Qualex’s 171 Manteca employees processed their last roll of Kodak film in April 2004.

Across the street, Turnkey Solutions shut down a decade earlier with 140 jobs eliminated. It was located in a building that opened in 1980 housing Indy Electronics that at its peak had 700 workers in Manteca.

Indy, for years, was the largest private sector employer in Manteca.

Both buildings in the 400-500 block of Industrial Park Drive have sat vacant since their respective tenants shut down operations in Manteca.

And both tenants were collateral damage in the rapidly evolving tech economy centered west of the Altamont Pass in the Silicon Valley.

Traditional photo processing and non-professional personal photography once dominated by Kodak was well on it’s still to becoming marginal in face of the digital camera/smartphone revolution.

As for Indy Electronics and the subsequent owners of the Manteca facility that was then Alphatec before becoming Turnkey Solutions, they handled the low-tech end of the electronic supply chain.

The tasks were labor intensive and low-skilled.

The work they did was slowly exported to other countries where workers earned in a month what a Manteca employee did in one day on the job.

And now automation has eliminated those tasks entirely.

In the meantime, the size of buildings needed for distribution centers and various processes ballooned passed 100,000 square feet.

That put the 57,000 square foot Qualex building into a tough position to sell or even lease based on its size.

The original Indy building was a bit bigger at 79,000 square feet but a lot more problematic.

Indy did not build what would be considered a traditional large shell and then made tenant improvements as is done today. Instead, it tailored the exterior configuration to fit their specific needs that included numerous partitions.

The empty days of what are arguably the two non-residential building that have been vacant for the longest in Manteca appear to be coming to an end.

The Qualex building at 555 Industrial where the emergency shelter is currently in the parking lot, is being purchased and remodeled into a homeless navigation center.

The project is before the City Council Tuesday at 6 p.m. to add another $34,000 to cover the cost of phase one improvements that essentially is putting a new roof in place.

The roof partially collapsed from rain damage last year.

Given the work has to be done to occupy the building, instead of waiting for inside improvements to be determined and designed, the city went ahead with the roof work.

It was designed not only to avoid additional damage but to speed up the homeless project.

The $858,000 contract previously awarded to Haggerty Construction had an $85,000 contingency for unanticipated issues.

The water from the roof that failed created health-related issues in the office space area. The cost to remedy that came in at $120,000.

Since the contingency does not cover the full amount, the additional need for funding was brought back to the Manteca City Council.

The overall cost of the first phase of the navigation center is now at $978,655.

Meanwhile, the Indy building at 400 Industrial is seeing movement in going forward with a plan first presented in 2016 to the Manteca Planning Commission for conversion into indoor storage units.

A minor use permit is being processed by the Community Development Department for modifications to the exterior to bring it into compliance with current city rules.

The new ‘center’ of

Manteca storage

The rebirth of the Indy building is envisioned to be the creation of an indoor climate controlled storage facility as well as outside RV and boat storage.

Given it backs up to Vanderbilt Circle where Stuff N Storage is located and a U-Haul center as well as storage opened in a former Buick-GMC dealership that also has access to Vanderbilt, should the Indy project take hold it will create Manteca’s largest concentration of storage facilities.

The shuttered Indy building in February of 2008 was where a 27 year-old man fell through the skylight to his death. Burglary tools were found nearby.

Due to its extensive wiring, the building was a major target of thieves looking to seal copper wiring.

There had been six arrests for individuals doing just that in the years leading up to the man’s death.

Police at the time placed the damages copper wire thefts did to the building’s interior in excess of $250,000.

More storage for

stuff & RVs added

and on the way

Manteca, citywide, is seeing a robust growth in storage options.

In the north, Arcos storage has added additional units at its North Main location while U-Haul — located in the former Kmart a block away on Northgate Drive has also added more storage units.

An 884-unit storage complex is now being built in southwest Manteca on Atherton Drive across from where the new Food 4 Less is being built west of Airport Way on 5.64 acres abutting Bella Vista Drive.

That complex will also have a 2,524-square-foot office building.

A 13.94-acre RV and boat storage facility proposed for southwest Manteca will have 12 canopies with solar panels.

Gateway Solar RV & Boat Storage will have the ability to generate 3,000 kilowatts of electricity. That’s enough to power 400 average California homes.

The project is being built at the western end of Bronzan Road bordering the Oakwood Shores gated community on the west and the 120 Bypass on the north.

Bronzan Road is the first street that intersects with McKinley Avenue immediately south of its interchange with the 120 Bypass.

The solar canopies will cover 299,884 square feet, an area just slightly larger than double the size of the Manteca Costco store.

There will also be a 2,326 square foot office building.

It will be Manteca’s second RV and boat storage facility with protective canopies with solar panels on top.

Manteca Executive RV & Boat Storage opened last year in southeast Manteca on the northeast corner of Atherton Drive and Woodward Avenue.

The complex can accommodate 532 recreational vehicles. The overall complex covers 13.68 acres.

 It is a full service storage facility with a 2,400-square-foot office building, vehicle cleaning station, vehicle dumping station, plus propane and air filling stations, and even an ice machine.

That complex also has roughly 300,000 square feet of solar arrays.

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com