Atherton Drive in southeast Manteca is a dead-end today.

But once work gets underway in earnest on the three-phased $131 million 120 Bypass/Highway 99/Austin Road upgrades it could revive what was once the largest development ever envisioned for Manteca — the 1,037-acre Austin Road Business Park.

That’s because placing an interchange in a rapidly growing urban area with access to water and sewer especially at a junction of key commuter and goods movement freeways such as Highway 99 and the 120 Bypass is essentially a siren call to developers

And even if it is years until portions of the 1,037 acres are urbanized, the first phase of the Caltrans project expected to be completed by no later than n early 2024 will change traffic patterns in southeast Manteca.

That’s because a connector road to surface streets in Manteca will be needed given Austin Road will clear both Moffat Boulevard and the railroad tracks.

That connector road will run between the existing segment of Atherton Drive that has two of the ultimate four lanes in place and Austin Road.

That means traffic heading from Modesto to southeast Manteca using the Austin Road ramp will end up on Atherton Drive south of Woodward Avenue.

The Austin Road Business Park was seen as the next big thing in Manteca when it started moving through the planning process 14 years ago.

Ultimately snafus at city hall and the lingering Great Recession derailed the venture but not until the land was annexed to the city.

The zoning approved — if development proceeds — would accommodate at least 2,358 traditional single-family homes and 1,840 multi-family dwelling units such as townhouses, apartments, and condos  that can accommodate up to 10,200 people or just under a ninth of the city’s existing population.

The potential for additional residents is just a tad more than what ultimately the four developments in southwest Manteca that have broken ground or on the verge of doing so will add to the city’s population when completed.
The big difference is all but 200 of the 3,149 housing units being built along the western end of Woodward will be single family homes. The other 200 units will be apartments.
Austin Road Business Park was also envisioned to add:

*3.5 million square feet of general commercial or about 26 times the square footage of the Manteca Costco store.

*8 million square feet of industrial/business park, and office use or space equal to 17 times the coverage area of the Ford Motor Parts distribution center on Spreckels Avenue,

*The potential to create up to 13,000 jobs with between 3,000 and 6,000 jobs coming from the industrial and business park portion and up to 13,000 jobs from possible retail uses.

The first phase of the freeway work will replace the Austin Road interchange with a four-lane span with turn lanes similar to the Lathrop Road overcrossing of Highway 99. The bridge will also span the railroad tracks and Moffat Boulevard.
The city is paying for the extra lane in each direction on the bridge as Caltrans’ project only funds replacing the existing two lanes.

The 120 Bypass/Highway 99 project — which came about several years after the Austin Road development plans fizzled — addresses the biggest obstacle the developers had at the time.

The 1955-era interchange and its ramps were considered too inadequate to allow for truck movements needed for a large-scale business park with distribution centers.

Even short-term solutions envisioned at the time — the placement of traffic signals at Moffat and Austin — would only have allowed for a fraction of the project to move forward.

That will change once ground breaks on the freeway upgrades.

 The third phase of the work that has yet to be funded will include building braided ramps to allow for relatively smooth and seamless movements from Austin Road to northbound Highway 99 and the westbound 120 Bypass and for traffic on southbound Highway 99 and the eastbound Bypass trying to reach Austin Road.

To illustrate how complicated and expensive the ramp design is, eastbound 120 Bypass traffic wanting to turn onto Austin Road will get onto a ramp lane past Main Street before reaching the Moffat overcrossing. It will then combine with a ramp from southbound Highway 99 that starts before the 120 Bypass/99 interchange to reach Austin Road.

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com