Manteca mulls new City Hall

Inside Bay area By Paul Burgarino, STAFF WRITER o7/22/07

MANTECA — It may have caught his colleagues by surprise, but one elected official in this city feels the site of a proposed mixed-use project is ideal for a grandiose City Hall. Vice Mayor Vince Hernandez suggested during a July 16 City Council meeting that he would like to consider a five-story building set for Manteca's southeastern entrance as a potential site. "I would want to put my own neck out on the plank a little bit and consider potentially a City Hall," Hernandez said of the 217-acre Yosemite Square Business Park project site. His statement caught other members of the council off guard. "It definitely perked my ears a little bit," Councilman John Harris said. "I have to commend him for thinking and trying to come up with new ideas," Mayor Willie Weatherford said, though he disagrees with the idea.
Drawing comparisons to the 53,000 square foot Civic Center in Dublin, Hernandez envisions a multifaceted, visible area with different city offices on each level. The building could include a branch of the Manteca library, a floor for paying city bills and other departments such as community development, planning, and public works, he said. Dublin's Civic Center was built in 1989, said Administrative Services Director Paul Rankin, a project manager for the $18.6 million complex. At the time, the city funded the project through General Fund money and borrowed to cover construction costs. "We left room within the original design for expansion areas as well," he said, adding a library was added as a separate project. "It would cost a lot more now, though."
Hernanadez suggested that growth fees collected via development agreements for sewer capacity — or bonus bucks — could be used to help cover the costs of a new Manteca municipal building. Fees per home usually range from $5,000 to $12,000 in Manteca. He estimated that fees from new homes planned for the Yosemite Square project would total nearly $11 million toward a City Hall. He added that some negotiations with AKF Development — the developers of the project — over fees and costs would most likely be necessary. Nearby Lathrop and Tracy have recently opened brand-new city halls — Tracy's opening in April and costing nearly $23 million, $18 million of those coming from developer fees. The current city hall complex is undergoing a transition, as the city police station moves to a new site in Manteca Industrial Park and city departments are moved to help the public.
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It is almost like a parallel dimension in Lala land.