6 years ago
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The tiny living space movement is coming to Tampa.
- Rent will start in the mid $800s
- Residents won’t be allowed to have car on premises
- 9,000 square foot ‘community environment’ included
Urban Core Holdings, LLC is acquiring a 12-story building on East Madison Street and will convert much of the space into 300-400 square foot apartments. Each would be the average size of a hotel room.
“We think the market for this project is younger working professionals, the younger work force working in the downtown area that don’t want to be involved in a commute, and that see so many cool things happening in the downtown area,” said Omar Garcia, Urban Core Holdings Development manager.
Monthly rents are expected to start in the mid $800s. The project is expected to take about 8-12 months to complete, but the company will begin taking reservations April 17.
The building will include about 9,000 square feet for a community environment with a gym, pet care, movie area and more.
The first floor will hold retail businesses and restaurants, and the second floor will be used for offices.
Urban Core Holdings said about 66,000 people work in downtown Tampa but have balked at living downtown because of prices.
Residents of the new facility won’t be allowed to have a car there.
“We believe that there is a significant segment of the market that is willing to give up some space and even a car to live in downtown Tampa at an affordable price and enjoy everything that the city of Tampa has to offer, without a roommate,” said Omar Garcia, Urban Core Holdings Development manager.
http://www.baynews9.com/content/news/baynews9/news/article.html/content/news/articles/bn9/2017/4/13/micro_apartments_on_.html?cid=rss
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By Susan Taylor Martin
smartin@tampabay.com
You’ve heard of tiny houses. Now Tampa could become one of the first places in Florida to have tiny apartments.
Urban Core Holdings, LLC is under contract to buy a 12-story downtown office building and convert the top eight floors into microapartments. Each would have a kitchen with a two-burner stove top, microwave hood, refrigerator and dishwasher. The apartments would also come with a stackable washerdryer unit; a bike rack and a Murphy bed that transformed into a dining table during the day.
All of this in 300 to 400 square feet for about $850 a month, far less than for other downtown apartments that are fast becoming unaffordable without two occupants to share the rent.
‘We think that there is a certain group of people that don’t want a roommate, and this is a great opportunity for somebody to live by themselves, save on the expense of a car and live downtown,” Omar Garcia, Urban Core’s manager, said Wednesday .
A sthefinancialhubofthebooming bay area, Tampa has a large and growing number of downtown workers – 66,500, including about 13,300 who are under 35, according to a study done for the company. Almost 44 percent of downtown workers have expressed an interest in living downtown.
Although the project is expected to take up to a year to complete, Urban Core will start accepting reservations Monday for 200 Madison, the building at the corner of Madison and Franklin Streets that now houses a Subway, a Pita Republic restaurant, a CVS and second-floor offices. All of that is likely to remain, but plans call for a new common space for resi dents on the third floor with a gym, pet care area, cafe and balcony overlooking the street.
The mostly vacant fifth-through-12th floors will be converted into 120 apartments, each with ample windows, Garcia said.
One potential drawback that could raise the cost of the project and the rents – the lack of parking.
‘We will not have any parking because the idea is that the residents of this particular community will use mass transit, bike share and ride share and are willing to give up their cars in order to live downtown,” Garcia said.
City regulations, though, call for one parking space per unit, and Urban Core could have to pay a onetime fee of nearly $1 million because it can’t meet that requirement.
‘We are going to try to negotiate that with the city,” Garcia said. If the fee isn’t totally or partially waived, the rents could rise by about $100 a month, though they still would be substantially less than for downtown
apartments that are only slightly larger. Zach Ames of Tampa’s Franklin Street brokerage said the mini apartments might well be attractive, especially to recent college graduates who want to live downtown but can’t afford mega rents. ‘I think this does offer the option for that live, work, play environment,” Ames said. ‘Is the timing right? I don’t know, but as Tampa continues to build out with more and more projects, I think it’s something that will happen.” Would Ames, 28, live in a tiny apartment? ‘Yeah,” he said, ‘especially if I was right out of college.” This is the second multifamily housing venture for Urban Core Holdings. It also owns the 135-unit West River Flats near downtown, which it bought in 2014 and renovated into what have become popular apartments for University of Tampa students. The company runs a shuttle from the apartments to the university, and would probably do the same for students renting in the new proj ect, Garcia said. While long popular in densely populated, highcost Asian cities like Hong Kong, micro-apartments also have started catching on in Boston, Seattle, San Francisco and other U.S. cities as rents soar.
In 2013, New York City got its first micro apartment building, with 55 units as small as 250 square feet.
Two years later, New York Mayor Bill De Blasio proposed shrinking the city’s 400-square-foot apartmentsize limit to under 300 square feet as part of an ambitious plan to build or preserve 200,000 units of affordable housing, according to the New York Post .
