Woodward Avenue will be closed to traffic from Atherton Drive to Adora Drive at the entrance to the Tesoro neighborhood for two weeks starting Monday, Jan. 29, to allow work needed to build 352 more homes
The closure involves installing a deep sewer manhole and other improvements along Woodward Avenue for the DeJong Estates subdivision being built east of Pillsbury Road.
Traffic needing to reach Moffat Boulevard will need to take Atherton Drive instead.
The DeJong Estates project will include the initial two lane extension of Atherton Drive outh of Woodward Avenue.
At the same time Heartland Drive will be extended to the east and swing northward to connect with Woodward Avenue between Adora Drive and Atherton Drive. Tannehill Drive will be punched all the way through to Atherton Drive making it the first east-west street connecting South Main and Atherton Drive south of Woodward Avenue.
When the neighborhood is built, it will require less treated drinking water due to a city requirement the development put in irrigation wells at the two required neighborhood parks. Park irrigation is the largest collective use of water in Manteca after residential lawns. The irrigation wells will tap into higher aquifers that have water that’s not suitable for drinking.
A community facilities district was formed to put the future 352 homeowners on the hook for park maintenance  and upkeep — including the irrigation wells — as well as the care of common area landscaping such as along sound walls and ornamental street lights.
The 80 acres on the southwest corner of Woodward Avenue and Atherton Drive abut Atherton Homes’ Woodward Park I and Woodward Park II neighborhoods where 356 homes are now being built on 94.9 acres along the east side of Pillsbury Road. 
The DeJong project will consist of single family lots ranging in size from 6,000 to 13,690 square feet.
The DeJong neighborhood is immediately south of the site of Manteca’s next fire station on the northwest corner of Atherton Drive and Woodward Avenue. The developers will be required to modify the existing landscaped median on Woodward Avenue to accommodate a left turn pocket onto the future extension of Heartland Drive. At the same time, a bus turnout will be put in place on the south side of Woodward between Heartland and Pillsbury.
 Ultimately Atherton Drive will extend southward into rural Ripon to serve the approved 1,050-acre Austin Road Business Park that includes a major business park component. Future plans call for Atherton Drive to connect with an east-west street named Raymus Parkway that will eventually swing north to connect with the McKinley Avenue interchange being planned for the 120 Bypass. It will also ultimately be six lanes east of Atherton Drive to connect with a proposed interchange midway between Austin Road and Jack Tone Road on Highway 99.

To contact Dennis Wyatt, e-mail dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com