GREAT BIG SPA
Harmony home to new facility
When Canada’s largest spa opens its doors in two years’ time, guests will be able to heat up in saunas, take a cooling plunge in Harmony Lake and relax with a view of the sun setting over the Rockies.
Quebec-based spa developer Groupe Nordik and the co-developers of Harmony — Qualico Developments and Bordeaux Developments — announced plans Monday for the landmark spa at the discovery centre for the new lake community, just west of Calgary.
“Spas are a new trend,” said Martin Paquette, owner and CEO of Groupe Nordik, at the announcement. “With the facility we’re bringing here with Qualico, Bordeaux and partnering also with Travel Alberta, it will be an icon for Alberta, but I think it will also be a Canadian icon.”
The Harmony spa — Groupe Nordik’s fourth in Canada — represents an investment of more than $45 million, and is expected to create approximately 400 fulland part-time jobs. The deal encompasses 10 acres of waterfront, redrawing the village centre so the spa is oriented with a view of the Rocky Mountains and the lake.
To start, the spa is expected to draw between 300,000 and 400,000 visitors per year.
“We expect to grow by 15 to 20 per cent per year,” Paquette said, noting its Chelsea, Que., spa, which opened in 2005, is “still expanding.” Groupe Nordik also opened Thermea by Nordik Spa-nature in Winnipeg in 2015, and one in the Durham region of Ontario this year. It also has plans for a spa near Edmonton, as well.
Construction for the Harmony spa will start this summer, with a projected opening in 2022.
The investment is notable, says Thilo Kaufmann of Qualico Communities.
“(Groupe Nordik’s) capital investment on top of the land acquisition — which they will own 100 per cent of — is another $45 million, invested in Alberta in a market where people aren’t investing in Alberta right now. It’s pretty positive,” he said, adding that Groupe Nordik believes in partnering with local industries — farms, distilleries, craft breweries.
The spa in Harmony means much more than one new business
(Groupe Nordik’s) capital investment on top of the land acquisition … is another $45 million, invested in Alberta.
for Alberta, said Birol Fisekci of Bordeaux Developments.
“It’s an accelerator — it helps us feel good about something in this province going on that will attract both foreign tourism as well as local tourism. It allows Albertans to tell their story to our visitors and guests to this province,” he said. It further acts as a catalyst around which Harmony’s village centre can grow; it complements the experience of the Mickelson National Golf Course next door to Harmony; and it could possibly spur development of the planned business park.
Travel Alberta will work with Groupe Nordik to help attract visitors both nationally and internationally. “The ongoing development of new tourism products and experiences is essential to the continued growth of Alberta’s visitor economy,” said Shelley Grollmuss, vice-president of industry development for Travel Alberta.
“As the province embarks on an ambitious plan to grow tourism revenues to $20 billion by 2030, this project represents the kind of innovative thinking needed to spur infrastructure investment, community development and job creation, and help ensure Alberta is a sustainable, thriving destination where people want to live, work, play, visit, invest and learn,” she said.