ANN ARBOR, MI – When a proposed 66-bed apartment building came up for approval this week, Ann Arbor officials presumed it would be University of Michigan student housing.

With 11 six-bedroom units, it might sound like dorm-style living, but the developer behind the $5.5-million project has a different vision, eyeing a new trend in group living for young professionals.

“This is emphatically not a student housing project,” said developer Heidi Mitchell of Prentice Partners of Ann Arbor.

“It is actually a co-living, co-working space with (shared) vehicles targeted toward young professionals.”

Prospective tenants will be able to apply for a room and be matched with roommates for either short-term or long-term rentals. It’s designed to allow people to live without owning their own car and, if they want, to work from home in a lower-level co-working space.

“We’ve done a lot of research. This is obviously a trend that’s happening in other places,” Mitchell said.

Mitchell, an Ann Arbor native who played field hockey for UM in the 1980s, splits her time between Ann Arbor and California, along with her wife, Margaret Poscher, CEO of Prentice Partners.

They’ve renovated and redeveloped a number of properties in Ann Arbor, including building a new six-bed Airbnb house at 1505 White St., right around the corner from the three-story apartment building they now have approval to build at 814-830 Henry St.

While they’ve also done real estate development in California, “This is way more personal for us,” Mitchell said. “We’re emotionally invested into trying to do some cool things in the city.”

They plan to break ground on the townhouse-style project on Henry Street soon, with a goal of welcoming tenants in 2020.

One of the features of the new development that has sparked discussion and debate is the limited amount of automobile parking that’s planned: 18 spaces for 66 tenants. Additionally, 20 bicycle parking spaces are shown in plans.

Some City Council members expressed hope that the development will lend itself to a car-free lifestyle. The site is within walking and bicycling distance of downtown, the UM campus, a grocery store, CVS, and other destinations, including a bowling alley and UM athletic facilities, with nearby access to public transit.

By providing a number of shared electric vehicles onsite, possibly through Maven or another car-sharing service, Mitchell said, the plan is to give tenants a pool of cars they can use as needed — rather than owning their own cars.

“If we market it right, we’re going to attract people who don’t want to have to own a car, but still have the convenience of a car when they need one,” Mitchell said.

The cost of the shared car service will be built into tenants’ monthly rent, with apartments priced at market rate, Mitchell said.

They’re still figuring out how many vehicles to start with and which service to use.

“Really cool things are happening with this project,” Mitchell said, describing it as a shared-living arrangement that allows tenants to pay only a share of the cost of a really nice car and a share of the cost of a really nice apartment.

Mitchell uses the phrase “the gig economy” when talking about the broader philosophy behind the project.

“In my experience, the gig economy is represented by specific short-term engagements between people for a very narrow purpose at a ‘by the sip’ price,” she said, using an Uber ride as an example.

A portion of the economy is being reconfigured under that model now, Mitchell said.

“This idea can be extended to what we are doing with the co-living space to an extent — not necessarily based on a service, but based on the idea that you can pay for a portion of something in alignment with what your usage will be,” she said.

The apartments are conceived as three-story walkups, with the first floor being a common area with kitchen/dining and living/gathering spaces, four bedrooms, each with a bathroom, on the second floor, and two bedrooms with a shared bathroom on the third floor.

“Each townhome is designed to be a standalone unit, sharing only the exterior areas as collective commons space,” the plans state, noting there will be a row of five units and a row of six units, with a “mews” design that allows for communal access and gathering between.

Bedrooms will be about 150 square feet, giving each tenant what Mitchell calls their own “cocoon suite.”

Each townhouse will have its own front door access, as well as a second access from the communal area.

“There will be a common area outside of the units themselves that will be equipped with work stations, huddle space, etc.,” Mitchell said. “And a fitness center.”

The co-working space will be about 500-650 square feet, with a kitchenette and mix of standing and sitting desks, which can be wheeled aside for early morning or evening yoga classes and other events, said Adam Hughes, Prentice Partners operations manager, noting all of that will be included in the cost of rent.

“For most hours of the day, people can come down there and work,” he said, anticipating the apartments will be marketed, for example, to nearby Google employees and other tech company workers.

“We’re really excited about it,” he said.

There are student housing complexes that generally use the same concept, but the Henry Street townhouses will be designed to meet the needs of young professionals, providing a work/life balance that is less defined in a student’s life, Mitchell said.

“Obviously we’re not allowed to say you can’t rent if you’re a student, but I can promise you all of our marketing efforts will be directed toward people who are in the workforce,” she said, calling housing for young professionals “definitely an area of need in the city.”

While three century-old rental houses will be torn down to make way for the development, Prentice Partners is saving and renovating a four-unit rental house next door at 812 Henry St., rather than demolishing it to expand the scope of the townhouse project.

The house used to stand where the University of Michigan Law Library is now. It was moved to make way for construction around the early 1930s, Mitchell said.

Renovating it now is more costly than new construction, she said, but they want to be good stewards and don’t intend to be the ones to tear down a house with such history.