Tiny apartments project targets Austin, beyond
Kasita offers modular, 200-square-foot digs for urban millennials.
A new portable “micro unit” home concept could be headed to Austin and several other cities.
A Huston-Tillotson University professor is heading up a new company called Kasita — a twist on the Spanish word casita for “small home” — that will design and build modular, movable housing units.
Jeff Wilson — who has been nicknamed “Professor Dumpster” for living in a converted dumpster for a year — is Kasita’s CEO and founder. Taylor Wilson, son of veteran Austin area homebuilder Clark Wilson, is partnering with Wilson in the new company. Jeff Wilson and Taylor Wilson are not related.
“What’s really interesting about this is it’s really testing the limits of what you need in a home,” Jeff Wilson has said of the concept.
The tiny units will be about 200 square feet, with 10-foot ceilings and can be relocated to other sites in other cities, Kasita’s founders say.
“Through partnerships with local entities, Kasita will be able to provide attainable housing at $600 a month once manufacturing is at scale,” Taylor Wilson said. That’s about half the amount a studio apartment near downtown currently rents for, he said.
The micro units will be aimed at urban millennials, as well as other professionals and singles who want to live near
city centers. Units could also be used for student housing and other populations, Kasita executives said.
“With Kasita, we’re able to bring higher utility to smaller tracts of land in highly desirable areas, at more attainable prices,” Taylor Wilson said.
The first prototype, with nine units, is being designed and manufactured at W2 MacFab, a company in East Austin, Taylor Wilson said.
Kasita’s founders say the units will “feel spacious and full of light” equipped with traditional amenities such as a queen-size bed, walk-in shower, refrigerator, convection oven and cooktop, dishwasher and laundry machines.
Each Kasita unit will plug into traditional utilities.
Kasita was announced at the South by Southwest Eco conference this week.
The Kasitas will be available in Austin beginning in 2016 and in potentially 10 other cities starting in 2017. Future Kasita homes could include Portland, Los Angeles, Brooklyn and Stockholm, Sweden.
In Austin, the first Kasita prototypes are slated for two as-yet undisclosed sites, one near downtown and the other in East Austin, Taylor Wilson said.
In March, Taylor Wilson had announced plans for another “micro unit” project, to be known as Spire and planned for East Austin. Wilson said he still plans to move forward with that project, but is still trying to nail down a site after the initial one did not work out.