L-R: Dave Payne, a CoBa investor; Jon Medina, CoBa’s chief creative officer; and Adam Lerner, CoBa’s chief strategy officer, inside the Cobacita mobile sauna. (Max Scheinblum/BusinessDen)
Memphis Orion thinks tubs and saunas will translate into community.
“My heart is to reclaim Kennedy’s Camelot,” he said, evoking the 1960s optimism around John F. Kennedy’s presidency. “We’ve lost something there, the idea of bringing people together, vying together as a township.”
Orion hopes to bring that type of camaraderie to Denver with the opening of Colorado Bathhouse, or CoBa. The network of pools, saunas and lounges across two buildings and a plant-packed courtyard is planned for 1339 Osage St. in Denver’s Lincoln Park neighborhood.
Orion, and his team bought the 1-acre parcel for $3.2 million last year, according to public records, and have yet to break ground on the project. They are targeting an early 2027 opening.
An investor deck puts the price tag at around $20 million for the project, although Orion called that figure an estimate. He said the business has raised $2 million so far and also received a $500,000 grant from the state of Colorado because of geothermal energy that will be used to power part of the bathhouse.
Memphis Orion (Courtesy CoBa)
The investor deck says memberships will cost $220 a month and one-time visits will cost $40 to $65 depending on the time, although Orion said there could be wiggle room there too.
“It’s intended to be a repeatable event…not a luxury event that you can only afford once a month on special occasions,” Orion, CoBa’s CEO said. “So we’re pricing it like a nice dinner out.”
Orion said he has a background in real estate development, founded a process automation company and has been to bathhouses in 50 countries.
“I thought I was the most avid bathhouser I knew until I met Jon,” Orion said, referring to Jon Medina, CoBa’s chief creative officer.
The two met in summer 2024 while working on a project near City Park, Orion said. CoBa had already been brewing in his head, but after he met Medina, a designer who has consulted on projects for the likes of Meow Wolf and Live Nation, the project got more serious.
While the city has smaller spas and Lake Steam, a nearly 100-year-old spa in the West Colfax neighborhood, Orion said the indoor-outdoor hybrid buildout of CoBa will make it unique.
“With a spa there’s one provider to one guest. A bathhouse is really like a park,” Orion said. “So as the utilization goes up, so does our margin and that’s because of the mechanical systems footprint.”
The front building of CoBa, which will have locker rooms and a café. (Max Scheinblum/BusinessDen)
Plans call for a 7,500-square-foot structure that will serve as an entryway to the bathhouse, with check-in, locker rooms and a café. Guests will exit into a lush area with seating, firepits and the like before approaching building two, which will have 13 different pools and saunas, including cold plunges and an arctic sauna that will have snowflakes coming down from the ceiling, Orion said.
Orion estimates that about half of people’s time at CoBa will be spent soaking and sweating and the other half will be spent recuperating in the gardens or café. Compared to a spa, bathhouses are meant to be a place where people spend hours instead of popping in for a service and heading out afterward.
“It’s almost like a playground of thermal experiences,” Orion said of CoBa. “You have people down-regulate and promote a sense of wonder and curiosity, almost a childlike-wonder to go through these things and be able to access more of what it means to be human more than going to a bar or a show.”
Orion said he looked for real estate near downtown to hopefully draw people before or after work, as well as convention center crowds. The spot on Osage Street is a former industrial property that’s south of the Auraria campus and adjacent to the Japanese restaurant Domo.
Orion and Adam Lerner, CoBa’s chief strategy officer, think younger generations are looking for new gathering spaces.
“Bars as we know them have peaked, we’re on the downside of that arc,” said Lerner, who was the director of the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver from 2009 through 2019. “People are looking for new places to connect and a big part of that is leisure and experience.”
The Cobacita mobile bathhouse is on site at 1339 Osage St. and is open to the public on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. (Max Scheinblum/BusinessDen)
CoBa’s other top exec is chief financial officer Carl Christensen, the former CFO and co-CEO of Meow Wolf.
In the meantime, CoBa is offering a stripped-down version of itself called “Cobacita,” which consists of a wood-fired sauna and cold plunges built on a trailer. It’s open to the public on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. and available to rent for events.
