GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas — Editor's note: This article was originally published in the Dallas Business Journal.
Grand Prairie is set to get its own Topgolf, which will mark the Dallas-based company’s fifth location in North Texas. It is expected to open near the end of 2025.
Grand Prairie City Council approved site plans for the sports entertainment venue at their regularly held meeting on June 4.
"Our entertainment corridor just got a hole-in-one more exciting," the city’s economic development team said in a Facebook post on June 5.
Now, officials are reflecting on the long and interesting road to this point. A few years ago, Topgolf said it wasn't quite ready to build in the area, so council in 2022 approved site plans for a location of BigShots Golf in Grand Prairie. But California-based Topgolf Callaway Brands Corp. (NYSE: MODG), the parent company of Dallas-based Topgolf International Inc., acquired BigShots for about $29 million in November 2023.
"We didn’t know for a while what Topgolf was going to do," Grand Prairie Mayor Ron Jensen said in an interview. "Were they going to pull out? Did they just want to get rid of competition or did they want to stay and build?"
It turns out it was the latter. Soon after buying BigShots, Topgolf decided to close on the land that had been selected in the city and proceed with plans for a location.
The Topgolf location will be on a little more than 11 acres within the EpicCentral entertainment district, off State Highway 161 and north of I-20. The new venue will be south of Ikea and adjacent to the upcoming Bass Pro Shop and Andretti’s Indoor Karting & Games. These businesses are expected to open within the next month, Jensen said.
The 172-acre EpicCentral opened in 2018 with an indoor waterpark, an arcade and food. It has since expanded to include food and pickleball venue Chicken N Pickle, an indoor adventure park and several restaurants, including Vidorra, Loop 9 BBQ and the Finch.
Topgolf "just fits right in with what we're trying to do," Jensen said, adding nothing else like it exists in Grand Prairie. The venue will also boost EpicCentral's staycation potential for families, along with two nearby hotels that opened in fall 2023.
Construction on the golf driving range is slated to begin at the end of 2024. This location is expected to have 80 bays, with 40 on each floor, Jensen said. Each bay can accommodate around six players, and a maximum of eight people can be in a bay, according to Topgolf's website — or a crowd of more than 600 at full capacity, not counting those in the bar or restaurant.
In addition to driving ranges, Topgolf offers plenty of food and drink options, making it a popular spot for birthday parties, work events and bachelor and bachelorette parties.
The company was launched in 2000 in the English town of Watford, northwest of London. It expanded to the United States in 2005 with a location in Alexandria, Virginia. The company, which shifted its headquarters to Dallas from Chicago in 2012, now operates more than 80 locations across the U.S. In North Texas, Topgolf currently has four locations in Dallas, Fort Worth, The Colony and Allen.
"It provides us with a missing link for golf ... that we will have for entertainment," Jensen said.
Jensen, who was elected mayor in 2013, said his city has seen significant economic development. But many still saw it as lacking retail and food options before EpicCentral came onto the scene, he said.
"I was tired of us having to drive to Arlington and Dallas to do everything — eat or play," he said. "Now we're finally getting things where people can stay and play and have fun in our own city."
