McWhinney — the Colorado-based firm working to bring an indoor waterpark resort to Manteca — is celebrating the grand opening this week of its Garden Grove location in Southern California. It is the Golden State’s first indoor waterpark.
Great Wolf Lodge opened in February. The all-suite resort has 603 rooms including larger suites with second bedrooms and bathrooms that can allow six to eight people for multigenerational families travelling together.
The 943,000-square-foot resort includes water attractions  kept at 84 degrees, hotel rooms, seven on-site dining options, amusement areas, retail, parking, and 20,000 square feet of conference space on 13 acres. The resort broke ground on Feb. 19, 2016. It has created 700 new jobs in Garden Grove.
McWhinney has basic approvals in place to build a 500-room resort, 75,000-square-foot indoor water park, 15,000-square-foot outdoor water park, and 30,000-square-foot conference center on 30 acres of city-owned land along the 120 Bypass and west of Costco. The original plan called for a future addition of 200 to 300 rooms.
Up until September, McWhinney was courting Great Wolf as the operator. Now they are dealing with  a Great Wolf competitor that prefers a 60-acre site and is interested in the larger footprint to offer significant entertainment venues beyond just the waterpark.
Manteca City Manager Karen McLaughlin said McWhinney expect to have a water park operator in place by year’s end.

Manteca expands
food waste recycling
The Manteca Solid Waste Division is now recycling food waste from Food 4 Less, Mountain Mike’s Pizza, the Manteca Golf Course, Second Harvest Food Bank, Grocery Outlet and In & Out Burger as well as at Woodward School, Joshua Cowell School, and Brock Elliott School.
The state is mandating food waste diversion to avoid it from being buried at landfills.
Manteca plans to ultimately use food waste they collect to create natural gas to power the city’s solid waste collection fleet. Currently the food waste is going  to Harvest Power in Lathrop for conversion into compost until the facility to produce the gas is put in place.
A Cal Recycle representative was updated last week on Manteca’s recycling efforts.
Manteca has 90 percent of its commercial businesses recycling. That exceeds the state’s current threshold. The city also has a medical sharps collection program, a battery collection program, an oil collection program, and an e-collection program. They all exceed current state requirements.
The Cal Recycle representative said Manteca is the only city in the Northern San Joaquin Valley that includes Stanislaus, San Joaquin and Merced counties that has gotten as far in collecting food waste.