The long-awaited widening of South Main Street to Woodward Avenue is about to start.

The endeavor to widen it to 580 feet south of Atherton Drive will require night closures from Monday, Sept. 29, through Monday. Oct, 12, from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m.

The road will remain open from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m.

Crews are putting in place underground utilities for Marketplace at Main that is being anchored by a Save Mart Supermarket on the southwest corner of Mian and Atherton.

The work is the precursor to widening Main to six lanes from Woodward Avenue to the 120 Bypass.

The actually widening work will start after the infrastructure is in place.

The Manteca City Council established an area of benefit that will allow of the road work to take place concurrently.

It will involve:

*widening Main to six lanes.

*installing curbs, gutters, and sidewalks.

*installing a median.

*widening the eastbound on-ramp to the 120 Bypass.

Meanwhile, a related endeavor that Mayor Gary Singh has been shepherding will see the installment of traffic signals at the corner of Woodward Avenue and Atherton Drive.

Work on the signals is expected to start in the coming months.

The larger project of the actual pavement widening for  the corridor may or may not start this year, but who will pay for it will be lined up so construction can start.

In any case, it will be completed by mid-2026.

Manteca wanted to avoid South Main from being repeatedly ripped up for road construction via piecemeal projects as development occurs on parcels along the section of the corridor.

By creating an area of benefit, the cost can be assigned and money collected to do the work at once.

One of the developers, California Gold Development, is building the shopping center on the southwest corner of Atherton Drive and Main Street.

The Marketplace at Main has already secured Chipotle’s Kitchen, Quick Quack car wash, and a McDonald’s for free-standing pads.

The center will have 110,000 square feet of overall retail and dining space.

The other two developers include:

*QMC Manteca that involves building a mixture of 818 housing units — apartments, half-plexes, and free-standing homes primarily on the northeast corner of Atherton and Main.

*SOMA Apartments has an approved 210-unit apartment complex on the southeast corner of the same intersection.

Woodward Avenue

Closure is extended

Woodward Avenue between Atherton Drive and Moffat Boulevard will now not reopen until Nov. 3.

Work started Monday, Aug, 25, and was supposed to be completed today.

 The closure also includes South Austin Road south of the northbound Highway 99 9 on-ramp, north of Singh Road as well as the Highway southbound off-ramp at Austin Road.

The closure will allow the placement of a sewer line, road construction, traffic signals at the new Moffat/Woodward intersection, and the placement of railroad crossing guard arms and signals.

When completed, Woodward will T-intersect into Moffat with median improvements similar to what is now at Industrial Park Drive (Spreckels Avenue) at Moffat.

Besides adding traffic signals, it eliminates a problematic angled intersection that now exists at Woodward and Moffat.

The work is part of the first phase of the 120 Bypass/Highway 99 connector project that the San Joaquin Council of Governments is coordinating.

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com