By allowing ads to appear on this site, you support the local businesses who, in turn, support great journalism.
MOTEL BEING TORN DOWN FOR MANTECA HIGH PARKING
pacific motel
Crews will start work to demolish the Pacific Motel on Moffat Boulevard on Monday to make room for expanding the Manteca High student parking lot.

One by one traces of Moffat Boulevard’s heyday as a haven for travelers on Highway 99 are disappearing.

The latest is the Pacific Motel built in the popular motor court design of the 1930s and 1940s with rooms in a U-shape around the parking lot.

The motel that opened in the first half of the 20th century under another name had long since stopped primarily serving the travelling public.

Instead, it had become a residency motel.

The Manteca Unified School District acquired the property at 453 Moffat Boulevard in July.

It should be razed and cleaned up by the end of the month.

Then, later this year, the land will be incorporated into the existing student parking lot. The roughly 60 additional spaces will give the parking lot room for 200 cars.

The additional parking is needed as part of a modernization and expansion plan for the campus to be able to accommodate 2,200 students. The enrollment is currently at 1,800 students. The campus is being expanded with classrooms to allow it to go from its current  design capacity of 1,737 students to 2,200 students.

The district also will create a secondary student parking lot along Mikesell Avenue.

Manteca Unified is in the process of acquiring property on the south side of that street.

Workers in the next week will start razing the four residential properties the district has already acquired along Mikesell as well as Manteca High’s old maintenance building just to the east of the homes.

This is where the additional parking as well as a pair of 2-story buildings with 10 classrooms each will be built next to the new classrooms that were put in use for the first time at the start of last school year.

The San Joaquin Rail Commission is in the process of buying two parcels that are across the street from the Pacific Motel east of the city’s water treatment facility.

That land — coupled with parcels the city has already purchased — will add 150 parking spaces to the transit center parking lot to handle commuters’ vehicles when the Altamont Corridor Express train service starts in 2023.

It will involve removing a canopy and gas tanks from what is left of the last remaining gas station on Moffat that fell in disrepair after the current Highway 99 freeway opened in 1955.

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com