Memphis Orion’s steamy vision of Denver includes state-of-the-art saunas and cold plunges, salt scrubs, solariums, and towel-whipping “aufgussing” rituals.

For now, however, the amenities for his new business are limited to a steel-frame trailer behind a gutted industrial building. His custom-built, solar-powered mobile sauna, or Cobacita, fits a little over a dozen people on its wooden benches. That’s a far cry from from the hundreds Orion envisions inside his $27 million Coba Bathhouse project just a few feet away.

“I’m a connoisseur of the world of bathhouses, and I love the different technologies emerging around the world for it,” said Orion, the CEO of Coba. “The modern bathhouse is taking these traditional (forms) and updating them and bringing them to together for people who are moving away from bars and alcohol being the center of social life.”

Consisting of three buildings connected by gardens and outdoor seating areas, Coba — a combination of Colorado and bathhouse — is a concept of extreme, immersive proportions backed by veterans of the art and entertainment worlds. When it’s finished in 2027, it will sit across from the Auraria Campus on West Colfax Avenue in Denver, just south of Domo Japanese restaurant in the La Alma neighborhood.

Orion sees it employing 90 to 100 people and fitting about 400 guests at any one time. If all goes well, its founders believe it will draw roughly 300,000 people per year.

Day passes will cost $50 to $75, with $220 monthly memberships, although prices are preliminary. It’s about the cost of a casual dinner out, chief strategy officer Adam Lerner said, and arguably a value for a theme park’s-worth of wellness attractions. Lush urban gardens, tea ceremonies, wood-burning firepits, steam rituals like aufgussing (a towel-whipping, dancing group experience) and group-soaking pools are on the menu.

Coba’s buildings, including a former asphalt factory that lacks electricity or running water, are, for now, a staging area and proving ground still in need of permits, excavators and carpenters before they can match the elaborate renderings Orion and his partners have been floating to investors.

The project is slated to cost about $27 million, Orion said, with $3.5 million of that going toward the land purchase. He received a $526,200 state tax credit, since the project will include a thermal energy network, with an 800-foot-deep geothermal well planned for underneath the parking lot. The technology will use the consistent temperature deep underground to draw and disperse heat and cold as part of Coba’s electricity-hungry infrastructure.

Orion’s confident the “landmark” bathhouse will draw Denverites who are hungry for new experiences. In this case, that’s an upscale version of downregulation, a.k.a. chilling and steaming one’s way to relaxation, happiness and social well-being.

Orion, an industrial engineering and renovation expert, is surrounded by a pool of expertise. His co-founder in Coba, and the company’s chief commercial officer, is Jon Medina, a designer and producer who has worked with Meow Wolf, AEG Presents and Outside Magazine. Also from Meow Wolf: Coba’s chief financial officer Carl Christensen, the former co-CEO and chief financial officer of Meow Wolf. That immersive-entertainment company just happens to have an outpost about a mile away from Coba.

Chief strategy officer Lerner formerly led the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver. Meow Wolf co-founder Vince Kadlubek, architect Paul Andersen and others continue to advise on the project. The balance of art and culture veterans should ensure that Coba has a strong cultural appeal, its founders believe, with an emphasis on memorable experiences.

“We wanted to take the mundane and make it more adventurous,” Medina said, citing the “rain room,” where water follows people as they walk through it (a nicer version, perhaps, of the cartoon raincloud that follows around someone in a bad mood).

Coba’s layout is designed to circulate guests through the environments until they find their comfort zone(s). There’s a giant cold plunge pool that fits about 30 people — and one with even colder temps that fits 6 to 10. There’s the 60-seater room called the Ritual Sauna, water massages, a dark and silent sauna meant for solo introversion, floating pools, a rooftop garden and rentable “thermal suites.”

Renderings of the finished Coba look like a psychedelic hall of justice, albeit with Art Deco arches replaced by wavy roof lines. They conceal not just internal wellness features but also a café, space for musical performances and workshops, and lockers and common areas.

