The biggest game changer in Manteca since the founding of the South San Joaquin Irrigation District 110 years ago planted the seeds for a supercharged agricultural economy is within six months of debuting.
Great Wolf — if everything goes well — may be open as soon as the Memorial Day Weekend rolls around.
This is not just a mega water park inside a building, a massive hotel, and the equivalent of a food court on steroids. It is a family-style resort midway between two world-class attractions — San Francisco and Yosemite National Park.
It is also will also rival places like Great America and Six Flags for family fun within the 17 million strong Northern California mega-region anchored by San Jose, San Francisco, and Sacramento.
And it is at the heart of 1.1 million consumers within a 30-minute drive.
Manteca, with Great Wolf Resort, will be at the center of three distinct markets — legitimate statewide, nationwide, and worldwide tourism draws; the staycation business for one of the wealthiest mega-regions in the nation; and equidistance and within 20 minutes from the heart of the three largest cities in the 209 — Modesto, Stockton, and Tracy.
There is little doubt Great Wolf will do well on its own given its location. The real question is whether Manteca can leverage the 6-story billboard along the 120 Bypass with 500 rooms making it the largest hotel ever built in the Great Central Valley.
Given the fact it is just a few miles away from what is shaping up as the biggest planned community ever built in Northern California — River Islands at Lathrop — with what could ultimately be 14,000 homes and within “the region” that will see the brunt of growth to meet the housing needs of relatively affluent blue- and white-collar families being squeezed out of the Bay Area housing market west of the Altamont Pass — Manteca could become a magnet for an Internet-resistant economy.
You can’t touch an app and have a water park experience or a live in person entertainment venue delivered to your home. This is no small deal given that most income classes are spending a larger chunk of their income than they have in the past as each year goes by on entrainment as well as dining out.
Great Wolf by itself will have relatively minimum impact on the overall Manteca economy if you consider 500 more local paychecks with an impact approaching $20 million when all payroll costs are factored in being minimal. It is true some of the out-of-town guests will drop money at gas stations, some other restaurants, the cinema, Bass Pro, and perhaps a few other retailers.
But the real economic wallop will come if Manteca succeeds in completing its family entertainment zone (FEZ) vision of 100 plus acres anchored by Great Wolf and Big League Dreams. If the city can land a wide array of attractions that could include things such as an e-sports arena, outdoor water park, surfing pool, go karts, and such along the Daniels Street extension to McKinley Avenue along with dining options nestled between Great Wolf and BLD they will create a family entertainment destination not just for Manteca and 1 million other consumers within 30 minutes but also for the overall NorCal market plus being able to build off the San Francisco-Yosemite tourism market.
Making it all more futuristic in terms of emerging travel patterns is the FEZ is within four miles of the envisioned Valley Link-Altamont Corridor Express station at the former Sharpe Depot site. That means people could board trains in Sacramento, San Francisco, San Jose, and Merced to a station that is a 10-minute shuttle bus drive from the FEZ. If that sounds pie-in-the-sky it is no more so than back in 1991 when the late Bob Cabral — an Escalon almond grower and county supervisors — who was convinced commuter rail would work when conventional wisdom was you’d never be able to pry Californians’ collective hands off steering wheels.
Manteca could accelerate the possibility of it happening by building an $82 million community recreation center immediately north of the BLD complex. That recreation complex is envisioned to have an aquatics center, a community gym with attendance space for recreation classes ranging from dance to music to arts and crafts, playing fields, and outdoor features that could involve everything from an interactive skate park to a world-class skate park.
Such a location allows the $82 million to do double duty by addressing community recreation needs as well as serving to stoke the economy while at the same time using non-city residents’ money to cover much of the operating and maintenance costs.
The fields would be the domain of Manteca-based leagues and use during the week just like the BLD complex. And while weekends would be used for events with a regional draw it would include local use as well. It would even allow things Manteca couldn’t support on its own that there is a demand for such as the indoor soccer area at the BLD complex.
The site makes sense. Not only does the city already own it but it is a natural fit for a FEZ concept designed to meet local needs as well as tap into regional markets and even tourism.
It would also give Manteca something truly unique in the greater Bay Area — a vibrant concentration of family entertainment/recreation opportunities.
That said even if there is little or no additional activity in the envisioned FEZ, Manteca has managed to pull off a major feat by landing a self-contained family resort on the scale of Great Wolf.
The direct plus net financial impact on Manteca’s general fund covers that basically will have non-resident’s room tax and sales tax receipts paying for municipal services such as police and fire protection was conservatively projected at $99 million over the course of 30 years. It was the same economic analysis that lenders vetted before making their decision to lend $180 million to Great Wolf to build the Manteca location. And that was before the voters upped the room tax to 12 percent meaning the real impact will be closer to $140 million in 30 years with the room tax split that runs through the first 25 years is included in calculations.
And while the full impact on the Manteca municipal budget won’t hit until a year after the first room is booked, 2020 is definitely shaping up as the Year of the Wolf in Manteca.
