ound Rock-based Bluebonnet Trails Community Services will occupy about one-third of the third floor of Medical Office Building II by spring. The facility will provide services for adults and children, including play and behavioral therapies.[/caption]

Round Rock-based mental health services provider Bluebonnet Trails Community Services is opening its first western Williamson County location in Cedar Park.

By the spring Bluebonnet will move into a medical office building located on Cedar Park Regional Medical Center’s campus, located at 1401 Medical Parkway, Bldg. C, Cedar Park.

The outpatient facility will provide services for adults and early childhood intervention services for children ages newborn to 3 years; services for autism, such as play and behavioral therapies; counseling; psychiatric evaluations; and medication management, said Bluebonnet Executive Director Andrea Richardson. The facility will accept walk-ins as well as referrals from CPRMC.

“One of the reasons why this partnership with the hospital is so important to us is the stigma related to mental illness and to any disability services,” Richardson said. “We understand that [with] this partnership with a health care provider, we are able to mainstream behavioral health in a way we’ve never been able to before. If we do nothing else, [we are] just making sure that behavioral health and the access to [it] is open without that stigma attached to it.”

Richardson cited growth rates in the area as one reason for choosing the location. Throughout the past four years, Leander’s population has grown 30 percent, and Cedar Park’s population has grown by 23 percent. Williamson County’s population growth rate throughout the past four years has been 15 percent, she said.

CPRMC CEO Brad Holland said the hospital’s growing campus also played a role in Bluebonnet’s decision for its Cedar Park location. In the spring, a pediatric medical office building will open on its campus, a project spearheaded by Seton Healthcare Family and CPRMC, which will occupy most of the first floor of the three-story, 75,000-square-foot building. Services will include pediatric specialty and urgent care services as well as family diagnostic imaging services. Pediatric specialists at the facility will include neurologists, orthopedists, cardiologists and general surgeons, he said. The office building could be complete in January or February.

“It’s a good strategic move on the part of [Bluebonnet] because they are first to market, and that’s a powerful place to be,” Holland said.

Bluebonnet will have about 25 staff members and is expected to serve at least 5,000 patients within the first year of opening, Richardson said, and Bluebonnet expects to serve more patients annually in future years.

Bluebonnet will occupy a bit less than 6,500 square feet on the third floor, which has 20,944 square feet total, and renovations could begin at the end of November, Richardson said. However plans are still being finalized, and other third-floor tenants have not yet been selected.

The opening of the Cedar Park location is meant to relieve Bluebonnet’s Round Rock campus, which is located on North Georgetown Street, she said.

“We [have] so many families crossing over the I-35 corridor,” she said. “For safety reasons as well as ease of access, we want to be on this side of the county as well.”