Credit: Therme Group

There won’t be anywhere in this country that has the facilities we have in terms of slides, pools, thermal pools, cryotherapy, snow rooms, heat rooms – like 30 saunas
– Professor David Russell, CEO of Therme UK

Therme Manchester’s 28-acre development, which will include interconnected glass pavilions that measure 65,000sq m, will be the largest bathing and wellbeing attraction in the world once complete, according to prof David Russell, CEO of Therme UK. 

The site will also have 60,000sq m of surrounding external space that will be developed as community gardens.

Even compared to future sites in the Therme Group pipeline all over the world, the Manchester complex will remain the largest.

In addition to its UK sites, Therme Group has new sites at various stages of development in Toronto, Canada; Washington and Dallas, US; Seoul, Korea; Singapore; Dubai, UAE; Frankfurt, Germany.

Strategic locations

The strategic positioning of future Therme Group wellbeing attractions coming to the UK is based on a 90:90 vision. Russell says this means he wants 90 per cent of the UK population to be within a 90-minute drive of a Therme site. 

He said 13.1 million people are within a 90-minute drive of the Manchester site at Trafford City and the nearby Trafford Centre and adjacent Trafford Palazzo already attract more than 30 million visitors a year.

Therme Group has also updated the cost of the project to £500 million (US$635 million, €585 million). It has risen from £175 million (US$228.7 million, €205.7 million) when the plan was first announced in 2019. The resort is on track to open late 2028.

In 2023 we reported that an independent study by PwC projected the resort will contribute over £4.5 billion (US$5.7 billion, €5.3 billion) to the UK economy – with most of the positive impact in the Greater Manchester area.

In order to meet the 90:90 vision, Russell explained there will be around five Therme Group sites to cover the UK. The next locations under consideration include Glasgow, Cardiff or Bristol, London and possibly Birmingham.  

The next facility to open will be in Glasgow, UK. It has a catchment area of 5.6 million people within a 90-minute drive, according to Therme Group’s calculations. This site will be roughly the same size as the Bucharest property, at 30,000sq ft and will sit on a piece of land between the Kelvin and Clyde rivers, opposite the Transport Museum. The development is at a very early stage in terms of land acquisition and Therme UK is working on the heads of terms for a long lease in that location.

Design

Sustainability is integral to Therme Manchester’s creation and operation. The property will be built to LEED Platinum standard, around 92 per cent of the water is recycled and circular 3D printing technology will deliver various architectural features such as cladding, staircase balustrades, acoustic panels, walls and furniture.

As in Bucharest, the building’s temperature will sit at 32 degrees, without condensation on the walls and the palm trees will have their own individual feeds for nutrients, water and air. The property will have extensive PV solar panels as well as ground source and air source heat pumps. Jonathan Lingham, chief commercial officer of Therme UK, told Spa Business “The thermal mass of the site is significant. Once that’s up to temperature, it’s actually very efficient, which is another reason why we’ll be open seven days a week.”

The site will be home to 5,100sq m of pools in total, roughly the equivalent of five Olympic swimming pools, broken up across the journey. 

The water will be cleaned using proprietary technology developed by Therme Group’s co-owning company A-Heat Allied Heat Exchange Technology AG. A device that uses ozone technology, which turns oxygen O2 into O3, breaks down contaminants in the water at a molecular level before it changes back into O2 again. The thorough cleaning process means Therme Group uses the minimum amount of chlorine required by law at each of its sites. 

The property is split into three roughly equal zones Play, Relax and Restore. Play is for families and will have 18 water slides, a wave machine, indoor and outdoor pools plus cabanas, sun loungers and music. Relax will be for over-16s and will have a large indoor-outdoor lagoon with what Therme Group is calling Europe’s largest swim-up bar. Restore will feature various wellbeing technologies often found in spas, such as saunas, steamrooms, a snow room and cryotherapy.

The earthworks and piling are complete and the next phase will be the addition of steel and glass throughout 2027.

