Steam curls off the water while Manhattan fills the horizon from the George Washington Bridge nearly to the southern tip of the island.
The view would be impressive from a rooftop bar, but here you are floating in a heated infinity pool more than 100 feet above River Road, wearing a swimsuit instead of fighting for a table.
This is SoJo Spa Club, a towering wellness retreat on the Hudson River waterfront in Edgewater where one day can involve a Japanese-style bath, a Korean clay sauna, a bowl of ramen, and a surprisingly scenic yoga class. The sheer number of options makes the first visit feel almost comically ambitious.
You could spend hours moving among the pools and thermal rooms without touching the treatment menu.
Add a sixth-floor food hall, quiet lounges, outdoor gardens, and skyline views that become even better after sunset, and a simple spa appointment starts looking more like a full-day New Jersey getaway.
SoJo Spa Club Turns an Edgewater High-Rise Into a Full-Day Escape
River Road is better known for waterfront apartments, busy shopping centers, and traffic that seems to develop its own personality around rush hour. At 660 River Road, however, the pace changes the moment you check into SoJo Spa Club and trade your street clothes for a robe.
The multi-level facility takes inspiration from Korean bathhouse culture while mixing in wellness traditions from Japan, Europe, and elsewhere, creating something much larger than the typical massage-and-manicure day spa.
It is open daily from 9 a.m. until 9:30 p.m., and guests with daily admission can remain inside until closing once they enter.
There is no reentry, which is one more reason to plan on settling in rather than popping out for lunch. The pass covers the main pools, baths, saunas, hot-stone beds, bathhouse areas, indoor and outdoor lounges, and the general coworking space.
A private full-size locker, robes, towels, and basic toiletries are also included, removing the need to carry half your bathroom from home. Food, drinks, retail purchases, massages, body scrubs, and other booked treatments cost extra.
Admission prices can vary by date and demand, so the booking calendar is the most reliable place to check the total for a particular visit. SoJo admits guests ages 18 and older, making the experience noticeably quieter than its earlier family-oriented years.
Bring a government-issued photo ID, a bathing suit, and an empty reusable water bottle. The indoor areas follow a barefoot Korean-spa tradition, though clean sandals can be used in designated outdoor and locker-room spaces.
Reservations are strongly recommended, particularly on weekends and holidays when walk-in availability may disappear. Drivers have access to two parking areas, while the location also sits beside an NJ Transit stop between the George Washington Bridge and Lincoln Tunnel.
The Rooftop Infinity Pool Comes With Unforgettable Manhattan Skyline Views
The elevator doors open on the seventh floor, and suddenly the New York skyline stops being scenery across the Hudson and becomes the entire backdrop to your swim. SoJo’s infinity pool sits more than 100 feet above River Road and is positioned to create the illusion that the water spills directly toward the river.
From the edge, the panorama stretches from the George Washington Bridge down toward Lower Manhattan, a sweep of the city that changes dramatically as clouds pass, ferries cross the Hudson, and office lights begin flickering on.
The pool is heated, so it works less like a rooftop lap pool and more like a giant open-air soak.
That warmth is especially satisfying during New Jersey’s colder months, when steam rises from the surface and the skyline sharpens against the winter air. SoJo keeps its heated pools and baths open throughout the year, although severe weather can temporarily affect outdoor access.
Covered and heated walkways used during the winter also make the trip between outdoor amenities far less punishing than it sounds. Summer brings a different rhythm.
The nearby rooftop garden gives guests a place to stretch out with a book between swims, while seasonal refreshments are available close to the pool. The best time to linger may be late afternoon, when the light softens across the Hudson and the glass towers begin reflecting shades of gold and pink.
Phones are difficult to resist with a view this good, but the pool becomes more enjoyable once the skyline stops being a photo assignment. Find a spot along the edge, let the warm water do its job, and watch Manhattan carry on at full speed while Edgewater remains wonderfully still.
Heated Pools and Therapeutic Baths Make It Easy to Linger for Hours
Ten different pools and baths are included with daily admission, and the smartest approach is not trying to conquer all of them before lunch. SoJo’s water circuit rewards slow wandering.
One pool uses jets to target the shoulders and back, another surrounds you with tiny bubbles, and another smells faintly of cedar. The variety keeps the experience from becoming one long soak with different scenery.
Start with the open-air hydrotherapy pool, where warm water, air, and forceful jets create a full-body massage without an appointment. It is an easy first stop after a long drive or a week spent hunched over a laptop.
Nearby hot tubs provide a quieter place to settle in, while the foot massage path offers a more active kind of relief. Its submerged stones vary in shape and texture, pressing into different parts of the feet as you carefully make your way along the shallow walkway.
It can feel surprisingly intense, particularly if your feet are not accustomed to reflexology-style paths. The Hinoki Bath brings a distinctly Japanese detail to the courtyard.
Made with white cedar, it has a smooth wooden surface and a clean, lemony fragrance that makes the tub feel closer to a mountain inn than a Bergen County high-rise. The Silk Bath takes a more modern route, using Japanese ionization technology to fill the water with fine microbubbles.
The result is cloudy, soft-looking water that gives the bath its name. A carbon-rich bath adds another specialty soaking experience, while gender-specific outdoor warm baths provide more private spaces.
