Beljan Development is turning the historic Crawford Block building near Whyte Avenue into a unique apartment building.

There are 40 micro suites in the building – each totaling about 338 square feet – starting at $1100 per month, and they go up for rent in November.

“We spent hours and hours designing it to figure out how do you get the best use of space, so you’re not paying for unusable space,” Beljan Development Placemaker Chris Dulaba told CTV Edmonton inside one of the suites. “One of the hallmarks of designing a successful micro suite for people to use and rent is making sure you have the most efficient use of the space.”

The building has no parking, and while that is unheard of in Edmonton, the Crawford Block is tailored to people with a particular lifestyle. Besides, when you live in Old Strathcona, you don’t really need to drive everywhere.

“The intention and focus was on building amenities such as a bike parkade to ensure that those who do take different forms of transportation – walking, cycling, transit – that they have those amenities within this building to cater to that demographic.” Dulaba said. “You’ve got everything you need within a two to five minute walk in Old Strathcona – from the Farmer’s Market, grocery stores, bars, restaurants, coffee shops, you name it.”

This is a unique concept that is just starting to take of in North America, so why did Beljan Development bring this project to Edmonton already?

“Edmonton is going through some changes and transitioning to becoming a bigger city,” Dulaba said. “One of the things you find in cities that densify is making better use of the space itself. So in this case here, we had a great piece of property that came up for sale and we an opportunity to densify on that site and go up.”

Beljan Development hopes that the project is successful to set a precedent, and have more micro suite buildings go up in Edmonton.

With files from David Ewasuk