Manteca is home to arguably the largest visitor attraction in South San Joaquin County.

Visitors to the city’s family entertainment zone (FEZ) — basically Great Wolf Lodge indoor waterpark resort and the Big League Dreams sports complex— surpassed 1.4 million in 2024.

Both endeavors fill hotel rooms.

In the case of Great Wolf, it’s their own 500 rooms.

Great Wolf is the largest hotel in the Great Central Valley that includes five of California’s largest cities — Fresno (No. 5),  Sacramento (No. 6) , Bakersfield (No. 9), Stockton (No. 11), and Modesto (No. 19).

BLD, with tournaments booked every weekend, is the largest driving force behind hotel bookings in Manteca outside of Great Wolf.

It isn’t unusual for hotels in Lathrop and Ripon to benefit when all of the rooms in Manteca are booked for tournaments and other reasons.

Manteca is in the process of stepping up the marketing of roughly 100 acres of remaining city owned land in the FEZ that is bookended by Great Wolf and LBD.

The punching of Daniels Street through to McKinley has created a number of ready-to-build locations.

The opening in June of the McKinley Road/120 Bypass interchange significantly increases access to the FEZ as it is situated between the new interchange and the Airport Way interchange.

The city’s goal is to lure family entertainment related concerns to bolster the local economy, create more private sector jobs, and generate additional sales and hotel room tax to help underwrite day-to-day municipal services such as police and fire protection as well as street maintenance and such.

To that end, a FEZ masterplan is now being developed.

Meanwhile, work is expected to be completed this year on the Loma Brewery at the corner of Daniels Street and Milo Candini Drive. It is being built on property bought from the city.

The city’s is working with shopping center developers — Union Crossing at Union Road and Atherton Drive as well as Manteca Crossing at Atherton Drive and Airport Way — to attract more retail and restaurants.

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabuleltin.com