Arizona-based spa Miraval wants to bring a bit of the desert to the Upper East Side.
The luxury spa resort outside Tucson, which has hosted celebs like Oprah Winfrey, Jim Carrey and Janet Jackson, is in discussions to launch a condo project at River Terrace at 515 East 72nd Street, combining upscale living with meditation, mud wraps and massages, according to industry sources.
C & K Properties, David Werner and other investors bought the 41-story rental building in the summer of 2005, paying $363 million to the Macklowe Organization, and planned a condo conversion.
The new project will contain 360 units and be Miraval’s first project in the urban marketplace, though not its first foray into condos. Last year, the spa resort, whose owners include former AOL chairman Steve Case, announced it would begin selling villas at its Arizona resort priced between $700,000 and $1.5 million.
In the Upper East Side project, the property’s 16,000-square-foot outside garden will be the largest of its kind in New York, said a spa spokesman. It will include an 8,000-square-foot gym and basketball court, and residents will be offered services such as organic meal plans and access to a network of alternative healthcare healers.
In May, Canyon Ranch, another big-name spa resort based in Tucson, announced plans to build a 67-story tower in Chicago overlooking the Magnificent Mile, linking up with builder LR Development. The $450 million project, expected to break ground early next year, is Canyon Ranch’s first “urban lifestyle community,” with a 65,000-square-foot health and wellness center, 250 luxury condos and 125 hotel-condominium rooms. Doctors, therapists and other specialists from a local clinic are on call.
Canyon Ranch is also planning a project in Bethesda, Md., and looking at sites for additional projects, including in New York and Los Angeles, according to a story in the Arizona Daily Star.
Marquee brands like Miraval and Canyon Ranch are leading the boom in so-called “spa real estate,” said Susie Ellis, president of Spa Finder, a travel and marketing company that began tracking the category last year and that lists roughly 100 spa resorts with condo-type offerings in its database.
The success of Canyon Ranch Living-Miami Beach, first announced in 2003, is often cited as the project that demonstrated spa real estate’s economic viability.
That project was not a pure urban play, given its oceanfront location and seaside sun terraces — hardly the same as having the FDR Drive and East River out your window. But because Miraval and Canyon Ranch both have devoted followings, Ellis predicted fast sell-outs at the New York and Chicago projects.
Unit prices for the Miami residences range from $1.2 million to more than $9 million and are nearly 100 percent pre-sold, according to the developer, WSG Development.
Philip Wolman, a partner and managing member of WSG, said Canyon Ranch’s 430 traditional condo units and 150 condo-hotel units have fetched an average 30 percent premium. With such high returns, more spas are likely to jump into the real estate game.
“What happens to people who go to Canyon Ranch is they develop an emotional connection,” said Wolman, who is himself a 20-year Canyon Ranch devotee. “You say, ‘This place is great and if I can live like this all the time I know this would be better for me.'”
The spa residence trend started with hotels such as St. Regis, Ritz Carlton and Four Seasons and has now branched out to stand-alone spa brands taking front and center stage, said Bjorn Hanson, the head of PricewaterhouseCoopers’ hospitality division.
“It’s about the brand, as opposed to a developer coming along and making up the name,” Hanson said.
Prestige builders such as Turnberry, WCI Communities and the Related Companies have long offered “healthy living” residential amenities.
Related’s purchase in early 2006 of upscale fitness company Equinox — which also offers spa services and products — was driven, in part, by this realization, said David Wine, vice chairman of the Related Companies.
“Today, there are so many real estate projects and so many projects that can confuse the buyers that buyers want a product they can believe, that they can understand and trust,” he said.
Still, spa brands such as Miraval and Canyon Ranch offer a far more holistic approach than fitness centers. Promoters are quick to mention that “spa living” covers everything from discovering and cultivating inner strength, for example, to full awareness thinking, mind-body workshops and the establishment of individual goals.
Local spa operators in New York contacted by The Real Deal say getting into real estate may not be such a bad idea.
“One of the questions we always get from clients is ‘can I stay here?’ and ‘is there a membership I can join?'” said a spokesperson at Cornelia Day Resort, a highly regarded Manhattan day spa that is considering attaching its name to a real estate project.
Indeed, a full 61 percent of respondents in a survey last year of Luxury Spa Finder Magazine readers found spa-goers would be interested in living in a community built around a spa facility.
Robert Henry of Robert D. Henry Architects, who is leading a team of designers and architects on the Canyon Ranch Living — Chicago project, said his goal is to create a sanctuary to both insulate residents from urban tensions while also absorbing the surrounding cultural milieu.
“It won’t be based upon Canyon Ranch’s Tucson earthy-crunchy aesthetic,” he said. “Our work is site and cultural specific.”