Sweathouz Signs Lease for Second Maryland Location in Gaithersburg

A cold plunge tub, an infrared sauna, and a Vitamin C shower, all locked inside a room booked entirely to you for 60 minutes: Sweathouz signed a lease to bring that format to Gaithersburg's Kentlands on April 3, 2026, confirming a second Maryland location less than a year after the brand's North Bethesda debut. No opening date for the Kentlands studio has been announced.

The Pike & Rose location, at 11564 Old Georgetown Road in North Bethesda, opened in April 2025 and gave the mid-Atlantic market its first look at the Sweathouz model: a 2,888-square-foot studio with 10 private contrast therapy suites and a dedicated red light therapy room. Owner Brenna Dorsey operates the studio, which sits next to Forbright Bank inside the Pike & Rose mixed-use district. Each private suite offers an infrared sauna, cold plunge, and Vitamin C shower in a self-contained room, eliminating the communal plunge queue and shared locker area that keeps many first-timers out of conventional cold-water facilities.

Pricing at existing Sweathouz locations runs $40 for an introductory 60-minute session and around $70 for a standard single session. Memberships, valid at any Sweathouz studio nationwide, start at $149 per month for eight sessions or $179 per month for unlimited access, with the company indicating that unlimited rates will climb to $249 per month after a founding-member window closes at each new opening.

For anyone still running the numbers on whether to book or build, the private-suite model reshapes the math:

At eight sessions per month on the membership tier, the break-even against a $3,000 branded tub lands at roughly 20 months, before accounting for filtration, water treatment, and the energy draw of running a home unit year-round.

The Kentlands location fills a clear geographic gap. The mixed-use district sits at the center of the I-270 corridor with abundant surface parking and a natural catchment that includes Germantown and upper-county Frederick commuters, residents who currently face a 25-plus-mile drive to reach the North Bethesda studio. The upcoming Kentlands studio will mark the company's second Maryland location, following its debut at Pike & Rose a little over a year ago.

Sweathouz operates more than 50 and growing studios open nationwide, with a model that pairs infrared sauna buildouts with private plunge suites in suburban retail corridors. Whether the Gaithersburg location opens in 2026 or early 2027 will depend on buildout timelines, but landing a lease in the Kentlands confirms that contrast therapy, at the private-suite price point, has established a durable foothold in the Maryland suburbs.