“Some buzz” has made its way back to the Ivy Lofts developers since news of the plans for Houston’s tiniest condos began to spread — so much buzz, in fact, that Novel Creative Development is responding to the pushback with a change in sales tactics. The group announced in an email that Ivy Lofts buyers will have the option to lump 2 adjacent units together and customize the floorplan, giving residents more space if needed.

The promotion team is also working hard to rebrand the proposed floorplans with the names of famously dense cities, instead of describing the units by their size. “It’s not fair to label these spaces by square footages,” says marketing director Brandon Vos in a RE/MAX press release. “We had to come up with new names since so many rooms double in usage.”

The newly internationalized units include The Tokyo, the project’s itsy-bitsiest floor plan, which measures in at 300 sq. ft. and will be priced starting at $119,000.

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Next smallest is the 450-sq.-ft. New York, wherein movable glass walls will enable bedrooms to double as extra living room space on command. Moving on up from teensy Tokyo and snug New York, there’s the relatively capacious 600-sq.-ft. Barcelona and the still larger Paris. The largest units — those 700-sq.-ft. and above — will start at $375,000.

The mutability of the tiny spaces renders the whole concept of square-footage moot, the Ivy team claims. “We can’t price these units with the same price per square foot as their neighboring townhomes,” RE/MAX director Jason Franklin said. “First of all, the rooms double in functionality, so how would you even price that?”

Freddy Rodriguez, an owner of RE/MAX Inner Loop, admits that the Lofts “are not for everyone”, but rather are “a concept for the open minded and for those who can think outside the box of ‘price per square foot.’”

Images: Powers Brown Architecture

Doubling Up at Ivy Lofts