Manteca, at one-time, made the goal of creating a Hacienda Business Park type development envisioned as Tara Business Park a top priority along McKinley Avenue south of the 120 Bypass.
The idea was to capture the blue chip employers such as People Soft and AT&T that populated Hacienda Business Park in Pleasanton.
It was a dream that city leaders wisely let go.
The reason is simple. All of the government proclamations and wishes can’t change the dynamics of the job market. The type of large-scale high-tech jobs that one associates with Silicon Valley giants aren’t coming to the Northern San Joaquin Valley any time soon. The much ballyhooed Tracy Gateway Business Park isn’t exactly a hotbed of high-tech employment either.
Yes, there is a lot of knowledgeable high-tech workers commuting across the Altamont Pass. A logical pitch could be made to shift Silicon Valley jobs here where the land is cheaper and the cost-of-living lower with the argument you could snag many of the high tech commuters for jobs here at lower pay since they will save considerable on commute expenses.
It just isn’t going to happen.
Yes, there have been “high tech” jobs brought here but it was the first movement of outsourcing to “lands” where labor was lower for assembly-style work. The Northern San Joaquin Valley ultimately was replaced by Mexico, Malaysia, and a host of other off-shore locations where materials can be shipped for labor-intensive work where the pay is even lower.
Manteca had Indy Electronics with 700 jobs that quickly morphed into Alphatec and then Turnkey Solutions and then left an empty building where copper thieves ended up doing $250,000 worth of damage. That pretty much sums up the high-tech cycle in Manteca. Most of those 700 jobs were just above minimum wage jobs and were filled not by high-tech workers who commuted from Manteca to the Silicon Valley but low-skilled workers from Stockton.
Manteca - and the rest of the Northern San Joaquin Valley for that matter - doesn’t have the high-tech synergy that the Silicon Valley does or even San Francisco.
The fact that Manteca leaders have been realists especially after AKF Development was able to quickly capitalize on distribution to accelerate the conversion of the shuttered sugar plant into Spreckels Park prompted movement early on that will allow Austin Road Business Park and CenterPoint to move forward to snag future distribution jobs.
The Bay Area has ideal trappings for high-tech think tanks that lure the best and the brightest. Manteca and the rest of the South County have location and unparalleled transit options that put close to 40 million consumers within a 10-hour haul by truck. You can’t make a silk purse out of a pig’s ear but that doesn’t mean you can’t make the best with what you have.
Distribution - and repackaging jobs - pay decent as do the other small-scale business park-style companies that like to be close to distribution centers and markets.
The movement of distribution and similar employers out of the Bay Area is expected to keep accelerating. Union Pacific’s decision to shift container rail operations from the Port of Oakland to Lathrop is one example.
There are some who believe city leaders were wrong to abandon the original game plan for Tara Business Park as it originally was envisioned in favor of concentrating on distribution.
And as much as a few people like to slam Mike Atherton et al for developing housing, if it wasn’t for them risking it all and tackling Spreckels Park, Manteca may never have realized that its future is with distribution. If creating well over 700 distribution jobs in Spreckels Park plus the trucking jobs they support is somehow selling Manteca down the road to developers then Manteca needs to keep doing it.
It is always interesting to see government employee types that do planning slam the private sector when they come up with real life solutions for ongoing problems such as the valley’s high unemployment.
Had the city’s original vision been left alone Manteca would not have Spreckels Park, Orchard Valley, or Big League Dreams. None of those were “envisioned“ when the concept of Tara Business Park - Manteca’s answer to Hacienda Business Park - was first advanced by the city.
In ensuing 15 years the private sector has created jobs by following the market. Had they followed the city’s original plan, there would have been significantly less job gains.
Instead of slamming the city for changing course to reflect the reality of the economy, city leaders should be lauded for having the courage to do so.
The idea was to capture the blue chip employers such as People Soft and AT&T that populated Hacienda Business Park in Pleasanton.
It was a dream that city leaders wisely let go.
The reason is simple. All of the government proclamations and wishes can’t change the dynamics of the job market. The type of large-scale high-tech jobs that one associates with Silicon Valley giants aren’t coming to the Northern San Joaquin Valley any time soon. The much ballyhooed Tracy Gateway Business Park isn’t exactly a hotbed of high-tech employment either.
Yes, there is a lot of knowledgeable high-tech workers commuting across the Altamont Pass. A logical pitch could be made to shift Silicon Valley jobs here where the land is cheaper and the cost-of-living lower with the argument you could snag many of the high tech commuters for jobs here at lower pay since they will save considerable on commute expenses.
It just isn’t going to happen.
Yes, there have been “high tech” jobs brought here but it was the first movement of outsourcing to “lands” where labor was lower for assembly-style work. The Northern San Joaquin Valley ultimately was replaced by Mexico, Malaysia, and a host of other off-shore locations where materials can be shipped for labor-intensive work where the pay is even lower.
Manteca had Indy Electronics with 700 jobs that quickly morphed into Alphatec and then Turnkey Solutions and then left an empty building where copper thieves ended up doing $250,000 worth of damage. That pretty much sums up the high-tech cycle in Manteca. Most of those 700 jobs were just above minimum wage jobs and were filled not by high-tech workers who commuted from Manteca to the Silicon Valley but low-skilled workers from Stockton.
Manteca - and the rest of the Northern San Joaquin Valley for that matter - doesn’t have the high-tech synergy that the Silicon Valley does or even San Francisco.
The fact that Manteca leaders have been realists especially after AKF Development was able to quickly capitalize on distribution to accelerate the conversion of the shuttered sugar plant into Spreckels Park prompted movement early on that will allow Austin Road Business Park and CenterPoint to move forward to snag future distribution jobs.
The Bay Area has ideal trappings for high-tech think tanks that lure the best and the brightest. Manteca and the rest of the South County have location and unparalleled transit options that put close to 40 million consumers within a 10-hour haul by truck. You can’t make a silk purse out of a pig’s ear but that doesn’t mean you can’t make the best with what you have.
Distribution - and repackaging jobs - pay decent as do the other small-scale business park-style companies that like to be close to distribution centers and markets.
The movement of distribution and similar employers out of the Bay Area is expected to keep accelerating. Union Pacific’s decision to shift container rail operations from the Port of Oakland to Lathrop is one example.
There are some who believe city leaders were wrong to abandon the original game plan for Tara Business Park as it originally was envisioned in favor of concentrating on distribution.
And as much as a few people like to slam Mike Atherton et al for developing housing, if it wasn’t for them risking it all and tackling Spreckels Park, Manteca may never have realized that its future is with distribution. If creating well over 700 distribution jobs in Spreckels Park plus the trucking jobs they support is somehow selling Manteca down the road to developers then Manteca needs to keep doing it.
It is always interesting to see government employee types that do planning slam the private sector when they come up with real life solutions for ongoing problems such as the valley’s high unemployment.
Had the city’s original vision been left alone Manteca would not have Spreckels Park, Orchard Valley, or Big League Dreams. None of those were “envisioned“ when the concept of Tara Business Park - Manteca’s answer to Hacienda Business Park - was first advanced by the city.
In ensuing 15 years the private sector has created jobs by following the market. Had they followed the city’s original plan, there would have been significantly less job gains.
Instead of slamming the city for changing course to reflect the reality of the economy, city leaders should be lauded for having the courage to do so.
