LAVERKIN — Ground was broken for the much-anticipated Zion Canyon Hot Springs resort in LaVerkin Monday morning. Local civic leaders, water managers and others involved with the project gathered to commemorate the moment by turning dirt for the $60 million resort that is estimated to be ready for business by the fall of 2025.

“We’re really excited about bringing this amenity to the community and the visitors that come to Zion (National Park) every year and can’t wait for this facility to be open and show people what we’re about,” Christian Henny, president and general manager of the incoming resort, told reporters.

The resort will feature 53 bodies of water that include natural hot spring pools, barrel saunas, plunge pools, a fresh water pool and a whirlpool. These water features will be separated between family and adult use. The resort will also feature food and beverage options, retail offerings and lockers for visitors.

The new resort has been in the works for many years ever since the Pah Tempe Hot Spring resort was closed by the Washington County Water Conservancy District in 2013 due to environmental and safety concerns related to the original resort being located in a flood plain and canyon prone to rockfalls.

Despite those issues, the public still wanted access to the hot springs that had been a local recreation site since the late 1800s, according the Washington County Historical Society.

“When the water district got a lot of responses from people wanting to go down there and enjoy the hot springs, we started looking at how we could make that happen,” said Zach Renstrom, general manager of the Washington County Water Conservancy District.

The water district sent out requests for proposals from various groups interested in doing something recreation-related with the hot springs and eventually settled on WorldSprings. The group operates the Iron Mountain Hot Springs resort in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, which served as an example of that WorldSprings wanted to build around the LaVerkin hot springs.

WorldSprings officials met with members of the water district, elected officials in LaVerkin and Hurricane and others to hash out contracts and concerns. They also met with the LaVerkin Hot Springs Recreation Opportunity Exploratory Committee in June 2019. It was announced in August 2022 that plans for the resort were moving forward with 15 acres being contracted for the project, with 3 acres of those being leased from the water district.

Hashing out contracts, addressing local concerns and the interruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic were among the big challenges the project faced in getting off the ground, Renstrom said.

“This is finally the day when we’ve worked through all of that paperwork and all of the things we needed to do, to where we actually break ground and they can start building,” Renstrom said.

LaVerkin Mayor Kelly Wilson said he was excited for the day as the resort is anticipated to become a great economic benefit to the city and county overall as an estimated 5.5 million people travel through Hurricane and LaVerkin annually on their way to Zion National Park.

“We’re excited to see them come, and it’s going to be a big thing for LaVerkin and Washington County,” Wilson said. “This is going to be good for the city and all the businesses that are a part of LaVerkin and Hurricane as well.”

The hot springs – which has been called the Pah Tempe hot springs, Sulphur Springs, LaVerkin hot springs and Dixie hot springs throughout the years – produces approximately 5,000 gallons of water per minute — more than 7 million gallons daily, according to the Washington County Water Conservancy District website.

Water that flows from the spring is around 107 degrees and also dumps over 100,000 tons of salt into the Virgin River annually. It is considered the second largest source of salt contamination for the Colorado River, Renstrom said.

The resort will be taking water from the hot spring through a half-mile-long pipeline to the facility proper where it will be temperature controlled to between 90 and 104 degrees and treated to eliminate the sulfurous, rotten-egg smell common to hot springs. Mineral water taken from the hot spring for the resort’s pools will also ultimately pass through the system and return to the Virgin River.

“That water goes right back to the river,” Henny said, adding that they won’t be adding chemicals to the pools and will be asking people to shower beforehand.

“By removing those things we’re actually improving the water quality of what will be returning to the Virgin River,” he said.

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