Business View Magazine | August 2019

253 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE AUGUST 2019 MANTECA , CAL I FORNI A se, they’re working at that local annex office that has a conference room they could lease as needed, has high-speed bandwidth, document processing on-site - all those sorts of amenities one would expect to have in an urban setting.” Towards that end, the City Council recently approved an RFP seeking development of a Class A Office Business Park on a prominent 8.5 acre parcel of city-owned land fronting on Highway 120, an ideal site for this type of office project. “We are seeking to offer those locations here, but we’re also trying to identify individual companies that have larger footprint space requirements. Those that need enough land to be able to put up a warehouse distribution facility, or even a manufacturing facility. That land isn’t available at any price in Silicon Valley. Unless you want to fill in the bay, or take out a golf course, there are simply no sites available. They’re reaching a point where it isn’t that the land is just too expensive - the land with proper zoning and infrastructure and all the entitlements in place is simply not available at all. “So we’re trying to pivot and give them that value proposition, to say, ‘Yes, we’re a little farther away, but only 65 miles.’ Your employees already live here, or a substantial number of them do, and, if you really need to put up that new data center, or that new warehouse, logistics center, whatever it happens to be, particularly facilities that require a larger footprint, we’ve got a variety of suitable sites and we’re in-between I-5 and Rte. 99 to give you access to markets. That’s how we’re packaging this opportunity. “The challenge among the workforce is that everyone wants to be close to the mothership, fearful if they get too far away from headquarters, no one will ever hear from them again, and they’ll miss that promotion, or that career opportunity, or something important. I think that’s why they put up with this crazy commute thing; partly because of the jobs and wages, but also that perception of career ladder access. In Manteca we’re saying we are already part of the Silicon Valley, we are the laborshed, if you will, by proxy, with all the property we put up to provide land for residential development.