The city of Pflugerville returned to typical year-round water conservation measures, which allow twice-a-week watering.

What’s new: Effective Aug. 10, residents can water twice per week before 10 a.m. or after 7 p.m.

Some additional outdoor water use is permitted outside the twice-per-week watering schedule, including watering recreational turf as needed. Residents may also use water hoses with a shutoff nozzle any day and time for watering plants, vegetable gardens and grass, and washing cars and other outdoor surfaces.

Additionally, residents and business owners may use drip irrigation any day and time, water plant material at a commercial nursery any day and time, and water immediately following lawn treatment.

Operating irrigation systems and fountains as needed for repair is also permitted, as is watering newly installed landscaping for the first 30 days.

The background: The city monitored customer water use for two weeks before lifting Stage 1 restrictions and shifting to year-round water conservation measures.

Daniel Amick, a personal trainer who worked as a software engineer for 10 years, is opening The Exercise Coach in Pflugerville on Sept. 2.

The details: The personal training business operates through an appointment-based model designed to provide individualized attention in a smaller, more private environment.

The studio features computerized machines instead of traditional free weights, and the equipment adjusts resistance based on each client’s strength output. Programs are personalized for adults of varying ages, fitness levels and health goals, and certified coaches supervise every session.

What’s special about it: The location will introduce the company’s newly expanded Strength Plus service platform, a wellness approach that combines personalized strength training, coach-assisted stretching, balance development and cognitive fitness integration.

The Exercise Coach operates over 225 locations nationwide.

• 14125 The Lakes Blvd., Ste. 101, Pflugerville

The interior renovation of IBC Bank in Austin, a Walmart renovation in Round Rock and a new 7 Brew in Leander are among the five most expensive projects filed with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation in the Austin metro this week.

1. IBC Bank Plaza interior renovations ($6 million): This project involves the partial interior finish-out of four levels in the building, including renovations of shared core spaces, elevator lobbies and common corridors on floors 6-13.

2. Pease Community Campus Phase 1 ($2.1 million): Pease Elementary School in downtown Austin is being transformed into the Pease Community Campus.

3. Walmart renovation ($1.3 million): This project includes an interior and exterior remodel of an existing Walmart in Round Rock.

4. Tim Hortons ($750,000): This project involves the renovation of an existing 3,107 square foot space to a Tim Hortons.

5. 7 Brew ($400,000): A new 7 Brew location is coming to Leander. The drive-thru coffee shop will be 510 square feet, with construction set to wrap up this fall.

Five-year-old Avry Jo Schapansky rang the bell at Dell Children's Blood and Cancer Center on Aug. 7, celebrating the end of her cancer treatment and marking her as the first patient in Central Texas to complete a stem cell transplant through the hospital's new program.

Why it matters: Before Dell Children's launched the program in August 2025, families needing this level of care had to travel outside Central Texas, often for a month or longer, to hospitals in Houston, Dallas or San Antonio.
Schapansky, diagnosed with high-risk Stage 4 neuroblastoma, underwent a roughly year-and-a-half treatment plan that included chemotherapy, surgery, tandem stem cell transplants and radiation.

Dr. Shannon Cohn, her pediatric oncologist, said the family's decision to stay reflected trust in a brand-new transplant team.

The program was made possible in part through a gift from the Shivers Cancer Foundation, which helped recruit Dr. Amir Mian to lead it, along with a partnership with nonprofit blood center We Are Blood. Dell Children's is now working toward offering CAR T-cell therapy and gene therapy in 2026.