Manteca is getting a Sonic restaurant.
And a Fatburger may finally be coming as well.
Credit it not just to Manteca’s annual 2 percent plus growth rate that makes it consistently one of the fastest growing cities in California, but also to pass-through freeway traffic and the deliberate course city leaders have plotted to make Manteca ground zero for family entertainment in the northern San Joaquin Valley.
The Manteca Planning Commission when they meet tonight at 6 p.m. at the Civic Center, 1001 W. Center St. will review plans for the 1.75-acre “Daniels Center” on the northwest corner of Daniels Street and Airport Way.
It will include a Chevron gas station with 10 fuel dispensers to accommodate 20 vehicles at one time, a 3,400-square-foot Extra Mile convenience store with an adjoining 2,300-square-foot Sonic fast food drive-thru restaurant, and a car wash.
Fatburger is expected to be part of the second phase of the AM/PM Arco station at Crestwood Avenue and Lathrop Road off of Highway 99. The ARCO also has a car wash and convenience store.
It is where Manteca’s fifth Starbucks store has just opened. Manteca has seven Starbucks locations if you include the ones inside Target and Safeway.
The are are only three Fatburger locations in Northern California — Elk Grove, Suisun City and inside Thunder Valley Casino Resort in Lincoln.
The self-described “last hamburger stand” founded in 1947 has over 180 locations worldwide.
The Manteca Sonic, unlike the Ripon location near the Jack Tone Road and Highway 99 interchange, will not have the usual drive-in stalls. You order at the drive-in or at the counter inside the store.
The project will also include a “welcome to Manteca” monument sign on the corner of Daniels Street and Airport Way.
It is the first intersection that visitors heading toward Big League Dreams. Great Wolf, and the fledging family entertainment zone reach after getting off the 120 Bypass.
Daniels Center is being pursued by the owners of Two Guys Food & Fuel located in the 100 block of Lathrop Road in Lathrop.
It is about as ground zero as you can get to Manteca’s emerging commercial center, highway services corridor, and entertainment mecca you can get.
Besides the 500-room Great Wolf indoor water park resort, there are three more hotels planned. That includes the four-story, 101-room Staybridge Suites now under construction at Daniels Street and Fishback Road.
A shopping center with a car wash, supermarket, in-line store space, a hotel, Dutch Bros, and Manteca’s second Chick-fil-A location is planned on the southwest corner of the Airport Way and 120 Bypass interchange.
And just to the east of the Atherton Drive/Airport Way intersection is where Ten Pin Bowling has proposed to build a family entertainment center as well as a convention/banquet facility in Manteca.
The project — consisting of two buildings flanking a 500-space parking lot — is planned for Atherton Drive south of the 120 Bypass between Union Road and Airport Way.
To give you an idea of its size, the city’s Big League Dreams sports complex has 535 parking spaces
It is proposed for a vacant parcel stretching between the two curves on Atherton that sends the four-lane arterial alongside the 120 Bypass.
As such, the fun center and the accompanying banquet/convention center will have prominent freeway exposure.
To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com
