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

“It looks better than 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 neighborhood.

“But they say they’re going to take care of it. So it looks good. I like their other projects that they’ve built, so maybe that’s a good thing,” Ronden concluded at the end evening.

The land – once home to local philanthropist and entrepreneur Sandy Mactaggart – is still owned and donated by the University of Alberta.

Stantec asked the site will be rezoned for commercial purposeson behalf of Groupe Scandinave, which has created similar spas in Whistler, Blue Mountain and Mont Tremblant.

Scandinave has the option to purchase the land if the rezoning is approved.

“I think in terms of what could happen on this land, it’s really effective in taking advantage of the beauty of this specific property,” commented another Brander Gardens resident, Kian Parseyan, noting his appreciation of the fact that Scandinavian promised to preserve the treeline of the river valley.

“A spa versus a residential development? A spa wins, hands down. But how it’s implemented, I think that’s the main concern now.”

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

On Tuesday evening, he tried to ease traffic concerns by pointing out that the spa would operate from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. and would be busier on weekends and therefore its traffic would not coincide with average commute times .

“We’ve done our own study on this, so we’re confident in the level of traffic that would cause and it would be very minimal and the current infrastructure allows for that traffic,” he told CTV News Edmonton in a interview.

According to a city planner, the comments collected Tuesday will be consolidated in a report to the city council, which will ultimately decide whether or not to approve the rezoning request. As part of this process, the administration could also conduct a traffic impact assessment.

With files from Sean McClune of CTV News Edmonton