Operations

The average dwell time at a Therme facility is 4.5 hours, which Russell expected to be similar in Manchester. “People can do four hours of shopping next-door and come to us for four hours.”

The facility is expected to operate between 10:00am and 10:00pm seven days a week. 

Russell calculates that the maximum capacity is 2.8 million people annually. Bucharest, by contrast, welcomes 1.7 million guests annually. At its peak, Manchester is expected to have 6,500-7,000 people on site at any one time. 

To avoid the traditional construction of that many lockers, the company has developed a robotic arm that takes away and stores guests’ belongings in a space-efficient way and retrieves them, controlled by RFID wristbands. There will be a series of these arms in action when the site opens. 

Russell added: “This was driven by the desire to have a better customer experience in terms of finding a locker and the system means we can save about 34 per cent of space.”

This is the prototype robotic locker system in action at Therme Bucharest:

Guests will navigate the property and clock up their bill for food and other paid-for experiences using their RFID wristbands on scanners.

The plan includes 1,600 car parking spaces and Therme Group is in talks with the local council to improve transport links. “If we can find ways of proving that we don’t need car parks, I’d love it – to encourage people to use public transport. We’ll also be doing ticketing policies that encourage this in terms of concessions. If you buy your ticket to come via transport links from town, you’ll get a discounted rate when you’re here.”

In terms of pricing, the median price for one person to visit for four or five hours will cost around £48 (US$61, €56). The ticketing system will have options for children, adults, at peak and off-peak times. There will be concession prices for seniors, under-16s and underprivileged families.

Russell talked about flipping the traditional spa model on its head, swapping high prices and a low volume of clients to serve a high volume of people at lower prices. “There won’t be anywhere in this country that has the facilities we have in terms of slides, pools, thermal pools, cryotherapy, snow rooms, heat rooms – like 30 saunas. We want to do it through volume and that’s brave because it’s a challenge. But it’s a leap of faith.”

Therme Manchester will require guests to wear swimwear, alongside Bucharest and all future sites around the world. Existing German properties will continue to offer a textile-free experience in some areas, such as saunas.

 Recruitment

Lingham added that the Manchester site will need to recruit for nearly 1,000 roles over the next 2.5 years to cover 24 functions. “If we can train them ourselves, even better,” Lingham said. “We’re working with the colleges and the universities. There’s a myriad of roles, from cleaning and lifeguarding to maintaining and managing the £90 million (US$114 million, €105 million) facility that cleans and heats the water. Some of these will be very technical roles and others could come in as an apprentice.”

The site will provide massage services and will need between 40 and 50 therapists, as well as 30 sauna masters. By contrast, Bucharest has roughly 20 sauna masters.

In response to a question about how these particular roles would be filled, when the rest of the industry is facing a similar struggle, Lingham said that in addition to working with existing education providers, the group would look for people with budding sauna master talent at existing entertainment attractions, such as The Edinburgh Fringe. 

Comparison with existing Therme Group sites

The 62,000sq m Therme Erding, which opened in 1999, was the first built by architect and entrepreneur Joseph Wund. It was later acquired by Therme Group.

Joseph Wund built three other sites in Germany (in Euskirchen, Therme Sinsheim and Therme Titisee-Neustadt), which were also recently acquired by Therme Group.

The group's most recent opening, Therme Bucharest, was built by Therme Group senior VP Stelian Iacob and chair Robert Hanea, who had spent time working alongside Joseph Wund. It opened in 2016 and measures 32,000sq m.

It has become Bucharest’s largest visitor attraction.

Read a recent review of an annual plant-focused festival Therme Bucharest hosted, which it expects to roll out to its sister sites in Germany.

Background

Therme Group is owned by the company’s chair, Robert Hanea, and German heat exchange company A-Heat Allied Heat Exchange Technology AG, which provides the technological infrastructure used to treat the group’s site’s water. Therme Horizons, the €1 billion (US$1.1 billion, £855 million) joint venture between CVC Capital Partners and Therme Group, was created last year to fund the expansion of the Therme concept. Other smaller, undisclosed regional investors are involved in the development of each site.