Dozens of developers vie to build micro units

Thirty-three developers submitted applications before Friday’s deadline to develop 50 so-called “micro-unit” apartments on a city owned site in Kips Bay, the Wall Street Journal reported. Applicants were expected to devise their own financial terms, including acquisition costs, the mix of affordable and market-rate units and the rent.

“The financial side is really the big challenge here,” Jerilyn Perine, executive director of the Citizens Housing and Planning Council, told the Journal. “The city didn’t dictate that many things.”

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That didn’t deter big-name developers, including the Durst Organization, Jonathan Rose Companies, L+M Development Partners, Gold Development and Blesso Properties, among others, from entering their name in the competition to build the 275- to 300-square-foot homes, at 335 East 27th Street.

In all, the application was downloaded some 1,600 times around the globe since the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development released it this summer. [WSJ] — Adam Fusfeld