You’ve got to make some divots before you can start replacing them: Construction will begin this week in Spring on another TopGolf in Houston. This 65,000-sq.-ft. bar, event venue, and aim-required golfing alley will be located on almost 11 acres at 560 Spring Park Blvd., a few miles south on I-45 of the coming-along-now ExxonMobil campus. In December, TopGolf opened its first Houston location at 1030 Memorial Brook Blvd. You can see more renderings of what to expect after the jump.
GRAND TEXAS THEME PARK GETS ITS TEXAS LAND 
Developer Monty Galland has teamed with investors that include a former AstroWorld manager to close, at last, on 600 acres in Montgomery County for the proposed Texas-themed Grand Texas Theme Park. In April, Galland told Click2Houston that he would close on the property in May. But the 3-month delay seems to have allowed time for the development to develop thematically beyond tractor rides and simulated shootouts: Prime Property’s Erin Mulvaney reports that there will be the previously unmentioned Big Rivers Water Park here too. The parks will be carved out of the heavily wooded acreage between U.S. 59 and Hwy. 242, near the proposed EarthQuest dino-resort. But the proximity doesn’t seem to present a conflict in the mind of East Montgomery County improvement prez Frank McCrady, reports Mulvaney: “He compared the two parks to Knott’s Berry Farm and Disney Land in California. In this scenario, Earth Quest would be Disney Land, and Grand Texas is Knott’s Berry.” [Prime Property; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Grand Texas
COMMENT OF THE DAY: ENJOYING THE FRUITS OF COMMUTING 
“I spend a lot of time and money commuting from Pearland. I have done so since 1990, so I’ve seen the average time double since I moved out there. It could be true that over 30 years or so I’ll spend as much or more money on gasoline and travel costs as I would have spent on a closer-in place. But you know what? I got a screaming deal on a house I really like. My house payments are way lower than in-town rent and I would never be able to qualify for an in-town mortgage. I have a car I love and I’m a maintenance freak who does a lot of my own mechanical work myself. I haven’t had a car payment in nine years. Anse’s 45 minutes each way? That’s me. That’s an hour and a half of very rewarding music listening, podcasts, audiobooks, you name it, enforced each day. And all that cultural stuff that is ‘easier’ close in? You know, restaurants, bars, movies, plays, concerts, festivals, etc.? It’s all doubled or more than doubled in price since the ’90s. In the very, very long term, like a normal lifespan, it might be cheaper to live closer. But on a day-to-day basis, for a lot of us, it’s simply not affordable, and if it were borderline affordable, it wouldn’t be worth it.” [marmer, commenting on Comment of the Day: The Lies Houston Drivers Tell Themselves] Illustration: Lulu
NEW INWOOD YES PREP SAYS NO TO NEXT-DOOR LOAN STORE 
Calculating interest must not be part of the curriculum: The Leader reports that this vacant Kroger in the shopping center at W. Tidwell and Antoine is being renovated into a YES Prep School, with an inaugural class of sixth-graders ready to file in this August. But ACE Cash Express, the former grocery store’s next-door neighbor at 5616 W. Tidwell, seems to have become suddenly unwelcome, as a YES Prep rep explains: “’We’re worried that the activity there isn’t really compatible with a school, and we have some definite safety concerns. We’re hoping we can get them to relocate. If they don’t, we think their presence could have a negative impact on our ability to have students stay late on campus.’†[The Leader] Photo: Michael Sudhalter
HOUSTON PHOTOGRAPHERS DABBLE IN DRIVE-BY SHOOTS 
You might have seen this old ’78 VW Bus parked outside a wedding or festival, but apparently it’s not one of those vans your teachers warned you about: A pair of Houston photographers restored it into a mobile photo booth that’s been shooting around town since April. Houstonia’s Annabel Massey writes that PhotoMoto costs to rent about as much as a studio that can’t pull right up to your party — and this one has a few other material advantages too: “[Owners Brittany and Austin Havican] have recently added an airbag suspension, enabling the van to lift up and down. Brittany calls this the ‘baller aspect.’ . . . They also stuffed the van with props for their (potentially drunk) clientele: sparkly tiaras, feathered head-pieces, hats, and wigs.” [Houstonia Magazine] Photo: PhotoMoto
Last week’s announcement by Chevron of the 50-story tower it plans to add to its blue-glass twins is just the latest development in the 77002. This map from the Downtown Management District shows projects that are recently completed, under construction, or in various states of planning and speculation. Those projects, denoted by purple and yellow on the map, include Skanska’s 34-story office tower that’s replacing the old Houston Club Building, Hines’s highrise on Main, the residential renovation of the Texaco Building, and the 5-story apartment complex near the under-construction SkyHouse apartment tower, among others. You can scroll through a complete legend for the map after the jump:
MONTROSE ART COLLECTIVE TO HAVE SEX CHANGE BEFORE REPLACING DOMY BOOKS 
Culturemap is reporting that Westheimer Rd. purveyors of fine comics and doodads Domy Books will be closing July 14. Apparently, building owner Dan Fergus (who also owns Brasil next door and the smaller building next to that that Space Montrose is trying to raise money to leave) has already secured a new tenant: Cody Ledvina, the painter of weiner dogs and poolside cats and co-founder of Montrose art and performance whatchamacallit the Joanna. And though it seems this relocating incarnation will be undergoing gender reassignment to become the Brandon, Ledvina says that that won’t alter the quality of what goes on there: “The programming, as far as the art goes, will be basically the exact same. Not any more refined or professional.” [Culturemap; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Larami Culbertson
TAKE A DAY OF INDEPENDENCE 
Some banners will be waving; some flags will glare; some, like this wee sprout of patriotism in Woodland Heights, will be in danger of being trodden upon by a terrier. Salute it — if you can find it! Because Swamplot won’t have anything else for you to do tomorrow. Check back on Friday for a few stories to tide you over until we’re back, full steam ahead, on Monday morning. Happy fireworks, everyone! Photo of Redan St. front yard: Allyn West
To form a power trio with the 2 curvaceous Enron hand-me-downs it has occupied since 2004, Chevron will be building a more boxy 50-story tower on the urban meadow left behind when Kenneth Franzheim’s Downtown YMCA came down in 2011. Chevron announced today that the HOK-designed building at 1600 Louisiana and Pease will provide 1.7 million sq. ft. of space, including training and conference rooms, more parking, and a cafeteria. This rendering suggests there will also be plinth-top common areas and — as though a subtle homage to what preceded it on this 85,000-sq.-ft. lot — a gym.
