Manteca may soon have another indoor fitness/sports center.
Plans have been submitted for a 25,711-square-foot indoor sports facility on Commerce Court behind Home Depot in Spreckels Park.
If approved by the Manteca Planning Commission when they meet at Tuesday at 7 p.m. at the Civic Center, 1001 W. Center St., it could become the city’s sixth major indoor sports facility. Manteca already has two In-Shape Health Club locations — one on West Yosemite Avenue next to Big Lots and one on East Yosemite east of Highway 99 — as well as Fitness Evolution at The Promenade Shops at Orchard Valley, 24 Hour Fitness at North Main and Louise, plus CalFit at North Main and Alameda Street. There are also a number of smaller boutique fitness centers in Manteca.
The only potential stumbling block for the project being advanced by Bruce Machado centers on parking. Under city standards the project would require 103 parking stalls based on square footage. The project as designed has 77 stalls.
Outside of the City Council ultimately finding a way to justify allowing less spaces if an appeal is filed, the applicant has three possible options. They could increase secured bicycle parking areas but the most they could do is whittle the requirement down to 101 spaces.
Another option centers around adjoining property owners — parcels such as where Social Security has an office located — agreeing to share parking lot usage. The applicant did not receive a response back.
The other is to ask the city to amend the Spreckels Park development agreement that prohibits on-street parking.
That may be the most viable option for several reasons. The proposed Machado Sports Complex is directly across from a 10-acre storm retention basin that can never be developed. It is part of the Spreckels Park private landscape maintenance district. And because the parcel is narrow and long where the sports complex is proposed, there is a significant amount of on-street parking space that could be created next to the indoor parking facility as well. Based on the average length of on-street parking stalls, the parking space deficit of 26 spaces could easily be covered with on-street parking.
The traffic patterns on Commerce Court are different than on the other court in Spreckels Court — DuPont Court — as well as the other streets.
DuPont Court has heavy daily truck traffic going to and from four major distribution centers. Commerce Court — besides the Social Security office – has a small business park. Typically daily traffic does not call for large trucks.
Spreckels Avenue and Commerce Avenue lack the space for on-street parking while Phoenix Drive receives a fair amount of large truck traffic on a daily basis.
The site for the proposed indoor sports complex is one of only three parcels left to be developed in Spreckels Park except for those attached to an existing facility such as Frito-Lay that is set aside for future expansion.
ProLogis last year purchased the parcel between American Modular System and J&M Equipment for a 304,390-square-foot distribution center. The other parcel adjacent to the historical plaza behind Chevron has been sold to a Modesto investor who is planning on developing the site.
To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com
