Construction on a medical and office center called Spanish Oaks will be finished this summer, located northwest of the intersection of East Whitestone and Ronald Reagan boulevards.

On Dec. 4 several Spanish Oaks tenants attended a ceremonial ground breaking, including physicians from Cedar Park Pediatric & Family Medicine and optometrist Dr. Dina Miller. Ron Evans, principal with Huffman Builders, said the project officially broke ground Nov. 9.

Other tenants on the site will include Dental Salon General Dentistry and Texan Allergy Clinic. An office of Huffman Builders will also relocate from Vista Ridge Boulevard to the site, Evans said.

More lease negotiations are underway and the complete project could include additional medical offices, such as for a chiropractor and plastic surgeon, and related uses such as a day spa, he said. Other uses such as insurance or investment offices could also open later, he said.

Spanish Oaks includes about seven acres and ten buildings totaling 60,000 square feet, an unusually large development investment for the Pflugerville-based builder, Evans said.

“Our normal model is that we’ll pre-sell or pre-lease our projects,” Evans said. “Normally a project like this would be [on] an acre or two. When Cedar Park Pediatric said, ‘Yeah, we really want to be on this site,’ we had to [ask], ‘Can we fund a project [in which] we’ve got to buy seven acres and put in $3.5 million [worth of] infrastructure? … We would not have done it had we had the kind of faith we have in Cedar Park, [Whitestone] and the Ronald Reagan corridor.”

Reagan is the site of several new housing projects between East Whitestone in Cedar Park and SH 29 in Georgetown, such as The Reserve at Caballo Ranch, which is located north of Spanish Oaks.

“All the houses that are going in north of us, and of course the retail will follow,” Evans said.

Miller said she will likely open her new optometry practice in May along with an optical shop that will offer unique brands of eyeglass frames. She said she considered leasing a location on North Vista Ridge but found the Spanish Oaks location preferable for a new office.

Cedar Park Pediatric will open its new office in June, moving from the current office location on North Vista Ridge, said Dr. Cameron King with the practice.

“As we needed to expand, we were looking at the areas out here, and we saw the homes that were coming in and we saw the need for medical services out this way,” King said. “With our added [staffers] there may be some additional resources we’re able to offer at the new space.”

Evans said drivers on Ronald Reagan will be able to access the plaza using new turn lanes.

A new road will allow rear access to Spanish Oaks, and will run between the development and a new neighborhood behind Wal-Mart to connect directly to East Whitestone, he said.