The historic Palm House Museum will reopen with a community event in November, the Old Settlers Association announced Oct. 2.

What's happening: The association will hold a grand reopening Nov. 7 at 10 a.m. on the Old Settlers Association Grounds. An open house will follow, running until noon.

The museum will include artifacts such as furniture and other household items from the time period in which it was inhabited. It underwent a restoration this summer, funded by hotel occupancy taxes.

The backstory: The original two-room house was built in 1873 on Palm Farm, which is now the Old Settlers Association property.

The Palm family donated the home to the Round Rock Chamber, and the house was moved to downtown in 1976, serving as a Palm House Museum and space for chamber operations, according to the city. It was relocated back to the association's property in 2024.

The Palm House is considered a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark.

• 3300 E. Palm Valley Blvd., Round Rock

The number of homes sold remained static or declined year over year in August in all four Round Rock-area ZIP codes, according to data from Unlock MLS.

A data center in Hutto, additions to the Williamson County Regional Animal Shelter and a Dick’s Sporting Goods in Bastrop are among the five most expensive projects filed with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation in the Austin metro this week.

1. Skybox Hutto 4 ($550 million): This project involves site improvements and construction of a new core and shell building with a future use as a data center.

2. Williamson County Regional Animal Shelter addition ($14 million): New additions are coming to the Williamson County Regional Animal Shelter, including first floor kennels second floor office space.

3. Menchaca Apartments ($13 million): This project involves the construction of a clubhouse for apartments in Austin.

4. Dick's Sporting Goods ($11 million): A 55,000-square-foot store is coming to Bastrop.

5. Gringo's Tex-Mex ($5 million): The Tex-Mex franchise is coming to Kyle.

Austinites will now have access to information on local transportation projects that could impact commutes through a mobile app. City leaders celebrated the official launch of CTXGO on Oct. 1, a new tool from the Construction Partnership Program.

Some context: Participating CPP agencies include the city of Austin, Austin Transit Partnership, CapMetro, the Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority, the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization and the Texas Department of Transportation.

How it works: CTXGO operates as both a free mobile app and website. Users can select from a variety of map layers to see real-time roadway information, including traffic congestion, incidents such as stalled or abandoned vehicles, and what electronic roadway message signs are currently displaying such as estimated travel times. The work zone map displays lane closures with expected start and end dates and times.

The local impact: Austin Mobility officials said more than $20 billion in transportation and infrastructure projects across multiple agencies are planned in Central Texas over the next several years.

The average annual insurance premium for a Texas homeowner rose 79% in six years, from less than $2,000 in 2020 to more than $3,500 this year, Texas Insurance Commissioner Amanda Crawford told state lawmakers Oct. 5.

The overview: The rise in home insurance costs has been caused by severe weather, high inflationary costs impacting home repairs and "the concentration of risk" in the insurance market, Crawford said.

Experts said hardening homes against severe weather could help reduce expensive losses from disasters, resulting in lower insurance premiums.

Zooming in: Proponents of home-hardening incentives have pointed to their success in other Gulf Coast states, such as Alabama. Texas consumer advocacy groups and the insurance industry backed proposals to create a similar grant program last year, according to previous Community Impact reporting, but those measures did not pass.

"Resilience helps homeowners long before it shows up in an insurance bill because a stronger home holds up better when the storm comes," said Chelsea Stallings, a regional vice president for the National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies.