Traffic impacts the most common concern over potential river valley spa

A image board displays the land lot, formerly home to Sandy Mactaggart, that Scandinave wants to build a thermal spa on. (Sean McClune / CTV News Edmonton)

The city and company behind a proposal for a thermal spa adjacent to Edmonton's river valley took questions about the project from Brander Gardens residents Tuesday night. 

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"It looks better than what I thought the possibilities were," Debby Ronden told CTV News Edmonton after the information session at the John Janzen Nature Centre. 

She and others at the meeting were concerned about increased traffic in their neighbourhood. 

"But they say they're going to handle that. So it looks good. I like their other projects they've built, so it's possibly a good thing," Ronden had concluded by the end of the evening. 

The land – formerly home to the local philanthropist and entrepreneur Sandy Mactaggart – is still owned by the University of Alberta, to whom it was gifted.

Stantec has applied for the site to be rezoned for commercial useon behalf of Scandinave Group, which has created similar spas in Whistler, Blue Mountain and Mont Tremblant.

Scandinave has an option to buy the land if the rezoning is approved. 

"I think in terms of what could happen on that land, it's really effective for taking advantage of the beauty of that specific property," another Brander Gardens resident, Kian Parseyan, commented, noting his appreciation of the fact Scandinave has promised to preserve the river valley's tree line. 

"A spa versus residential development? A spa wins, hands down. But how it's implemented, I think that's the key concern now."

Scandinave CEO Steve Arsenault said most of the public's feedback so far has been positive. 

Tuesday night, he tried to assuage traffic concerns by pointing out the spa would operate 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. and be most busy on weekends, and as such, its traffic would not coincide with the average commuting hours. 

"We've done our own study on that so we're confident in the level of traffic this would bring and it'd be very minimal and the current infrastructure allows for that traffic," he told CTV News Edmonton in an interview. 

According to a city planner, the feedback collected on Tuesday will be consolidated in a report to city council, who will ultimately decide to approve the rezoning application or not. As part of that process, administration could conduct a traffic impact assessment, as well. 

With files from CTV News Edmonton's Sean McClune