“Here the idea is to create something that maybe draws from history, but is not a direct reference to it,” architect Andersen said. “This is something very different, even otherworldly.”

Coba’s success may turn on how transported its guests feel, since it’s being pitched as a respite from stress and an excuse to put down your phone and bond with neighbors.

“We wanted to create a place that has this combination of feeling connected to nature but also modern life,” Lerner said. “Because this is not a retreat. This is actually a place that is integrated into your weekly routine. The kind of place you go to four times a month. Which is why a bathhouse differentiates itself from, say, a spa, which is a luxury indulgence.”

Lerner first met Orion at the ritualistic, art-driven Burning Man Festival in Nevada, and has maintained a friendship that dovetailed into the one-acre Coba project. Their connections are coming in handy as they hold small sessions and continue to raise funds for construction. They even recruited Denver Mayor Mike Johnston and Zach Neumeyer, the chairman of Sage Hospitality, to make remarks on their Jan. 22 “civic preview.”

Coba has the potential to outlast fads in biohacking and contrast therapy meant to tame and train the body, said Denver journalist and author Scott Carney. He’s written extensively on how the body can be conditioned to extreme environments, and his Jan. 22 visit to Coba convinced him of its pure intentions.

“There are a few other contrast therapy spots that have popped up around Denver, from mobile saunas and river jumps at the Golden library, to the sauna/plunge combos at Nurture and Archipelago, as well as SWTHZ on Tennyson,” he wrote via email. “But they are all smaller and … more specifically health-oriented. People go there for their quick hot and cold fix and then move on.”

Coba may endure because it’s social, he said, instead of just service-oriented.

Or as Coba’s founders write in their 27-page investor pitch: “Bring a swimsuit if you’d like to participate. Dress is casual. The person next to you may be in swimwear.”

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Bad air quality has unfortunately become a familiar issue in Colorado. At a few points last year, Denver’s skyline was completely blanketed with smoke, whether from wildfires in the state or nearby areas, as well as other sources.

Back in 2019, Denver launched a program called Love My Air. In its simplest form, it rates air quality as good, moderate, or hazardous. It’s a tool that lets people in the Denver area look up air quality in real time and decide how they’ll spend time outdoors.

Across the city, little boxes provide important information.

“We measure a couple of different pollutants you see up here,” said Ephraim Milton, a coordinator with the Love My Air program. “Ozone is a big one here in Colorado. PM2.5 is very common.”

Real-time information on air quality and how it affects different individuals is gathered through a network of 80 sensors, a combination of the program’s sensors and the state’s.

“It’s just very hyperlocal,” said Milton. “I mean, you go to the weather app and that, yeah, sure, that’ll tell you the general, you know, air quality for the area. But you go here to ours, and it’s definitely going to be more local.”

The program has expanded over the years and is now in Jefferson and Adams Counties, with sensors across the state and even into Wisconsin. 

“They think they have six sensors in Milwaukee,” said Milton. “They’re really great partners.”

Inner City Health, a non-profit providing healthcare to underserved individuals, is a partner here in Denver.

“The technology that they’re providing affords us the ability to inform our patients and the community at large [that] today may be a good day to go outside and exercise, and today may actually be of danger,” said Charles Gilford III, the non-profit’s CEO.  “Because we have folks who have asthma or COPD or different conditions that pose a risk to their safety and to their well-being.”

They have an interactive kiosk in their waiting room, but hope the program continues to evolve.

“To send a text message to our patient base and give them updates and say, ‘Hey, just as a heads up, we saw you the other day and today would be a good day to take that walk,” said Gilford. “What are the other iterations of this technology that folks can have? How can we make sure that in a society where everything is competing for our attention, we can just be that one little nudge to give people good information while they’re going about their lives, and not just in the clinic?”

This tool can also be useful in the event of a fire or nearby construction, for example. Love My Air hosts community workshops focused on education, in addition to their online resources, and the information is also used for policy and rulemaking across the state. They plan on adding multiple healthcare partners in 2026 and hope to continue expanding their reach.