De Blasio’s announcement came as 60,000 people applied for only 14 below-market-rate micro apartments in the Kips Bay area.
And in Miami and Orlando, developers have tentative plans for micro apartments although those apparently have not yet come to fruition.
If Tampa’s tiny apartments ‘get off the ground, we’d probably look to expand throughout the Southeast” Garcia said.
$850 a month for a tiny apartment may seem a bit much, but it would be well below other downtown Tampa locations that are fast becoming unaffordable.
Urban Core Holdings plans to turn part of a downtown office building into apartments that would have a two-burner stove, microwave hood, fridge, dishwasher, a bed that can be turned into a dining table, and a bike rack – but no parking.
Rendering courtesy of Urban Core Holding
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6 years ago
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TAMPA — You’ve heard of tiny houses. Now Tampa could soon be the first place in Florida to have tiny apartments. (Originally appeared http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/realestate/if-you-like-tiny-houses-youll-love-these-tiny-apartments-coming-to-tampa/2320009)
Urban Core Holdings, LLC is under contract to buy a 12-story downtown office building and convert the top eight floors into micro-apartments. Each would have a kitchen with a two-burner stove top, microwave hood, refrigerator and dishwasher; a stackable washer-dryer unit; a bike rack; and a Murphy bed that transforms into a dining table during the day.
All of this in 300 to 400 square feet for about $850 a month, far less than for other downtown apartments that are fast becoming unaffordable without two occupants to share the rent.
“We think that there is a certain group of people that don’t want a roommate, and this is a great opportunity for somebody to live by themselves, save on the expense of a car and live downtown,” said Omar Garcia, Urban Core’s manager.
As the financial hub of the booming bay area, Tampa has a large and growing number of downtown workers — 66,500, including about 13,300 who are under 35, according to study done for the company. Almost 44 percent of all downtown workers have expressed an interest in living downtown.
Although the project is expected to take up to a year to complete, Urban Core will start accepting reservations Monday for 200 Madison, a building at the corner of Madison and Franklin Streets that now houses a Subway, a Pita Republic restaurant and a CVS on the ground floor and offices on the second floor. All of that is likely to remain but plans call for a new common area for residents on the third floor with a gym, pet care area, cafe and balcony overlooking the street.
RELATED: USF grad has big plans for her tiny home
The mostly vacant fifth-through-12th floors will be converted into 120 apartments, each of which will have ample windows, Garcia said.
One potential drawback that could raises the cost of the project and the rents — the lack of parking.
“We will not have any parking because the idea is that the residents of this particular community will use mass transit, bike share, ride share and are willing to give up their cars in order to live downtown,” Garcia said.
City rules, though, call for one parking space per unit, and Urban Core could have to pay a one-time fee of nearly $1 million because it can’t meet that requirement.
“We are going to try to negotiate that with the city,” Garcia said. If the fee isn’t totally or partially waived, the rents could rise by about $100 a month, though they still would be about $1,000 less than for certain downtown apartments that are only slightly larger.
Urban Core also owns the 135-unit West River Flats near downtown, which it bought in 2014 and renovated into what have become popular apartments for University of Tampa students. The company runs a shuttle from the apartments to the university, and would probably do the same for students renting in the new project, Garcia said.
PHOTOS: Tiny houses we saw at the Tiny Home Festival
While long popular in densely populated, high-cost Asian cities like Hong Kong, micro-apartments also have started catching on in several U.S. cities as rents soar to sky-high levels.
In 2013, New York City got its first micro apartment building, with 55 units as small as 250 square feet.
Two years later, New York Mayor De Blasio proposed shrinking the city’s 400-square-foot apartment-size limit to under 300 square feet as part of his ambitious plan to build or preserve 200,000 units of affordable housing, according to the New York Post.
De Blasio’s announcement came as 60,000 people applied for just 14 below-market-rate “micro-apartments” in the Kips Bay area, where the city launched a building experiment, the Post said.
And last year, a Miami developer said he wanted to build an eye-catching 49-story tower with tiny apartments.
If Tampa’s tiny apartments “get off the ground, we’d probably look to expand throughout the Southeast” Garcia said.
Susan Taylor Martin can be contacted at smartin@tampabay.com or (727) 893-8642. Follow @susanskate
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Tampa Bay Business Journal dated April 12, 2017, story by Ashley Gurbal Kritzer.
If a developer’s vision comes to fruition, Tampa could join the ranks of trendy cities that are home to micro apartments — tiny residential units meant to bring affordable housing to dense urban areas. Urban Core Holdings LLC said Wednesday that it is under contract to acquire the 12-story office building at 220 E. Madison St. and convert it to apartments. Apartments will be between 300 and 400 square feet, with rents starting at $800 per month.
For more of this story, please click on this link: http://www.bizjournals.com/tampabay/news/2017/04/12/proposed-micro-apartments-in-downtown-tampa.html
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