Deibel Labs — a firm specializing in testing for food safety and nutrition as well as personal care products and cosmetics — is opening a lab in Manteca.
The firm has closed a deal to purchase the 20,750-square-foot building at Mellon Avenue and Industrial Park Drive in the Manteca Industrial Park. The site most recently housed MICA Microwave.
Diebel Labs has 11 North America locations with the nearest in South San Francisco.
It is the second lab serving the food industry as well as other environmental testing to locate in Manteca. Michelson Laboratories opened a lab recently in the Manteca Business Park on Moffat Boulevard nestled against the 120 Bypass/Highway 99 interchange.
City of Manteca Economic Development Special Don Smail noted there are a number of firms actively looking at Manteca not just because of its proximity to the Bay Area and Sacramento markets for logistics but due to its location to regional retail consumers as well as being situated in the richest agricultural growing area in the world.
“Living Spaces Furniture was looking for a location to take advantage of the regional market for customers as far north as Elk Grove,” Smail said of the 130,000-square-foot showroom/warehouse expected to break ground later this year along the Atherton Drive extension now under construction west of Union Road.
Manteca is also benefiting from the fact six of the nation’s top 10 agricultural production counties are in the San Joaquin Valley that includes both Stanislaus and San Joaquin counties that between the two have an annual combined farm output of $6.1 billion.
5.11 Tactical that recently opened a 404,657-square-foot global distribution center on Airport Way in the CenterPoint Business Park picked Manteca for its unpatrolled access to transportation that’s key in today’s on-time world of commerce. Not only is Manteca on Highway 99 that’s considered the state’s “Main Street” for movement of goods but it is just off Interstate 5 that is the West Coast’s key north-south route between Mexico and Canada plus has direct freeway access to the Bay Area via I-205.
Sandwiched between Manteca and Lathrop is the Union Pacific intermodal yard for truck trailer/train freight movement. Less than 10 miles to the northeast is the Santa Fe Railroad intermodal yard.
Manteca is also within 12 miles of Stockton Metro Airport where Amazon flies in six cargo jets daily. The city is also within 69 to 76 miles of four key international airports — San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, and Sacramento.
Topping that off, Manteca is 19 miles from the Port of Stockton — the Pacific Coast’s eastern most seaport — plus within 65 miles of the Port of Oakland.
It is also the reason Medline — the nation’s largest privately held manufacturer of medical supplies — is leasing a 585,580-square-foot distribution center being built in Manteca next door to the Manteca Unified School District office complex on Louise Avenue west of Airport Way. It will increase the firm’s footprint in South San Joaquin County to 1.6 million square feet when two existing distribution centers are taken into account. The two distributions are near Stockton Metro Airport and in the massive Prologis International Park of Commerce on the western side of Tracy.
Toss in lower costs of doing business on this side of the Altamont and Manteca along with the rest of the South San Joaquin County area are getting more looks.
Manteca being at the center of 19 million consumers within 100 miles allowed it to snag Bass Pro Shops as well as the 500-room Great Wolf Lodge breaking ground next month.
The city is also using it being equidistant to Tracy, Modesto and Stockton — close to 1 million consumers within a 20 mile radius — to land the likes of Amazon Prime Now. In the past firms such as Frito Lay and J&M Equipment have shuttered separate Modesto and Stockton location to shift their businesses to Manteca where they are more central to the region.
To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com
