The script for a performing arts center for Manteca had many rewrites but in the end nothing has been produced.

The same is true for a new library.

Both were desired goals for a growing community identified 14 years ago by the Vision 2020 Task Force. Both are included on a $102 million capital improvement wish list adopted by the council back in 2006 but have no realistic chance of funding any earlier than 2017 even if then.

The reason is the cost. A new library carries a $33 million price tag while a performing arts center is expected to cost at least $18 million. Such wants are going up against needs such as the Lathrop Road fire station west of Union Road to serve northwest Manteca where 3,000 homes are outside the desired five-minute response time. The fire station has a price tag of $4 million. There is no money in hand to build the station even though it has been identified as a need for years. Some money - about $1.5 million - could come from the sale of the former medical officers bought at Union Road and Louise Avenue for conversion into a fire station three years ago. That cost figure also doesn’t include funds to equip and man the station.

Manteca did appoint citizens committees for both proposals. They also funded studies.

The one for the library targeted getting a piece of the $2 billion state library bond that the council hoped to match with unrestricted bonus bucks collected from developers and other sources. The two-story library that was as much a media center complete with coffee house as a traditional library was envisioned with triple the current square footage of the current building. It would have been built where the existing library now stands while books and other services were transferred to temporary housing where the tennis courts are across the street.

Manteca came within five places twice of making the cutoff for state funding. Without the prospect of state help to share the burden of a new library, city leaders have put any planning on ice for now.

The present library on Center Street opened on Jan. 13, 1962. It was built at a cost of $75,000. When it was expanded in 1977, the prediction was that it would be adequate through 1995 when Manteca was projected to have a population of 32,000. Manteca actually had 45,060 residents in 1995. The population is 68,000 today.

The performing arts effort was even more problematic. AMS Planning conducted a survey to find the level of potential support in Manteca as well as identifying what the community needed to do to make a performing arts center work.

Among the recommendations was exploring options that existed with existing structures. The city looked at and rejected:

•The Manteca Presbyterian Church at North and Main streets.

•The former Valley Cinemas that now houses Casino Real.

•Expanding the Golden West Community Gym.

•Completing the Civic Center master plan that called for a performing arts facility with seating on the northern edge of the site near the recreation department wing along Eucalyptus Street.

For new facilities they identified the possibility of:

•Working with Crossroads Grace Community Church but determined the active church would make it difficult to work weekend performing arts presentations around.

•Partnering with Manteca Unified when a fourth comprehensive high school is built to serve Manteca south of Woodward Avenue along Tinnin Road.

•Putting in place a 1,000-seat amphitheatre in the northern storm retention basin at Woodward Park.

Several private sector proposals were floated as part of the effort to secure a performing arts center.

•One was a plan by the late Antone Raymus that would have had a performing arts center as the second phase of a proposed hotel and conference center immediately east of the bowling alley.

•A proposal made nine years later by the Manteca Convention & Visitors Bureau to build a 5,000-seat amphitheatre with a conference center that could accommodate the performing arts as part of the 1,050-acre Austin Road Business Park. No progress has been made on the proposal during the last two years although approve plans for the project include a site for the amphitheatre.

While there currently is no active amateur theatre group for years they made use of the Manteca High Speech Arts Building. Both East Union and Sierra high schools have black box theatres. Sometimes the schools will use churches such as Manteca Presbyterian for concerts.

Manteca Kindred Arts employs the sanctuary at St. Paul’s United Methodist Church for its concerts.