Manteca in 2025 is leveraging the removal of eyesores along Moffat Boulevard into a steady annual revenue stream in the low to mid six-figure range to support municipal services.
“It’s a win, win for everyone,” Mayor Gary Singh said.
That “win, win” will lead to:
*a high tech electronic LED billboard being placed on city land along the south side of the 120 Bypass west of Living Spaces.
*the replacement of an existing billboard on the east side of Highway 99 just south of Lathrop Road.
*the removal of four billboards on city property along the Tidewater Bikeway’s Moffat Boulevard segment.
For the 120 Bypass billboard, Manteca will receive a base monthly lease payment for use of its land plus a percentage of money spent on advertising.
The city will share the base payment and a percentage of the advertising revenue with the property owner.
Manteca will also have a certain amount of time they can use the billboards to promote what they wish such as a community street fair or public service messages such as watering restrictions.
Both billboards will incorporate a “Manteca” message in the base that could be as simple as “welcome to Manteca.”
Mayor Singh, who has been the catalyst behind the endeavor, noted the billboards will adhere to strict Caltrans standards such as ones that regulate brightness under various conditions.
The pending deal is with Outfront Media.
And it all started when current city leadership were following through on the city’s contractual right to remove five billboards on city property along Moffat Boulevard that previous municipal administrations declined to do for more than 15 years.
Revenue is projected within three to five years to allow the city to recoup $2.2 million they spent in early 2024 to purchase the 3.85-acre parcel where the billboard will go along the 120 Bypass.
The city plans to create a small parcel for the billboard and then aggressively market the high profile location for a sit-down restaurant.
The odd triangle shaped parcel, despite its location, was considered a challenge by commercial agents to develop because of its size.
Sit-down restaurants typically don’t do their own land deals.
The city will work with the Living Spaces site owner to make parking and access optimal.
The purchase of the property in 2024 was dine as part of a city strategy to acquire problematic parcels in high potential areas to line up investors to develop them.
It is similar to what the city is doing with a former private parking lot and an adjoining lot with walls from a former building that are still standing at Sycamore and Yosemite in downtown.
On that site, the city is working with a non-profit housing development firm to secure a 5-story building with retail space on the ground floor and 42 low-income senior apartments on the upper floors.
The billboard deal — along with the soon-to-open cannabis stores with their negotiated community benefits — is part of an ongoing promise by city leadership to actively pursue other revenue sources to augment property tax and sales tax.
The Great Wolf deal with its massive room tax receipts secured with the city’s investment with infrastructure to the site and going through the exhaustive and time consuming environmental review process to make the city land it now sits on to be sold ready to develop as a water park resort is also part of that effort.
And so is development of the rest of the 100-acre family entertainment zone bookended by Great Wolf and the Big League Dreams sports complex.
A brewery is now under construction in the FEZ at the corner of Milo Candini Drive and Daniels Street.
To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com
