Don’t call it a spa: 100-person sauna Bathhouse coming to Minneapolis’ North Loop

A huge bathhouse — not totally unlike the kind Roman emperors waded in many centuries ago — is arriving to Minneapolis’ North Loop neighborhood in 2027.

Aptly named Bathhouse, this facility will take up what’s currently a parking lot at the corner of N. 3rd Street and N. 8th Avenue. A roughly 100-foot-long pool will sit on its roof, and the facility will include three indoor pools, a steam room and multiple saunas, including one that can hold 100 people.

Don’t get it wrong, though, co-founder Travis Talmadge insists this is not a spa.

“It’s social. It’s fun,” Talmadge said. “It’s not about this kind of performative relaxation — or kind of cucumber-eyes thing — that is [associated] with spa culture."

Bathhouse will have a massage program, but Talmadge said it’s less like a “fancy back rub” and more based on sports physical therapy practices.

The bathhouse is a part of a wave of wellness facilities sweeping into the Twin Cities, where saunas have long been popular thanks to the area’s Nordic roots. Another communal bath facility called Watershed Spa is already in operation in northeast Minneapolis, just a few minutes’ drive away from Bathhouse’s address. There’s also Relaxing Healthy Center in Bloomington, an Asian-inspired, 24-hour spa, sauna, restaurant and massage parlor.

There are several other spalike businesses in or near the North Loop, from facial bar Face Foundrié to the spa at the Four Seasons Hotel. But Bathhouse could pull further investment into the downtown neighborhood, which has evolved from mostly parking lots and vacant warehouses to become a lively district packed with some of the region’s most expensive housing. Many bars and restaurants, a climbing gym, luxury minigolf and more make it a trendy entertainment destination.

Bathhouse, which opened the first of two New York City locations in 2019, has plans to expand in the coming year to Philadelphia, New Jersey and Chicago. The company primarily relies on a la carte sessions — currently priced from $40 to $100, depending on the day and time at its New York spots — to make money. It also sells packs including several sessions and memberships for the “die-hards,” Talmadge said.

Minnesota developer Ned Abdul‘s Swervo Development, which renovated the Minneapolis Armory, is building the 45,000-square-foot complex. Talmadge described the task as “intense.”

In ancient times without domestic plumbing, people used bathhouses for hygiene, Talmadge said. More recently, they were popular among gay men in the U.S. as a place to socialize, until public pressure and laws led to their closures in the 1980s during the AIDs crisis.

Bathhouses are still common in countries like Russia and Japan, and Talmadge said it’s time for the U.S. to join. He uses saunas five times per week as part of contrast therapy, or cycling between hot and cold baths. The founders thought perhaps they could “do this better, and more importantly, make this relevant for a modern American, kind of peak-performance-oriented market,” Talmadge said.

Recovery is the mission of Bathhouse, Talmadge said. It doesn’t allow customers to bring their phones into the pool or sauna. The world is full of stimuli, Talmadge said, so the facility encourages the practice of “actually being present.”