What is essentially a short-term storage lot for containers and trailers that are transferred to and from Union Pacific Railroad flat cars is being proposed for part of the CenterPoint Business Park in northwest Manteca.
The 6.8 acre site immediately across from the UP Railroad intermodal yard will accommodate 153 trailers and containers. It is proposed to be fenced and landscaped in a manner that the visual impact from Airport Way will be at a minimum.
Access to the intermodal yard will primarily be from a private railroad  crossing that will tie directly into the UP intermodal center that has gained approval to triple in size.
The plans for the storage lot are before the Manteca Planning Commission when they meet Tuesday at 7 p.m. at the Manteca Civic Center, 1001 W. Center St.
The storage yard fits into the city’s plans to make the northwest area of Manteca a major warehouse and distribution hub.
It is where the 404,657-square-foot distribution center for 5.11 Tactical is being built. The plan for Tactical 5.11 also calls for a possible 134,500-square-foot addition at a later date.
Manteca’s biggest distribution-style concrete tilt-up building is being pursued on the southwest corner of Airport Way and Roth Road as part of the CenterPoint business park.
Dubbed “The Laurie Project” by CenterPoint that is building it either as a spec building or for a client that they have yet to disclosed, the 1,199,997-square-foot building is being proposed in two phases on a 63.29-acre parcel. The first phase will consist of 551,475 square feet.
It may take 40 years
to complete UP
intermodal expansion
It could take up to 40 years for Union Pacific to almost triple the size of its Lathrop intermodal facility that transfers truck trailers to and from railroad cars.
The railroad hhammered out a development agreement with San Joaquin County that establishes timing for previously approved land use and infrastructure improvements. The development agreement is in effect for 25 years with the ability for up to three additional 5-year extensions.
The decision by UP to expand the Lathrop facility that fronts Roth Road underscores the growing logistically importance South San Joaquin County and Northern Stanislaus County have not only to shipping California agricultural products east but to move goods from local distribution centers to markets in the Bay Area, Sacramento area, and the Fresno-Bakersfield area.
The Lathrop-Tracy-Manteca-Stockton is home to distribution centers such as Amazon, Home Depot, Ford Motor Co., Orchard Supply Hardware, Lineage Refrigeration, Dryers Ice Cream, Safeway, Costco, Best Buy, SSI Industries (SaveMart, Raley’s) Fed/Ex, United Parcel Service, and Restoration Hardware to name a few.
When the Lathrop  expansion is done, the regional capacity for intermodal movements will soar to 1.3 million units a year between the UP complex and the Santa Fe intermodal facility north off Manteca between Austin Road and Jack Tone Road. That is the equivalent of 3,561 truck movements a day.
The 2001 expansion of the Santa Fe facility increased that railroad’s intermodal capacity in San Joaquin County from 120,000 to 300,000 units annually.
Currently the UP intermodal facility can “lift”  — remove and place truck trailers on specially designed railroad flat cars — on some 270,000 container a year. At build-out that number will reach 730,000 lifts.
The expansion of the UP intermodal facility in Lathrop is expected to double the current workforce of 67 railroad workers to 137. Center Point is developing a 4 million square foot business park tailor made for distribution firms that rely heavily on intermodal transport directly across from the UP facility and within Manteca’s city limits. Center Point’s future tenants are expected to provide more than 600 permanent jobs.
That, however, is expected to be just the tip of the iceberg. The UP move will increase the demand for truck transportation in the area plus make the immediate community — Manteca and Lathrop particularly — even more attractive to firms that are starting to do more and more cross-country shipping by rail due to the short trip for trips to the intermodal facility.
The average daily truck trips to and from the UP facility would go from 954 in 2015 — the year the expansion was approved — to 2,186 at complete build-out. It would mean the average number of trucks per hour leaving or departing the intermodal facility would go from 39.75 every hour to 91. Weekend traffic is 5 to 10 percent of work day traffic. Monday would be the heaviest day for truck movement at build-out with 2,585 trips compared to 1,056 in early 2011.
UP spokesmen have pointed out that the facility expansion ultimately will reduce truck traffic on major freeways as one freight train moving trailer containers does the work of 280 long-distance trucks
 
To contact Dennis Wyatt, e-mail dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com