L-R: Dave Payne, a CoBa investor; Jon Medina, CoBa’s chief creative officer; and Adam Lerner, CoBa’s chief strategy officer, inside the Cobacita mobile sauna. (Max Scheinblum/BusinessDen)
Memphis Orion thinks tubs and saunas will translate into community.
“My heart is to reclaim Kennedy’s Camelot,” he said, evoking the 1960s optimism around John F. Kennedy’s presidency. “We’ve lost something there, the idea of bringing people together, vying together as a township.”
Orion hopes to bring that type of camaraderie to Denver with the opening of Colorado Bathhouse, or CoBa. The network of pools, saunas and lounges across two buildings and a plant-packed courtyard is planned for 1339 Osage St. in Denver’s Lincoln Park neighborhood.
Orion, and his team bought the 1-acre parcel for $3.2 million last year, according to public records, and have yet to break ground on the project. They are targeting an early 2027 opening.
An investor deck puts the price tag at around $20 million for the project, although Orion called that figure an estimate. He said the business has raised $2 million so far and also received a $500,000 grant from the state of Colorado because of geothermal energy that will be used to power part of the bathhouse.
Memphis Orion (Courtesy CoBa)
The investor deck says memberships will cost $220 a month and one-time visits will cost $40 to $65 depending on the time, although Orion said there could be wiggle room there too.
“It’s intended to be a repeatable event…not a luxury event that you can only afford once a month on special occasions,” Orion, CoBa’s CEO said. “So we’re pricing it like a nice dinner out.”
Orion said he has a background in real estate development, founded a process automation company and has been to bathhouses in 50 countries.
“I thought I was the most avid bathhouser I knew until I met Jon,” Orion said, referring to Jon Medina, CoBa’s chief creative officer.
The two met in summer 2024 while working on a project near City Park, Orion said. CoBa had already been brewing in his head, but after he met Medina, a designer who has consulted on projects for the likes of Meow Wolf and Live Nation, the project got more serious.
While the city has smaller spas and Lake Steam, a nearly 100-year-old spa in the West Colfax neighborhood, Orion said the indoor-outdoor hybrid buildout of CoBa will make it unique.
“With a spa there’s one provider to one guest. A bathhouse is really like a park,” Orion said. “So as the utilization goes up, so does our margin and that’s because of the mechanical systems footprint.”
The front building of CoBa, which will have locker rooms and a café. (Max Scheinblum/BusinessDen)
Plans call for a 7,500-square-foot structure that will serve as an entryway to the bathhouse, with check-in, locker rooms and a café. Guests will exit into a lush area with seating, firepits and the like before approaching building two, which will have 13 different pools and saunas, including cold plunges and an arctic sauna that will have snowflakes coming down from the ceiling, Orion said.
Orion estimates that about half of people’s time at CoBa will be spent soaking and sweating and the other half will be spent recuperating in the gardens or café. Compared to a spa, bathhouses are meant to be a place where people spend hours instead of popping in for a service and heading out afterward.
“It’s almost like a playground of thermal experiences,” Orion said of CoBa. “You have people down-regulate and promote a sense of wonder and curiosity, almost a childlike-wonder to go through these things and be able to access more of what it means to be human more than going to a bar or a show.”
Orion said he looked for real estate near downtown to hopefully draw people before or after work, as well as convention center crowds. The spot on Osage Street is a former industrial property that’s south of the Auraria campus and adjacent to the Japanese restaurant Domo.
Orion and Adam Lerner, CoBa’s chief strategy officer, think younger generations are looking for new gathering spaces.
“Bars as we know them have peaked, we’re on the downside of that arc,” said Lerner, who was the director of the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver from 2009 through 2019. “People are looking for new places to connect and a big part of that is leisure and experience.”
The Cobacita mobile bathhouse is on site at 1339 Osage St. and is open to the public on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. (Max Scheinblum/BusinessDen)
CoBa’s other top exec is chief financial officer Carl Christensen, the former CFO and co-CEO of Meow Wolf.
In the meantime, CoBa is offering a stripped-down version of itself called “Cobacita,” which consists of a wood-fired sauna and cold plunges built on a trailer. It’s open to the public on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. and available to rent for events.
