City officials want to acquire a portion of the 17-acre Tara elementary school site in southwest Manteca to build a critically needed sixth fire station.

Negotiations are underway for an acre of the school site according to both the City of Manteca and the Manteca Unified School District.

The site is northwest of McKinley Avenue and Woodward Avenue.

Manteca Unified Chief Business and Information Officer Victoria Brunn said Wednesday a possible sale of an acre to the city wouldn’t preclude the possibility of an elementary school eventually being built on the site if that is determined to be an appropriate move.

Brunn said there is adequate room for both.

Currently, the district is in the process of moving forward with the initial development of the nearby Tinnin Road school site.

That entails building an early education center for kindergarten and transitional kindergarten students.

The new school would also free up space at Veritas, Woodward, and Nile Garden to add additional class space for other grade levels at the three neighborhood elementary schools.

The cost of new elementary schools are now running between $60 million and $80 million.

Due to the nature of the early education center, the price is significantly less and within the district’s financial means.

City Manager Toni Lundgren said the council has made building a fire station in southwest Manteca a top priority.

Roughly 2,000 households in the southwest section of the city are outside the targeted five-minute response time for the best possible outcomes in medical emergencies and fires.

Fire Chief Dave Marques noted the location “is ideal” given it is centralized to the targeted service area and is near the three key arterial streets — Woodward Avenue, Atherton Drive, and McKinley Avenue — serving southwest Manteca.

Lundgren noted the fees collected from growth for fire facilities has paid back other city funds borrowed to construct the city’s fifth station built at Woodward Avenue and Atherton Drive that now serves southwest Manteca.

Lundgren said the fire fees are being re-examined based on the now $7 million to $15 million cost of building a fire station. As such, they are likely to be increased.

The city manager said purchasing the site is keeping with a plan to harness the proposed three-quarter sent sales tax before voters Nov. 5 to address pressing municipal service needs that includes building the sixth fire station.

The city also needs funding to hire nine firefighters to staff the station 24/7.

In theory, if the sales tax passes the firefighters could be hired ahead of the station being completed by having them man a second engine company out of the Union Road station to help serve southwest Manteca.

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com