Jonathan Rose brings tiny living to Brooklyn

The feather in the cap of Jonathan Rose Companies’ new mixed-use building at 280 Ashland Place in Brooklyn is 34 furnished micro apartments going for about $2,600.

According to the New York Times, the tiny market-rate units are around 400 square feet or less, and come with custom furniture specially selected for small confines such as the Murphy bed or an expandable coffee table that can grow into a dining table.

But what makes Rose’s approach to tiny living distinct from other such experiments in the city (apart from location; the building is the first micro unit development in the borough) is a lending library that has nothing to do with reading.

The “library” is a collection of goods including items such as a 12-piece dish set, an ice-cream maker and a ladder, that can be borrowed for occasional use but do not need to be stored in the tenants’ small personal spaces.

To bring the development, known as Caesura, to life, Rose partnered with New York’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development to offer 40 percent of the units in the building at below-market rates while ground floor commercial tenants include arts organizations like the Center for Fiction and Mark Morris Dance Center.

The building was designed by architect Andrew Bernheimer, Dattner Architects and landscape design firm, SCAPE. Tenants are supposed to move in February 1, 2018.

Watch out for Rose’s interview with The Real Deal in an upcoming edition of TRDStudio.

[NYT] — E.K. Hudson