ATX-RRK: Impact 11/10/2025

Round Rock will contribute $46 million to the expansion of a water treatment plant to increase capacity for potable water to serve residents. 

This comes as city officials gave the go-ahead for a construction contract to nearly double its water treatment capacity from a shared facility as a member city in the Brushy Creek Regional Utility Authority. 

The details: At a Nov. 6 meeting, council approved a $97.6 million contract with Webber Waterworks for the construction of Phase 2A of the water treatment plant, with the city of Round Rock's portion being about $46 million.

The current treatment capacity of the water treatment facility, located in Cedar Park, is 41.9 million gallons per day. Once expanded, the facility will have the capacity to treat up to 64.2 million gallons per day, city documents show. 

The additional capacity will be split between member cities Cedar Park, Leander and Round Rock. 

Serenada Mental Health opened in October in the Teravista area near the border of Georgetown and Round Rock.

The details: The practice is led by Tabitha Ross, a board-certified psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner. She specializes in treating adults with depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder and more.

The clinic utilizes a holistic mental health approach, which includes diagnostics, therapy, lifestyle guidance and medication management. Treatments offered include Spravato, a nasal spray that targets treatment-resistant depression, and sublingual ketamine.

Check out the top trending Community Impact stories in the Austin metro from Nov. 3-7.

1. New high-rise height limit now in effect for downtown Austin

2. Austinites reject Proposition Q tax hike

3. New Indian grocery store in the works in Pflugerville

4. Lucky Claw Mania now open in Pflugerville

5. Austin ISD to hold off on 3 school closures, delay boundary changes

6. Pflugerville mayoral race heads to runoff; Coffman wins open council seat

The University of Texas at Austin opened a 10,000-square-foot laboratory facility in North Austin, UT Innovation Labs, to support emerging health care and life sciences companies.

The gist: The wet lab space for UT researchers and private sector tenants was first announced in 2023 and is now launching under UT's Discovery to Impact startup program. The new labs are meant to serve as an accelerator in the life science space as the sector goes through "expansive growth" in Central Texas, according to UT.

The campus at 12829 Parmer Ridge Drive, Austin, is one of several new Central Texas developments with lab space for life science tenants. It joins similar institutional facilities such as Austin Community College's Bioscience Incubator and planned Texas State University life science incubator in Round Rock.

Airports in Dallas and Houston are required to begin reducing flights and other operations by 4% on Nov. 7 in response to air traffic controller shortages caused by the federal government shutdown, transportation officials announced Nov. 6.

The details: The cuts will affect 40 "high impact airports" across the country, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation and the Federal Aviation Administration. The affected Texas airports include:

• Dallas Love Field (DAL)
• Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport (DFW)
• William P. Hobby Airport (HOU)
• George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH)