Grapevine Gazette Vol. 1, No. 5
Boaters and Golfers to be Inconvenienced • Plans for REC Expansion Get Worked Out • Trustees Try to Reduce Transfer Chaos • Counterfeit Goods Seized at Colleyville Store
As you may know, the Grapevine Gazette is my second email newsletter. The first one is the Coppell Chronicle, which I have been publishing for more than four years. Those efforts were recognized on March 2, when I won the “Email Newsletters” category in the inaugural Texas Creator Awards. I was not able to make it to Waco for the ceremony, but a friend who did attend sent me this picture.
Everyone who voted has my gratitude, as does everyone who subscribes to either newsletter.
Boaters and Golfers to be Inconvenienced
An upcoming road project in Grapevine will bother a lot of boaters and golfers.
During their March 4 meeting, the Grapevine City Council approved a $3.5 million contract for the reconstruction of Fairway Drive. The main path from State Highway 26 to the Silver Lake Marina, Cowboys Golf Club, and the Grapevine Golf Course will be widened from two lanes to three.
When briefing the council, Director of Public Works Bryan Beck took a good news/bad news approach.
Good news: “A welcome byproduct of the project is that the roadway will be constructed to TxDOT’s paving standards, which are robust and will reduce maintenance efforts going forward.”
Bad news: “Unfortunately, our right of way is too narrow to construct a bypass to allow for through traffic. As such, the contract allows for full closure of the roadway.”
Check out this detour plan, which Beck said takes around six minutes during off-peak hours:
“I assume we have a vigorous communication strategy for all those mad golfers,” Council Member Duff O’Dell said. Beck said that assumption was correct; message boards advising the public of Fairway’s closure will go up well in advance of the start of construction.
Beck said the project will begin on June 2, immediately after the Grapevine Golf Course hosts the Texas Women’s Open tournament, and it should last six months. The work will include the construction of a single-lane roundabout where Fairway meets Marina Drive.
“The new roundabout’s gonna make it so much safer,” Council Member Paul Slechta said.
Speaking of the roundabout, I assume Mayor Pro Tem Darlene Freed did not intend to make a pun when she said this: “Communication is really gonna matter, because it’s a long roundabout way to get to Cowboys and to the Grapevine Golf Course,” Slechta reminded her to not forget about the marina, and Freed replied, “And the marina. Ugh. You’re gonna have boat people complaining too.”
The Fairway Drive project will be covered by a grant from the North Central Texas Council of Governments. Coincidentally, the Colleyville City Council on March 4 also approved a road project that will be paid for by another government entity: a $13 million reconstruction of Cheek-Sparger Road, from Heritage Avenue to Bedford Road, that will be covered by Tarrant County bond funds.
The rest of this edition is for paid subscribers only. Free subscribers won’t get to find out which Grapevine-Colleyville ISD trustee cracked up her peers with a comment about spankings.
Plans for REC Expansion Get Worked Out
A three-phase expansion of The REC of Grapevine would cost more than $14 million, but the city could knock 10 percent off that price by tackling all three phases at once.