During warmer weather, the outdoor waterfall adds a bracing cold-water break between hot baths. Inside the separate bathhouses, guests can also rotate through baths at different temperatures, including cold-plunge options.
The constant choice between warm, hot, and sharply cold water keeps the afternoon interesting and makes “just one more pool” a remarkably effective way to lose track of time.
Himalayan Salt, Charcoal, and Clay Saunas Bring Global Wellness Traditions Together
A wall of pink Himalayan salt bricks is only the beginning of the heat tour. SoJo’s indoor thermal rooms move through a range of materials and temperatures, allowing guests to choose between gentle warmth, heavy dry heat, and the immediate wake-up call of an ice room.
Rather than placing one generic sauna beside the locker room, the spa turns the experience into its own multi-room itinerary. The Himalayan Salt Sauna is built with imported salt bricks, giving the room a soft amber glow that makes even a crowded session feel subdued.
The Charcoal Sauna has dark walls and a deeper, earthier look, while the Red Clay Sauna uses clay imported from Korea. A separate White Clay Sauna incorporates natural mud, creating another variation on Korea’s long tradition of heated rooms built around mineral-rich materials.
Each space looks and feels different enough that moving between them never seems repetitive. The Far-Infrared Sauna delivers warmth differently from a conventional dry sauna, while the Ganbanyoku room draws from Japanese bedrock bathing.
Instead of sitting upright on wooden benches, guests lie on heated stone surfaces and let the warmth rise slowly through the body. Hot-stone beds offer a similar chance to stretch out, close your eyes, and discover how quickly a five-minute rest can become half an hour.
Then there is the Ice Room, the thermal circuit’s wonderfully rude interruption. After several minutes in clay or charcoal heat, stepping into the cold space can feel like opening a freezer with your entire body.
It is sharp, quick, and strangely refreshing. Beginners should resist treating the rooms like a challenge.
Ten or 15 minutes may be plenty, and cooling down between sessions is part of the experience. The quieter strategy is also the better one: choose a few rooms, drink water regularly, and return to whichever temperature feels best instead of trying to check every sauna off a list.
The Food Hall Lets You Grab a Real Meal Without Leaving Your Robe
Around the third sauna session, cucumber water stops feeling like lunch. Fortunately, SoJo’s sixth-floor Food Hall serves actual meals from breakfast through dinner, with indoor seating and outdoor tables overlooking the Hudson when weather allows.
Robes are part of the dress code rather than a reason to feel underdressed, so the room has the unusual energy of a food court where nearly everyone appears to have just stepped away from a pool. The menu leans broad enough to handle different spa-day appetites.
Asian-inspired choices may include ramen loaded with roasted pork, egg, bamboo shoots, mushrooms, and scallions, along with bulgogi, rice bowls, tofu dishes, and noodle-based meals. Lighter selections can range from salads and wraps to smoothies and fresh fruit.
Those who have reached the “wellness can wait” stage can usually find familiar comfort food such as pizza, burgers, fries, and soft-serve ice cream. Menus can change, but the lineup is built for more than a quick protein bar between treatments.
Ramen makes particular sense on a cold day. After moving from an outdoor pool through chilly air, a hot bowl of broth feels less like breaking the spa mood and more like continuing the thermal circuit from the inside.
In summer, a smoothie or salad keeps things lighter before another round of pools. The portions and variety also make it easy for friends to split up, order completely different meals, and regroup without leaving the building.
Additional seasonal dining appears on the upper floors, including warm-weather food and drink options near the outdoor amenities. Food and beverages are charged separately from admission, typically through the guest wristband system.
That convenience is dangerous in the best way: a bowl of ramen, a coffee, and a soft-serve detour can quietly become their own chapter of the day.
Yoga Classes and a Day Pass Complete the Ultimate New Jersey Reset
Not every worthwhile hour at SoJo involves sitting in hot water. Complimentary yoga classes are offered on select weekend schedules in the seventh-floor studio.
Mats are provided, different experience levels are welcome, and registration generally takes place on the day of the visit. When weather cooperates, classes may move into the rooftop garden, where sun salutations come with the Hudson River and Manhattan in the background.
The studio is connected to the fitness area, which includes cardio machines, free weights, and stretching equipment. Access rules and any additional fitness-center fees can vary, so guests planning a full workout should confirm the current policy when they arrive.
That distinction captures what makes the day pass valuable. You do not need to book a massage to fill the day.
Admission already provides access to the main pools, specialty baths, saunas, bathhouse, relaxation zones, rooftop areas when open, towels, robes, and locker storage. Treatments are optional upgrades rather than the center of the experience.
Massages, Korean body scrubs, facials, and other services are available for guests who want to add a scheduled treatment, but it is easy to spend an entire day moving between the included amenities. For a first visit, arriving near the 9 a.m. opening leaves enough room to explore without turning relaxation into a race.
Begin with the quieter morning pools, eat before the lunch rush, try a yoga class if one is scheduled, and save the infinity pool for late afternoon when Manhattan begins lighting up across the river.
By the time the spa closes at 9:30 p.m., River Road will still be busy and New York will still be glowing on the other side of the Hudson.
The difference is that after hours of warm water, cedar baths, clay rooms, and skyline views, neither one feels quite as urgent.