With class back in session, hundreds of students in Atlantic Canada are settling into their new digs in so-called “micro apartments.”

Micro Boutique Living has two apartment buildings in Atlantic Canada with a third in development. The buildings offer fully-furnished units that are 300-square-feet in size with a full kitchen and bathroom. They are designed to resemble the smaller hotel rooms typically seen in large cities like New York City.

“Everything in them is custom made with very high-end design, so there’s lots of storage,” Chris Galea, founder and president of Micro Boutique Living, told CTV News Channel. “When you walk in, you feel like you’re in a much bigger space because it’s so functional.”

The units are converted to hotel rooms during the summer months, which gives students the option of leaving when school ends instead of being locked into a year-long contract.

Depending on the location, the apartments start at about $800 per month for a school-year lease, with a full-year lease starting at $695 per month.

Galea said he worked as a professor for about 25 years and noticed the plight of student housing first-hand.

“Many of my students would always complain every year about having to rent apartments for 12 months when they only needed them for eight or nine months or being forced to share a house with five or six other students and paying significantly for the cost of just one room,” he said.

Micro Boutique Living’s two buildings are in Wolfville, N.S., Antigonish, N.S., with a third in Charlottetown, PE.I. under development. All three are smaller college towns where large apartment buildings are scarce.