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE LIES HOUSTON DRIVERS TELL THEMSELVES 
“I’m convinced that everyone in Houston lies to themselves (and others) regarding their commute. Ask someone who works downtown and lives in Sugarland or the Woodlands what their commute is. ‘30 to 45 minutes, it’s not that bad’ will be their response. What a lie! It takes 10-20 minutes just to get from a downtown garage to a freeway most days. Perhaps they are only spending 30-45 minutes on the freeway (on a good day), but they are forgetting the 15 it took on get on the freeway and the 15-20 it takes to get from the freeway to their driveway. But its not just people from the burbs that lie about their commute. Talk to someone who lives in Montrose or the Heights and they’ll brag that their commute to downtown is only 10 minutes. Total crap! There are intersections that take longer than that to get through. People who live in Midtown might have a 10 minute commute, but that’s on a good day. So here’s the formula I use when calculating someone’s average commute. If they live inside the loop, double whatever commute time they give you. If they live outside the loop, multiply by 2.5. Try it out when talking to coworkers some time, you’ll find that its fairly accurate.” [Walt, commenting on Comment of the Day: How To Drum Up Support for Better Public Transportation in Houston, and Faster] Illustration: Lulu
This 3-bedroom mod and its carport on Cayton St. in Glenbrook Valley was designed by A. Carroll Brodnax and featured in the 1957 Parade of Homes. The few photos included in this new listing show the mid-century home in need of a bit of present-day attention — but the asking price is only $69,999.
A STANDOFF TO BUY HISD’S LAW ENFORCEMENT HS CAMPUS 
The 11-acre parcel for sale in Magnolia Grove where the High School for Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice stands has been the object of some poker-faced one-upmanship between two interested contenders: In one corner, you’ve got St. Thomas High School, whose campus is immediately south of here, and in the other you’ve got AV Dickson Street, a recently formed LLC named for the street the HISD magnet school stands on. The first round, reports the Leader’s Charlotte Aguilar, yielded a $40 million offer from little-known AV Dickson, with St. Thomas countering and raising it by $100. The next round will go off early next week. Aguilar adds that whoever buys the campus will be required to lease it back to HISD for the next 5 years, while a new spot is sought: “In keeping with a move by HISD to relocate its specialty high schools close to beneficial community resources –– the DeBakey High School for the Health Professions to the Texas Medical Center, the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts to the Theater District downtown –– a downtown location near police and sheriff’s headquarters and courthouses is being scouted.” [The Leader] Photo: HISD
A reader sends in this photo of the Oak Forest Mobil at Ella and 1201 W. 43rd St., the death sentence of which was published in the Daily Demolition Report last Thursday. Once the station’s torn down, reports the reader, a Berryhill Baja Grill will be built on this corner; that’s according to a post the reader saw on the members-only Oak Forest Homeowners Association Facebook page. A bit more evidence: A since-deleted brief that appeared in the Houston Chronicle in March 2012 notes that Berryhill had been granted a sales permit at this address.
Photo: Swamplot inbox
It’s got some of the cachet of that tony ’hood’s name and none of the fuss of its actual hard-and-fast boundaries: The River Oaks District is, at long last, going up. The $150 million in construction financing that California-based developer Oliver McMillan scored started being spent Monday morning.
And other new numbers are in: The 14-acre mixed-use and misnomered development will comprise about 252,000 sq. ft. of retail and 92,000 sq. ft. of office space as well as 279 places to live — including the 18 3-bedroom homes planned for the gated Bancroft Place community-within-a-district.
Of course, the demolition is imminent of the old 4444 Westheimer apartments whose residents were assisted late last year with their evictions by “move out concierges” provided by Oliver McMillan. But hey — why let something like that stand in the way of something like this?
Do make sure you have access to a good vat of hot molten zinc. And then you can follow the rest of the steps landscape architects SWA Group took to insert the 345-ft. Jackson Hill pedestrian bridge over Buffalo Bayou:
