The apartment market may be tight, but that doesn’t mean renters have lower expectations. In fact, they’re often higher these days, and developers are paying close attention.

Sam Rodriguez, managing director of Mill Creek Residential Trust in Portland, said it’s helpful to think of an apartment building like a smartphone.

“You have to have these applications and those applications really are more like services,” he said. “It’s not quite like a hotel, but it starts having some of those services.”

They range from basic laundry to online mail notification. Renters want apartments, like smartphones, to increase community access and foster social connectivity – and do so in a comfortable manner. The result is that developers are including more amenities in the plans … like dog washing facilities.

“That is something that is very prevalent in that 25 (to) 35-year-old (demographic),” Rodriguez said. “They may not have a girlfriend, but they definitely have a pet … the dog or the cat is a very important component of the family for this group, of their sort of new family.”

Rodriguez said 70 percent of downtown Portland units are occupied by tenants with pets. Mill Creek is building a 179-unit apartment project called the Savier Street Flats in the Pearl District and, in addition to bike repair facilities, fitness rooms and a courtyard featuring an outdoor movie projector, the building will have space for washing dogs.

And there’s more.

“We might have a dog groomer come once a month, depending on volume and interest from customers,” he said. “You still have to pay, but it’s a service that is available.”

Fowler Andrews is building 70 market-rate units at Northeast Sixth Avenue and Couch Street, and dog washing facilities will be included.

Brad Fowler, a firm principal, said that feature came from thoughtful planning.

“Our experience with people is that almost invariably they seem to have pets and with pets come hair clogs because they wash them in the sink or the tub,” he said. “So we wanted to think about a clever way to try and address that a little bit.”

Fowler said the project wasn’t designed to suit a certain demographic, but rather to meet renters’ needs.

The most important amenity may be proximity to downtown. The vacancy rate in Portland is 3.72 percent, according to a spring report by the Metro Multifamily Housing Association – a local group. And the population growth rate, according to Chicago-based Heitman, is between 1.7 and 2.5 percent (one of the nation’s largest). But as people sacrifice space to afford units close to downtown, amenities become more important.

“I think we’ve maximized or optimized the designs of the units so that they’re very, very comfortable, but the reality is that the buildings need some amenities to get some relief,” Rodriguez said.

Common spaces like lounges, conference rooms, study rooms, communal kitchens, fitness centers and elaborate outdoor courtyards with fire pits and concrete pingpong tables are filling the void.

Clyde Holland, CEO and chairman of Holland Partners Group in Vancouver, Wash., said one amenity that his company is including in all of its projects is the communal demonstration kitchen.

“People go down there (and) can cook a wonderful meal,” he said. “They can have 10 to 15 of their friends over, and when they’re done they clean it up and they go home and nobody’s messed up anything in their apartment.”

Holland Partners is building a 324-unit apartment complex in Wilsonville and a 190-unit building at Orenco Station in Hillsboro. Holland has closely watched changing demographics – the influx of young urban professionals, in particular – and is zeroing in on their specific needs. He has noticed a significant amount of growth in e-commerce.

“It tells me I better have high-speed Internet access in my house,” Holland said, adding that his company is trying to deliver 1 gigabyte Internet service to all of its apartments. “(Renters) want Internet chat space; they want gaming rooms where they can get six or eight of their buddies and go play ‘Call of Duty’ in a virtual format, where they have faster speeds than the folks on the other end, so they can react better and get better kill rates.”

Of course, there also is a lot to be said for basics.

David Mullens, project manager for Creston Homes, is developing two Hollywood District apartment projects (one with 47 units and one with 41), and a 71-unit building at Southeast Morrison Street and 20th Avenue. He said renters just want apartments that look new and have good services.

“We believe that the number one amenity for any of these apartments is laundry,” Mullens said, adding that laundry operators are few and far between these days. “You’ve got to give them a washer and dryer.”

Renters also want full-size appliances, including refrigerators, dishwashers and microwaves, he said. But those items all affect price, and Mullens said that once rent surpasses $900 a month, demand starts to decline.

“It’s a skewed reality right now,” he said of the tight apartment market. “You can talk about expectations and what they really desire, but what they really desire right now are affordable places to live that are clean.”