New York's Small Apartments Are a Big Hit Among Developers

A pilot project spearheaded by the Bloomberg administration to develop a new housing model for the City’s "growing small-household population," has attracted a big response from interested housing developers.

September 23, 2012, 1pm PDT | Jonathan Nettler | @nettsj

Dubbed adAPT NYC, a call for proposals to develop a "micro-apartment" test project on a city-owned site in Manhattan attracted applications from 33 interested developers, "from major luxury housing builders to those known for creating smaller, innovative projects," reports Laura Kusisto. She noted that, "city officials said they received roughly three times as many applications as they usually do for a project of this size."

"The City's adAPT NYC competition has ignited a global interest and conversation about how high-density urban centers can right-size their housing stock to fit changing demographics," said Mathew Wambua, commissioner of the housing preservation department.

According to Kusisto, "[s]ome developers said even if they don't win, they can apply some of the ideas they formulated during the application process to other projects. 'It's not just about this project....Irrespective of what happens with this site, we can utilize it in other places,' [Matthew] Blesso [of developer Blesso Propoerties] said."

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Big Run at Micro Concept

Published on Thursday, September 20, 2012 in The Wall Street Journal