JERSEY CITY, NJ —
September 10, 2026 |
By DailyHudson Staff
CULTR Athletic Club will bring a sauna, cold plunge, and café to Radio Lofts — but not until early 2027.
Picture this: it’s a Tuesday night in January, you just finished a long day, and instead of driving to a separate gym, then a separate sauna, then a separate smoothie place, you walk downstairs. That’s the future RXR and a local fitness founder are betting on at Radio Lofts in Jersey City’s SoHo West neighborhood.
CULTR Athletic Club, a 12,000-square-foot fitness and wellness concept, has signed a lease for a ground-floor space at Radio Lofts, part of the Hudson House Collection. The club is targeting an opening in the first quarter of 2027. It’ll combine a traditional gym, boutique-style fitness classes, recovery amenities, and a café all under one roof.
About 6,000 square feet will be dedicated to open gym and training space with strength and fitness equipment. Members will also get group classes including strength training, HIIT, yoga, and mat Pilates. There’s even a dedicated infrared hot yoga and Pilates studio planned.
The other half is where things get interesting. Roughly 3,500 square feet will be a wellness and recovery area with a 50-person sauna, a 20-person steam room, a hot pool, and a cold plunge. An on-site café will serve coffee, protein drinks, and smoothies.
Who’s Behind It
This isn’t CULTR’s first rodeo in the neighborhood. Founder Richie Van Houten has been running CULTR Fight Club at Hudson House East for the past three years. That location isn’t going anywhere — it’ll keep focusing on boxing, kickboxing, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, Muay Thai, and other martial arts training.
Van Houten is a New Jersey native, a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt, a boxing and MMA coach, and a former undefeated professional MMA fighter. He’s spent more than a decade in the fitness and martial arts world and previously owned UFC Gym Hoboken.
“With CULTR Athletic Club, we saw an opportunity to create something that doesn’t really exist here — a place where you can get a great workout, take a class, use high-level equipment and then recover with a sauna, steam or cold plunge, all in one environment,” Van Houten said in a press release.
The Bigger Picture
Radio Lofts is one of three residential buildings within the Hudson House Collection, along with Hudson House East and Hudson House West. The development includes 829 residences and about 48,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space, with businesses centered around fitness, wellness, dining, pet care, beauty, childcare, and other neighborhood services.
SoHo West, where all this is happening, has been quietly transforming over the past few years. Once a stretch of warehouses and light industrial buildings, it’s now home to thousands of new residents and a growing cluster of businesses catering to them. For families and young professionals who’ve moved into these buildings, the appeal of a gym-and-recovery club downstairs is obvious — especially in a region where parking is tight and time is tighter.
What It Means for Hudson County
If you live in or near the Hudson House buildings, this likely means shorter commutes to your workout and easier access to recovery amenities that used to require a trip into Manhattan or a membership at a boutique studio. For anyone who’s ever paid separately for a gym, a yoga studio, and a sauna, the one-stop model could also save money — though pricing hasn’t been announced yet.
For the broader Jersey City fitness scene, CULTR’s arrival adds another player to an increasingly crowded field. From boutique cycling studios to martial arts gyms to the new SweatHouz sauna and cold plunge spot opening in Hoboken, Hudson County residents have more options than ever. That competition usually means better services and sometimes better prices. It also means the neighborhood around Radio Lofts is becoming a genuine destination, not just a place to sleep.
One thing to keep in mind: this is a 2027 opening. If you’re packing lunches for the kids right now or mapping out your winter workout routine, this won’t change your life next month. But it’s a signal of where the neighborhood is headed.
What People Are Saying
Van Houten’s pitch is straightforward: convenience and quality in one place. “A place where you can get a great workout, take a class, use high-level equipment and then recover with a sauna, steam or cold plunge, all in one environment,” he said.
RXR, the developer behind Radio Lofts, hasn’t released additional details about pricing, membership structure, or exact opening dates beyond the first-quarter 2027 target. The company has been steadily filling the building’s retail spaces with a mix of fitness, dining, and service businesses, betting that residents want amenities within walking distance.
Community reaction so far has been positive on social media, with some residents noting that the recovery amenities — especially the cold plunge and sauna — fill a gap in the local market. Others have raised questions about cost, given that similar clubs in Manhattan often charge premium rates.
What to Watch For
Keep an eye on CULTR’s social media and the Radio Lofts website for membership pricing and pre-opening deals, which are common for new fitness concepts. If you’re curious about the Fight Club side, that location at Hudson House East is open now and offers a preview of the kind of programming Van Houten tends to build. And if you’re a local business owner in the area, the arrival of a major anchor tenant usually means more foot traffic — and more competition.
The gym won’t open tomorrow. But the direction of SoHo West is becoming clear, one lease at a time.
Source: Hoboken Girl