DC Almost Had 275-Square Foot Apartments

• July 13th 2012

by Shilpi Paul

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People have been buzzing about small space living for a while. Even the mayor of New York City entered the mix this week, announcing a contest searching for a developer who can design a building with desirable units between 275 and 300 square feet. That doesn’t quite reach the size of Japanese “one room mansions” — which are a mere 100 square feet — but for a U.S. city, it’s tiny enough to be novel.

With all this news, UrbanTurf was surprised to learn that one DC architecture firm had not only sketched out a project with “micro-units” at this size, but that the plans were in motion and, if not for an abrupt cancellation, would be on the market now. R2L:Architects was hired to design twenty-four 275-square-foot apartments at 600 F Street NW (map), a historic building owned by Douglas Development.

Rather than leave residents to make a small space livable, R2L’s design accounted for the difficulties of tight quarters. Complex built-ins are constructed along the walls, like a fold-out desk, a sofa that disappears when a Murphy bed unfolds and a built-in refrigerator. Besides fold-out cabinets and closets, the units have washer/dryers, combination microwave/convection ovens and rangetops. There are no interior walls other than those enclosing the bathroom. (Similarly sized spaces exist in some other cities, Lenar said, but most felt too utilitarian. The architects wanted their units to have desirable amenities.)

The units were going to be billed as temporary housing, perhaps for out-of-town employees who didn’t want to stay in a hotel. Douglas was hoping to sell the concept to some of their office and retail tenants. The idea of finding permanent residential tenants for the units still felt risky.

R2L had gone as far as coordinating the plans with the HVAC systems when Douglas pulled the plug. Douglas Development’s Paul Millstein told UrbanTurf that they decided to fill the space with office tenants instead.

“I think there are a lot of people who aren’t sure whether or not DC is ready for a 275 square-foot product,” Tom Lenar of R2L told UrbanTurf.

Perhaps DC just wasn’t ready for such small homes at the time. But with more and more young people moving into DC and rents at such a high, smaller options may soon become tolerable. Lenar told us that several of their clients were willing to test out the popularity of tiny apartments within a larger apartment development. And, earlier this week, we polled readers to find out if they thought Mayor Bloomberg’s plan for tiny apartments would work in DC. More than half said yes.

**Note: Thumbnail image not a photo of one of the planned units.

This article originally published at https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/dcs_near_future_with_micro_studios/5761.