WASHINGTON (National Association of Realtors) – Texas has eight of the nation’s 15 fastest-growing cities and six of the top seven, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

From April 1, 2010, to July 1, 2011, Round Rock had the second-highest rate of population change in the country, with 4.8 percent growth. Following Round Rock were Austin, Plano, McKinney and Frisco, each with 3.8 percent. Denton was seventh with 3.4 percent; McAllen and Carrollton claimed the 13th and 14th spots with 3 percent each.

Coming in first was New Orleans with nearly 5 percent growth. 

"These numbers provide further evidence of a continuation of the trend of rapid population growth in Texas we observed between the 2000 and 2010 censuses," said Census Bureau Director Robert Groves.

To compile its list, the Census Bureau evaluated population increases in 2011 for cities with more than 100,000 residents.

HOUSTON (GlobeSt.com) – DCT Industrial Trust Inc., which recently acquired Claymoore Center, has purchased the 111,000-sf 7425 Pinemont.

The Class-A facility in the Pinemont Business Center was built in 2001. It is 98 percent occupied.

Pinchal Family LP was the seller. Boyd Commercial helped negotiate the transaction.

COLLEGE STATION (Real Estate Center) – Falling behind on property taxes can be financially devastating to homeowners. On this week's Real Estate Red Zone podcast, Research Economist Dr. Charles Gilliland talks about options available to struggling homeowners, and which options to approach with caution.

Also, Bryan Pope and Edie Craig cover the latest real estate news from Houston, Dallas, Austin, Abilene, Baytown, Pearland, McAllen and Port Lavaca.

You can listen to the free podcast from your computer by going to recenter.tamu.edu/podcast and clicking the “play” button beneath each episode. To subscribe, click on the RSS feed found on the podcast page. You can also subscribe through iTunes and download each episode to your iPod.

AUSTIN (Texas Association of Realtors) – What water rights do commercial property owners have? Find out by attending the Texas Association of Realtors' (TAR) commercial water-rights webinar July 19.

The free one-hour webinar will provide:

• an overview of Texas water laws, plus how a recent Texas Supreme Court ruling affects those laws;
• practical insights from construction and water-rights expert Charles Porter; and
• an update on what's expected to happen regarding water rights during the next state legislative session from TAR Vice President of Governmental Affairs Mark Lehman.

The webinar begins at 10 a.m. CDT and is open to TAR members and nonmembers. Click here to register.

KATY (Houston Business Journal) – The Johnson Development Corp. is launching a new 200-acre residential community that will include 500 single-family homes.

Willow Creek Farms will be on the south side of I-10 at Pederson Rd., between Katy Mills Mall and the Rooms To Go distribution center.

Lot development begins this quarter. Home sites will be ready by the first of next year.

Phase-one homes will be built by Arizona-based Meritage Homes and Houston-based Westin Homes. The first homes are slated to be finished in second quarter 2013. Prices will range from the upper $100,000s to the upper $200,000s.

FORT WORTH (Fort Worth Star-Telegram) – Hillwood Properties has announced plans to build two speculative Class-A office buildings at its 900-acre Alliance Town Center.

The firm expects one building to be under construction by the end of the year.

According to Hillwood Senior Vice President Bill Burton, one of the buildings will be two or three stories and have between 100,000 and 150,000 sf. This building will be north of Heritage Trace Pkwy. and east of I-35W.

The other building is planned south of Heritage Trace. It will be 50,000 to 70,000 sf.

HOUSTON (GlobeSt.com) – Frontier Equity and Amstar Advisors LLC have acquired the 285,682-sf Kirkwood Tower III in the Energy Corridor submarket.

Located at 11757 Katy Freeway, the Class-A office building is 72 percent leased. The new owners plan to build out speculative office suites with new interior finishes.

According to the Harris Central Assessment District, Equastone Kirkwood LP operated the building before the transaction, and the building was valued at $20.7 million.

HFF assisted in raising equity for the transaction. PM Realty Group will handle leasing, while Holt Lunsford Commercial will manage the property.

McALLEN (gawker.com) – Last year, NewsTalk Texas covered a story from The Monitor about an old Walmart building in McAllen that was finding new life as the city's public library.

Now for chapter two.

According to online news source Gawker.com, registration by first-time patrons went up by 23 percent in the library's first month of operation.

Not only that, but the library's interior — constructed by Minneapolis-based Meyer, Scherer & Rockcastle Ltd. — was recently named winner of the International Interior Design Association's 2012 Library Interior Design Competition.

WAXAHACHIE (Texas Tribune) – This week you've been hearing a lot about the Higgs boson (a.k.a. "the God particle"), the subatomic particle that some physicists think will help them understand the origin of the universe.

A particle matching the Higgs boson was found at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) near Geneva, Switzerland, this week. Imagine if that same discovery had been made just 30 miles south of Dallas in Waxahachie.

It could have happened.

Construction began on the Superconducting Super Collider (SSC) in Waxahachie in 1991. According to experts who worked on it, the SSC would have been bigger than the LHC and capable of producing higher energy. In short, it would have been the most powerful collider in the world.

"The SSC had a big head-start on the [LHC]," said Steven Weinberg, a Nobel Price-winning physicist at the University of Texas. "It would have been completed a decade earlier, and since it had three times the energy, things would have gone faster."

Instead, congress pulled the plug on the project in 1993 after spending $2 billion on it.

As for the site, the Texas Tribune reports that it's now being turned into a chemical blending facility.