Mill Woods' new wellness village redefines how Albertans access care
Lakewood is a 12-acre health campus designed to ease pressure on Grey Nuns Hospital — shifting focus from emergency care to integrated community wellness.
In the heart of Mill Woods, the Grey Nuns Community Hospital is straining under the weight of a growing population. The facility sees 75,000 emergency visits per year in a space designed for 25,000. This is not a problem that can be fixed with more beds; it needs a new vision for how health care integrates into daily life.
That vision is Lakewood, a new health campus taking shape on 12 acres of southeast Edmonton. It's built on the Covenant Wellness Community model — a movement that transforms how Albertans access care by placing integrated health and social support at the heart of community life. Alberta's first community-based, one-stop wellness village is now open to the public.
"We like to say that Covenant Wellness communities don't replace hospitals, the model just makes them work," says Covenant Health CEO Patrick Dumelie. Lakewood is no different, helping the hospital go above and beyond when it comes to patient care in a way that is new for the organization.
The site itself carries history. The 12 acres once held MacEwan University's south campus, which closed in 2014. Covenant Health initially planned to repurpose the existing buildings to provide some health services. But constraints — suboptimal floor heights, elevator locations, surface parking lots — proved to be fundamental barriers. The partners realized they had to start from a "blank slate site approach."
That decision freed them to create something different: a horizontal mixed-use campus built as a village of distinct buildings rather than a monolithic structure. It encompasses a health centre, seniors' care, residential housing, and retail. Interestingly, MacEwan's original master plan, written in 1971, had envisioned a public service health care campus with seniors' residences for this site once the educational campus reached its functional end. Lakewood is fulfilling a vision born 55 years ago.
The first phase — a community health centre — is already open. Its 190,000 square feet includes outpatient clinics, diagnostic imaging, and wellness services. Services such as cardiac rehabilitation, diabetes care, and preadmission services have relocated from the hospital, freeing acute care beds for patients who need emergency and inpatient care. This shift in location frees up space at Grey Nuns for the sickest patients while allowing Covenant to generate sustainable revenue from the balance of uses on site.
The architecture reflects a commitment to healing. The campus is designed not to feel institutional. Warm wood tones visually connect exterior and interior, chosen for their calming effect. Natural light, comfort, and healing are the priorities. It's a place designed to feel like a community gathering space, not a typical hospital campus.
The financial model allows Covenant the opportunity to scale this vision across Alberta, addressing the need for better health care through innovative development. The Covenant Wellness Community model invests in evidence-based services for seniors' care, primary care, and mental health care. It decreases unnecessary acute care use and allows smoother care transitions, while increasing community access.
For Edmonton, Lakewood represents a shift in how the city thinks about health. It's a bet that integrating wellness into daily community life — rather than waiting for emergencies — serves residents better. And it's working: the existing community health centre is already open, processing the patient load that was overwhelming Grey Nuns.