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Officials at Riverside Casino & Golf Resort, realizing that the people they would want to hire to run the facility's spa already owned spas of their own, decided to partner with a longtime Iowa City business.

Dan Kehl, the casino's CEO, said at a news conference Thursday that Zender's Salon and Spa, which has operated in Iowa City for 25 years, will provide spa services, including skin care and facial services, massage therapy, hand and foot care, and salon services.

Along with six individual treatment rooms, there are separate locker room, whirlpool and sauna areas for men and women. There also is a VIP couple's suite for couples or friends.

"There is not a couple's suite like this in our area," Zender's owner Donna Zender said.

Zender said her company had been looking at several different destination spa locations the past two years and was excited to become part of the Riverside casino opportunity.

"I am truly excited for the resort to open the spa. It is a true experience like no other in Iowa," Zender said.

The $2.1 million spa will be able to provide services that it cannot at the Iowa City facility. "It truly is an opportunity," she said.

Some spa services also will be available in visitors' hotel rooms.

"What we're creating here is the first destination resort in Iowa," Kehl said. "This is what gaming was supposed to be in Iowa."

Kehl said resort officials interviewed a couple companies before partnering with Zender's.

The Riverside Casino & Golf Resort originally was proposed as an $80 million project with 600 employees. It is now a $140 million project that will employ 900 to 950 people, 45 percent of whom are from Washington County and 35 percent from Johnson County.

Three weeks to the day before the casino's Aug. 31 opening, mattresses, and the flat-screen televisions, are now in the top floor hotel rooms. The fourth and fifth floors of the five-floor hotel should be complete this week, Kehl said.

But some parts of the resort, including the spa, will be on a tight schedule to open on time.

"That's going to be a nip and tuck all the way," Kehl said about the spa opening.

The spa will have a 20-person staff and is in the process of hiring, Zender said.