investors who did not want to get involved in long drawn out litigation, Cambay Group went back to the drawing board.
Today, River islands does have a baseball field that is in a league of its own.
Cambay Group four years ago this month completed the 500-seat lighted Islanders Field nestled up against the San Joaquin River levee near the future town center of the 15,001 home planned community of River Islands at Lathrop.
The field has a concession stand with a patio dining area on decks located on either side of the announcer’s booth. The state-of-the-art scoreboard has a sound system that distributes sound in such a manner that everyone in the stadium can hear at the same level. A grassy area was created for “seating” on the island side slope of the levee much like Banner Island Baseball Park in Stockton beyond the outfield fences. That is in addition to a mixture of stadium style seating and bleachers.
The field was built specifically for baseball play featuring players between 13 and 18 years of age.
The addition of The Islander gave San Joaquin and Stanislaus counties its sixth quality regulation baseball field.
Besides the minor league Banner Islands facility in Stockton and John Thurman Field in Modesto that have fixed seating of 4,200 and 4,000 respectively, there is the former home of the Ports at Stockton’s Billy Hebert Field that seats 3,800. The Islander has more fixed seating than either Delta College or the University of the Pacific.
The Big League Dreams sports complex in Manteca with its six Major league Baseball replica fields is designed for softball. It has more than 1,200 stadium-style seats as well as seating on the grass.
Buildings take repeated
hits in downtown Manteca
Speeding — coupled with erratic driving — is taking its toll on buildings in the 100 block of North Main Street in downtown Manteca.
Last month, just weeks after completing an extensive façade improvement, a car slammed into the southwest corner of the Accent Carpets building.
It was the first vehicle strike for Accent Carpets.
Across the alley, the two-story building on the northeast corner of Yosemite and Main has been hit three times by cars.
To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com
