Micro-lofts march across North America

Many cities have recently welcomed mini-apartments. Among them are these:

• San Francisco last year amended its building code to allow apartments as small as 220 sq. ft. (The living room cannot be smaller than 150 sq. ft.) The City is initially allowing 375 micro-apartments to be built, after which the results will be evaluated. The intent is to encourage affordable mini-units in an urban market so heavily in demand that the average rent for a studio has climbed to $2,100 a month. San Francisco’s micro-units aren’t very low in price. A four-story building containing 23 micro-apartments of 290 sq. ft was charging rents of $1,600 a month, said a news report.

• In Boston, approximately 195 mini-units, some as small as 350 square feet, are planned in five building projects in the “Innovation District,” a 1,000-acre expanse on a South Boston peninsula. Curbed Boston reported in February that in one building, units with no more than 600 square feet were being offered at $2,299 a month.

In response to criticism of high rents, Paul McMorrow of The Boston Globe wrote that “micro-apartments are more expensive to build than conventional apartments,” since they contain more walls, wiring, plumbing, and bathroom fixtures than would be needed—per square foot—in larger apartments. He argued that micro-units are a good way to “achieve density without towering height”; a substantial number of micro-lofts can be provided in just a few stories. This density can, in turn, generate street life and economic activity.

• Oregon’s state building code allows apartments as tiny as 120 sq. ft.; if there’s a bedroom, at least 70 sq. ft. must be added to that minimum. But micro-units arrived in Portland only recently, when the market shifted and financiers started to look favorably on such housing, says Eden Dabbs in the Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability. Some parts of the city do not require off-street parking, she points out; in those areas, developers have been able to offer very small units, at a reduced cost to tenants.

Portland’s vacant Everett Hotel, nearly a century old, was converted to Everett Micro-Lofts, with 18 units marketed to people with incomes of $35,000 to $40,000 who want to live downtown. The building was promoted as having a perfect Walk Score (100) and a very high Transit Score (92). For $895 a month, a tenant gets 288 square feet plus utilities and Internet. Freedom Center, in the Pearl District, offers 150 studio apartments of 267 to 385 sq. ft., with rents of $785 to $1,050 a month, and includes social areas where residents can relax with other tenants.

• Vancouver, British Columbia, known for expensive real estate, has made way for units as small as 226 sq. ft. “We took a position against these kinds of units 20 years ago, but times have changed,” Tom Durning of the Tenant Resource and Advisory Council told Canada’s Globe and Mail. Some micro-lofts rent for about $850 a month (Canadian).

• New York City’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg last summer announced a competition for the design of a pilot apartment project containing units of 250 to 370 sq. ft. Groundbreaking is expected at the end of 2013 on the winning proposal: 55 units with balconies on East 27th Street in Manhattan. Some units will be income-restricted.

Micro-unit designs from New York and around the world are on display through Sept. 2 in the “Making Room” exhibition at the Museum of the City of New York. The well-received show features a full-size, flexibly furnished micro-studio apartment of 325 square feet—a size, the museum points out, that is prohibited in most sections of the city.