Manteca is declaring a 3.75-acre parcel surplus it purchased at 1403 W. Atherton Drive in February 2024 for $2.2 million.

No, it’s not a waste of $2.2 million.

What the city is doing is straightforward playing by state rules in a bid to secure reoccurring revenue in excess of $400,000 a year in addition to fast tract developing a high-profile, odd-shaped triangle parcel.

The city is in the process of working with Outfront Advertising on long-term deals for interchangeable high-tech billboards on the Atherton site along the 120 Bypass east of Living Spaces at the point where the four lane arterial comes closest to the freeway.

Recently, Caltrans cleared away trees that would have blocked sight lines for the billboards.

A second billboard location is facing northbound Highway 99 as it approaches Lathrop Road.

The city only needed 0.10 acres of the parcel along the 120 Bypass, but the owner declined to sell anything less than the entire property.

On Tuesday when the council meets at 6 p.m., they are declaring the remaining acres surplus and offering the property at a minimum of market value to qualifying state agencies.

That doesn’t mean another government entity will buy it.

The city’s goal, once it clears the legal steps and there is no legitimate offer, is to market the site with the preference being for a sit-down restaurant.

The city believes it will be an appealing location due to nearby growth, the high freeway traffic count, and Manteca’s surging demographics.

That is in addition to being development ready and the city’s commitment to fast-track such a project.
Outfront Media holds a lease to four billboards on city property that is part of the Tidewater Bikeway along Moffat Boulevard.

The city has been trying to end the arrangement for years as spelled out in the lease, but the firm had refused to do so.

The city switched tracks to work to make the proverbial lemonade out of two lemons — the odd parcel along Atherton Drive and the Moffat Boulevard billboards that are basically in a city park.

The Tidewater Bikeway was developed from abandoned railroad right of way the city bought from Union Pacific Railroad in the 1990s.

A such, they inherited the billboard leases.

The city has crafted a solution that, in exchange for removing the billboards along Moffat, Outfront Media will be allowed to install the electronic billboard on what is now city property along the 120 Bypass.

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com