🌱 Women's Health Tower Coming To Austin + IHeartCountry Festival

Gabriela Couvillion
Updated ·4 min read

Good day, neighbors! Gabriela Couvillion here with today's Austin Daily.

First, today's weather:

Sunshine and some clouds. High: 56 Low: 39.

Here are the top stories in Austin today:

  1. "Ascension Seton is investing $320 million to expand its Austin campus," and bringing a new tower "dedicated to women's health care." The facility will include "28 inpatient beds, a dedicated OB-GYN emergency department, private NICU rooms, C-section suites and a teaching center." Andy Davis, president and CEO of Ascension Texas said, “In serving our community for 120 years, Ascension Seton is committed to creating an experience that is designed for and by women. This expansion enables us to deliver personalized and compassionate care for our patients and creates the best place to practice medicine for our physician partners." The new building will be located on the corner of 34th Street and Medical Parkway and construction is set to start in fall 2022, with an opening date in fall 2024. For more details, visit: (KVUE.com)

  2. Saddle Up, a Texas icehouse located in a 1950s bungalow at 1309 Rosewood Ave. in Austin, offers "grocery essentials in a number of creative ways: house-cured deli meats like city ham and mortadella, local produce, baker Kelly Hill’s breads and pastries, and, most importantly, shelves of chilly beer and wine for retail or on-site indulgence." Owner Tom Micklethwait said, “I thought it would be boring to go from a barbecue trailer to just a [brick-and-mortar] barbecue restaurant." He added, “I wanted to be a bigger part of the community, where you could have a cool small-town grocery store alongside a place to get lunch: kind of like how places like Smitty’s Market [in Lockhart] got started.” For more on this great hangout tradition spot, visit: (Austin Monthly)

  3. The 2022 iHeartCountry Festival is coming to Austin this spring! The event will be held on Saturday, May 7, at Austin's new Moody Center and will feature performances by Carrie Underwood, Thomas Rhett, the Zac Brown Band, Maren Morris, Scotty McCreery and more! The event, hosted by iHeartMedia's Bobby Bones, will be broadcast live at local iHeartMedia's country stations and on iHeartRadio.com on Saturday, May 7 at 7 p.m. CT. (KVUE.com)

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Today in Austin:

  • Virtual Zumba Free Online Class by Stronger Austin. (6 a.m.)

  • Donate Blood and Get a Free Small Sub from Thundercloud at We Are Blood (8 a.m.)

  • The New Code, Pools, And You Live Webinar. (11 a.m.)

  • “Unsilenced” Movie Screening in Austin at Cinemark 20 and XD. (2:10 p.m.)

  • VINCINT at Empire Control Room & Garage. (7 p.m.)

  • "Back to the Future" at Doc's Drive in Theatre. (8:50 p.m.)

From my notebook:

  • "Since we announced our changes to the start of the spring semester at The University of Texas at Austin, our COVID-19 executive committee has been closely monitoring conditions on campus and in the surrounding area to determine when we would be able to return safely to our full in-person activities and operations. Multiple data points, including campus case counts and Proactive Community Testing (PCT) positivity rates, indicate the situation on and around our campus is improving, and therefore we will resume all in-person classes and campus operations Jan. 31, as planned." (Facebook)

  • "Starting in 2023 for international students and in 2024 in the U.S., the new digital SAT will shrink from three hours to two, include shorter reading passages and allow students to use a calculator on the math section, via NPR." (Facebook)

  • "We're only a few months away from the Texas primary, but what's at stake in 2022? Find out at 6:30 p.m. on Feb. 8 when Texas Tribune's James Barragan and Austin American-Statesman's Madlin Mekelburg join our friends at Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum's #LBJFutureForum for a virtual conversation! RSVP here." (Facebook)

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Alrighty, you're all good for today! See you all tomorrow for your next update.

— Gabriela Couvillion

About me: I'm an active mom of two grown sons and lifelong San Antonio resident. I received a BA in Spanish from the University of Texas at San Antonio, and in my free time I immerse myself in creative writing. Thanks for reading Patch, and feel free to reach out if you have any news and happenings you think may appeal to our readers!

This article originally appeared on the Austin Patch