Manteca Mayor Ben Cantu sees a future where people may live above the police department as well as city hall.

It is part of his longstanding proposal for Manteca to develop a new city hall campus just a block from Yosemite Avenue and Main Street — the heart of downtown and the near geographic center of the community — on parcels just across Moffat Boulevard from the Manteca Transit Center.

Cantu’s proposal centers around a 122,000-square-foot structure — roughly the same space as the Manteca Target store — with three to four stories to accommodate city offices and the police station along with a possible additional floor for residential units. It would also include a parking structure.

His envisioned site is on the northeast corner of Moffat and Main and would likely cover the parcels where the Manteca Bean Co. once stood as well as the Kelley Moore Paint Store, the Hospice of San Joaquin thrift store, and a drive-in taqueria. It possibly might need to include property on the east side of South Grant Street such as the former office and truck weigh station for Perry & Sons in order to  make it work.

Cantu wants a police facility to meet current and future needs. It’s a need, he points out, that should have been addressed 20 years ago.

He believes an effort now underway led by Councilman Gary Singh to use the front half of 8 acres the city is pursuing for a homeless navigation center to build a multi-story police station is the wrong thing to do.

Singh and Cantu — along with Councilman Dave Britenbucher — have indicated they plan to run for mayor in November.

Cantu said the city should continue pursuing the South Main site and build a homeless navigation center on the back half and an affordable housing development with incubator retail space on the front half as the council originally supported.

“For the past 20 years the city has bought land (for facilities) and never completed what they started,” Cantu.

The mayor was referencing the city spending taxpayer money in the form of Manteca Redevelopment Agency funds to purchase the Qualex site on Industrial Park Drive for renovation as a police station. When they didn’t pan out, they bought the 8 acres on South Main to build a new police station and courthouse complex that also did not happen.

“Every city administrative department at the current city hall complex on West Center Street has not meet governmental office space for decades; the truth is the police department is operating in office space that was designed for a community of 40,000 people, not the 86,000 population of today,” Cantu noted in an email. “Moreover, if the city was in a position to hire all required personnel in all departments to provide the levels of service commensurate with a community of 86,000 people, there is no place at city hall to accommodate that personnel.”

“The simple fact is that Manteca is 30 years behind the public service accommodations curve,” Cantu added.

Cantu first advanced his vision in 2010 during an unsuccessful run for the City Council. The city hall complex is part of what he’s described as “a detailed revitalization program for our downtown.”

His envision ed civic campus would include expandable governmental services office space for the next 40 years. There would be office space for such services as, all city administrative offices, a central police station, an expandable council chambers to eventually accommodate seven council members, an emergency operations center, a multiple public services center, and, potentially, residential units on the top floor.

Cantu said his plan also addresses a list of overdue needs — and wants — such as cultural and recreation space.

That’s because he wants to see the existing civic center converted into recreation and cultural uses. It would allow for the expansion of the senior center, adding additional recreation programming space and could include conversion of the council chambers into a small theater for theatrical productions and concerts.

He said it wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility to consider the site as a place to building a new library although his preference is to keep high traffic city facilities in the downtown core.

Cantu noted most other cities in the region have located their city hall and police stations on their downtowns or on their edges.

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com