A new waterslide resort headed to Manteca?
Fourteen years after the venerable Manteca Waterslides closed, a new waterslide resort is headed to the city.
Manteca’s Planning Commission is set this week to hold a public hearing on an agreement with Great Wolf Resorts. The company runs 12 indoor water parks in the United States and California.
If the Planning Commission agrees, the proposal will go before the City Council next month. The agreement is the culmination of years of negotiations between the city and Great Wolf, dating back to 2010, according to The Manteca Bulletin newspaper.
The project, located on Daniels Street near a Costco store, calls for a 510,000-square-foot facility consisting of a 500-room hotel, a family entertainment center and restaurant/food court and a 100,000-square-foot water park, according to a news release from the city.
Plans call for the resort to break ground this summer, with a two-year construction period and opening around springtime 2020, City Manager Tim Ogden said.
“We’re very excited about Great Wolf Park,” he said.
“Our goal has been to have a shovel-ready piece of property available for a hotel/water park,” Mayor Stephen DeBrum said in the release. “We believe, and we are seeing, that our site is the best suited and most readily available location in Northern California.”
According to the news release, Great Wolf identified Manteca as their preferred location due to the readiness of the site, its location, the city’s labor force and the proximity to other community and visitor attractions, such as the Big League Dreams baseball field complex.
The city estimates the resort to bring in nearly 500,000 visitors throughout the year, generating significant new tax revenues.
Additionally, the city said, the project will create an estimated 1,500 construction jobs and 500 permanent resort jobs providing nearly $20 million per year of payroll.
This story was originally published February 25, 2018 at 5:23 PM with the headline "A new waterslide resort headed to Manteca?."