Colonel Charles A. Lindbergh landed the Spirit of St. Louis at Le Bourget Field in Paris on May 21, 1927.

It was the same day the Manteca Grammar School District board gathered to name the $50,000 school that had been built on the northern edge of town on North Street between Lincoln and Sherman avenues. Inspired by the New York to Paris feat that electrified the nation the board decided to name the school in Lindbergh’s honor.

They immediately sent a telegram to the St. Louis Chamber of Commerce stating, “On the day Colonel Charles A. Lindbergh completed the last lap of the most remarkable airplane flight in history the trustees of the Grammar School District voted to name the new $50,000 school building in this city Lindbergh Grammar School in honor of America’s Goodwill Ambassador.”

The Office of the State Architect in 1974 decreed Lindbergh School was no longer earthquake safe forcing it to close as a grammar school. For a number of years until the Manteca Senior Center on Cherry Lane was completed, the city rented the school for use as a senior center.

After that, growth in the school district allowed the opening of an adult school at the Lindbergh campus.

The school is again closed. This time due to drastic cutbacks in state funding that has forced Manteca Unified to pare down much of its adult school offerings.

Lindbergh School may have a rebirth for a fourth time thanks to the Manteca Redevelopment Agency.

Manteca city leaders are now negotiating a lease with Manteca Unified for the shuttered Lindbergh School. The city is hopeful negotiations they have undertaken with California State University at Stanislaus may result in the city subleasing the building to the institute of higher education to operate a satellite campus in Manteca.

The reason for a satellite campus is simple. The higher educated the workforce, the better chance Manteca has of luring employers to business parks that have better paying jobs. Post secondary continuing education is a key element for communities that successfully grow better paying job opportunities.

If the satellite campus does not work out, city leaders have indicated there are other opportunities they will explore for the Lindbergh campus.

On the list is converting Lindbergh into a community center.

It has plenty of classrooms for recreation programs, an auditorium that is perfect for dance classes, gymnastics and such, and even a pre-existing preschool location that would be ideal for the Manteca Recreation Little People’s preschool program.

Manteca could shift their entire recreation department to Lindbergh to provide on-site management for the community center plus free up space at the Civic Center for other government office uses.

The stage and the auditorium could be used for dance recitals, concerts and other activities. The acoustics are fairly decent.

And while it isn’t exactly ideal for community theatre, it could serve as a starting point for cultural endeavors to give them a chance to take hold and grow.

As much as many would like to have a performing arts center designed specifically for such purposes, it is going to be many years down the road given the $20 million price tag.

But you still need to have a place in the community that can give birth and foster growing cultural undertakings that includes plays and concert-style undertakings.

The campus also has parking available plus it is within several blocks of the heart of Manteca.

Making it all the sweeter is the price.

The school board simply wants the City of Manteca to pick up the tab for the three school resource officers supplied via the Manteca Police Department. Right now the roughly $300,000 tab is split 50-50. If Manteca agrees to pick up the entire tab and make it the lease payment each year, they could possibly use $300,000 in RDA money to “pay” for leasing the community facility that is in an RDA project zone and free up $300,000 in general fund expenses. Actually it would be more like $150,000 since the city is already paying for half the cost of the officers.

If the city were to build a community center - with much less space - it would easily cost $12 million and not have an auditorium and stage.

By the RDA stepping up not only does it help improve the quality of life in Manteca and possibly strengthen the economic outlook  if a state university satellite campus locates there but it stops blight from getting a foothold in an older neighborhood should Lindbergh remain vacant.  

It is a win-win situation.