Scandvik Hotels Plans $40M Nordic Spa Hotel in Chaska, MN
Scandvik Hotels is redeveloping Chaska's Oak Ridge Hotel into a 130 room Scandinavian inspired spa destination with thermal pools beside McKnight Lake.
RUKAIYA KADIWAL 
On a wooded property beside McKnight Lake, thirty minutes southwest of downtown Minneapolis, an aging conference hotel is about to become something its original builders never imagined. The Oak Ridge Hotel and Conference Center, a modest three star property that has hosted business retreats and wedding parties for years, is the site of a planned transformation into a Scandinavian inspired wellness destination. Behind the project is Scandvik Hotels, a Canadian developer that has spent the past several years building a name in North America around outdoor thermal pools, saunas, and quiet design.
The Minneapolis and St. Paul Business Journal reported on August 13, 2026 that the company plans a forty million dollar redevelopment of the existing property at 1 Oak Ridge Drive in Chaska, turning it into a 130 room hotel and spa complex. The plan includes outdoor thermal bathing pools and saunas, a concept the company calls Nordic spa hospitality, built around slow movement between hot and cold water rather than the fast paced amenities of a typical hotel spa.
Why Scandvik Hotels Chaska Matters to the Region
Suburban hotel redevelopment rarely draws much attention outside the trade press, yet this one carries weight for a specific reason. Chaska already competes for weekend travelers against destinations across Minnesota, and a Nordic spa on the scale being proposed would give the southwest metro a wellness anchor it currently lacks. Guests would no longer need to drive north for a thermal bathing experience. They could find one a short trip from the airport instead.
Scandvik Hotels has pursued a similar strategy before. The company previously announced a boutique wellness hotel and Nordic spa on the edge of Saskatoon, describing it at the time as the first project of its kind in that province. Company president Travis Batting has spoken publicly about how these developments aim to bring wellness value to the communities that host them, framing each new property as both a business venture and a piece of local infrastructure. That pattern, of pairing a wellness concept with an underused or aging property, appears to be repeating itself in Chaska.
A Site With Its Own History
The Oak Ridge property is not an empty lot waiting for a first building. It sits on roughly 130 acres of meadow and woodland trail, with an entrance of floor to ceiling glass overlooking the lake it borders. The existing hotel has operated for years with two bars, a coffee shop, a spa, and banquet space used for conferences and weddings, the kind of amenities that made it a dependable if unremarkable stop for business travelers passing through the Twin Cities suburbs.
Redeveloping a working hotel is a different challenge than building on raw land. It means phased construction, existing staff and bookings to manage, and a brand transition that guests will notice in real time. Neither the Business Journal report nor Scandvik Hotels has yet detailed a construction timeline or opening date for the Chaska property, and the full scope of the plan remains behind a subscriber paywall at the time of this writing.
What a Nordic Spa Concept Actually Involves
Scandvik Hotels describes its brand promise around three ideas: calm, connection, and measurable wellness. The company's own materials describe Nordic simplicity and natural materials intended to quiet the mind, hot and cold therapies drawn from Nordic spa tradition, and outdoor spaces built around what it calls air, water, and nature. Whether that language translates into a functioning 130 room hotel in a Minnesota suburb is now a question for the construction and permitting process rather than a marketing document.
The broader hospitality industry has been moving in this direction for several years, as wellness tourism grows from a niche offering into a standard expectation at upper tier properties. Hotel groups nationwide continue to add wellness focused amenities and expand their portfolios to meet that demand, a trend visible in coverage of HHM Hotels' recent expansion through its Wurzak Hotel Capital partnership, which shows how quickly management companies are growing their footprints to capture shifting traveler priorities.
An Open Question for Chaska
Local reaction to the announcement has not yet been widely reported, and Chaska officials have not issued public comment beyond what appeared in the initial Business Journal story. Nearby hospitality history in the region has been mixed. A neighboring suburb, Shakopee, recently ordered a hotel closed, a reminder that not every project in the area's hospitality sector succeeds on its own terms. Whether the Nordic spa concept finds a lasting audience in Chaska will depend on execution as much as ambition.
What is clear for now is the scale of intent. A forty million dollar investment in a property that already exists, rather than a ground up build, suggests a company confident enough in a location to bet on transformation over replacement. For a lake that has spent decades framing a modest conference hotel, that is no small shift.
Learn more at Scandvik Hotels' official website.
