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The Westminster Arcade, also known as the Arcade Providence in Rhode Island was built in 1828 as the first indoor shopping mall in America. In 2012, Evan Granoff of Granoff Associates bought the property and working with Northeast Collaborative Architects created an adaptive reuse project converting the upper floors of the mall into 48 affordable Micro Lofts while retaining 17 Micro Retail shops below.
At roughly 21 sqm, the smallest units fall below the minimum standard size for apartments, as such the developers classified them under what is referred to as a rooming house code, which allows for single occupancy rooms to be as small as 7.4 sqm provided they don’t include any cooking facilities.
These units rent for around $550 per month, which is almost half the average rent in the city, and were all rented out almost immediately they came onto the market. There’s currently a waiting list.
Read more about the arcade providence on fair companies
