A growing need for its services has led Bowling Green’s Rivendell Behavioral Health Hospital to grow.

Rivendell, which provides psychiatric care and substance abuse treatment for children and adults, is planning to expand from its 48-acre campus at 1035 Porter Pike and open an outpatient facility on Natchez Trace Avenue near Lovers Lane.

“There’s definitely a growing need,” said Matt Ingram, Rivendell’s director of business development. “Since the (COVID-19) pandemic, we’ve seen an increased need among children, adolescents and adults.”

Ingram said Rivendell has seen an increase in patients needing treatment for anxiety, depression and suicide ideation as well as growth in its chemical dependency program.

Rivendell expanded its Porter Pike location in 2008, adding 53 beds in a $6 million construction project that brought the hospital to 125 beds.

These days, though, Ingram said Rivendell is “kinda capped on space.”

Building on at the Porter Pike location is problematic, Ingram said, so hospital management opted for opening an outpatient site at 200 Natchez Trace Avenue, next to SKY Pediatric Dentistry.

The hospital is leasing about 3,600 square feet in a building near a growing medical community, but Ingram said the space “needed a buildout.”

According to a building permit filed with the city of Bowling Green, Rivendell will spend about $345,000 to renovate the space that is owned by Waldron Holdings LLC.

Ingram said the outpatient facility “will support our inpatient program and give our patients the ability to step down and have services before going back into the community.”

Being located along the busy Lovers Lane corridor will be an asset, Ingram said.

“The No. 1 thing is to make it as accessible as possible,” he said. “We thought this was a good location and close enough to our hospital for our team to go back and forth.”

Ingram expects the renovation to take a few months, and he projects that the outpatient facility will be open in late fall or in early 2023.

“We’re excited to be able to open it and support the community,” he said.