The line of palm trees midway between Ripon and Manteca on the west side of Highway 99 line up visually to the largest house in the county - the 30,000-square-foot Sedan Estate.

The day may come, though, when not only will the palm trees be history but the view of the Sedan Estate will be blocked by something even bigger - the largest business park, the largest commercial venture and the largest residential project ever undertaken in Manteca.

The impact of the Austin Road Business Park, generally south of Highway 99, straddling Austin Road, is so big it will:

•Possibly require a re-alignment of Highway 99.
•Generate 10,200 residents or about a seventh of the existing population of Manteca.
•Convert 1,049 acres from farming and rural residential use to urban development.
•Impact Ripon Unified schools even bigger than Manteca Unified schools as most of the residential would be within Manteca city limits but within the Ripon Unified district. The number of students going to Ripon could easily exceed the current enrollment of Ripon High.
•The potential to create up to 13,000 jobs - or close to 50 percent of the existing jobs in the city.
•The residential alone represents the potential of creating $1.02 billion in today’s dollars.

Those impacts, though, are pedestrian compared to what it may do to residential development patterns in Manteca.

Austin Road Business Park - a collaborative effort of a group of Manteca developers including Raymus Homes and AKF Development - will also have tweaked streetscape designs and new design standards to make tract homes even less cookie cutter fashion.

The real big change, though, will involve 84 acres of commercial mixed use that will blend high density residential with commercial uses.

It is designed to encourage a valley version of the much acclaimed Santa Row development that combines commercial and retail to create a neighborhood where people can live and walk to stores, entertainment, and other diversions. Santa Row in San Jose is an upscale version of what a commercial mixed use zone will allow.

The high density residential units would be more like condos, townhouses or even apartments you’d find in urban settings with the emphasis being on street access.

Design standards would require the architectural styles used in commercial to blend in with the residential.

It would allow free-standing high density residential projects mixed in with commercial or it could have the two uses combined in one structure.

One example is having retail and restaurants on the ground floor and residential on the second floor and above.

The project will require a new Austin Road interchange further south than the existing location.

The reason is two-fold. First, the existing interchanges is too close to the Highway 120 Bypass/Highway 99 interchange to allow safe merger.

Caltrans can’t add a second south Highway 99 merge land that would ease the afternoon commute with the interchange at its current location.

Austin Road needs to also clear the railroad tracks as well as Highway 99 much like the replacement Jack Tone Road interchange does in Ripon.

Larger projects such as Austin Road Business Park have been encouraged by smart growth advocates to allow more detailed planning that give jurisdictions a much better overall look at how land will develop instead of through a piecemeal approach.

The project will be before the Manteca Planning Commission Tuesday at 7 p.m., when they meet at the Civic Center, 1001 W. Center St.

The commission will consider  recommending adoption of the environmental impact report, prezone, annexation, general plan amendment and a master plan.