Manteca is getting a new restaurant.
But in order to dine there you will need to go into a furniture store to access it.
Living Spaces — a 117,000-square-foot furniture store and warehouse being built on Atherton Drive west of Union Road — will have an in-store restaurant. It is a concept similar to Ikea stores that carry furniture and a long list of household items. Living Spaces stores carry primarily their own brand of furniture plus some items best described as knick-knacks.
Plans for the store are before the Manteca Planning Commission when they meet Tuesday at 7 p.m. at the Civic Center, 1001 W. Center St.
The advent of the major furniture store to anchor the Union Crossing project along with the market as well as what developer Bill Filios aptly describes as “the best location in Manteca” for retail given how it is central to growth in the city as well as the South County region has generated a lot of serious interest.
Filios said his development firm is in serious negotiations for a grocery store, bank, coffee shop, and a combination gas station/convenience store for other locations within Union Crossing that flanks both sides of Atherton Drive west of Union Road. In addition developers expect plans for 281 apartments to move forward in a fairly short order.
Living Spaces plans to break ground in early 2020.
There are 25 stores in the Living Spaces chain. Five are in the Bay Area including a store being built in San Jose. The closet store to Manteca is Fremont. Half of their existing stores are in Southern California with other locations in Texas, Nevada, and Arizona.
Living Spaces picked Manteca due to its central location in the Northern San Joaquin Valley market of 1.5 million consumers.
The Southern California firm is projecting annual sales of $35 million at the high-profile Manteca location. They will employ 65 full-time workers, 25-part-time workers and throughout a given year have 50 temporary workers. The store will be roughly the size of Manteca’s Target store.
Manteca sealed the deal for Living Paces with a sales tax split similar to what the city did to secure Costco and The Promenade Shops at Orchard Valley whose developers snared Bass Pro Shops.
That means Manteca — based on projected annual sales of $35 million — will end up splitting an estimated $350,000 in local sales tax. The actual deal calls for the split to be 50-50 of whatever is actually generated — whether it is annually higher or lower than $350,000 for 10 years or $3 million, whichever is reached first.
Based on the projections, Manteca while the split is in effect would receive $175,000 in general fund sales tax, $20,000 in property tax, and $175,000 in restricted Measure M public safety tax. Manteca’s leaders point out the $370,000 a year the city will receive while the terms of the split are in effect is $375,000 that would have been lost to another city. After the terms are fulfilled, Manteca would receive all of the sales tax.
It is somewhat different than a sales tax split deal with Costco that will end by 2020 that covered the entire tab for the wholesale retailer’s cost of building a store in Manteca. The deal that brought Bass Pro Shops — a retailer with a 100-mile regional draw — to Manteca was actually made with the developer of The Promenade Shops at Orchard Valley. It is a 35-year sales tax split capped at $35 million. However, if the center doesn’t generate that much through the split after 35 years, the city is not obligated to make up the difference.
To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com
