Reader: What Square Footage Is Healthy for Humans to Live in?

For our first installment of Room Service, Westword‘s look at various housing options around town, Catie Cheshire toured Art Studios, a project that turned the circa 1962 office building at 1200 Lincoln Street that once housed the Art Institute of Colorado into 192 units. 

Very small units, whose hefty price tags offered plenty of room for comments, as evidenced by the Westword Facebook page. Says April:

For people who only want to come home and sleep, this might work, but the price is crazy!

Adds Larry: 

$1,330/month for 245 square feet is disgusting!!!

Notes Rob: 

I’m all for smaller spaces …but I think we need to study what square footage is healthy for humans to live in.

Replies Kurt: 

Yeah, but they should be like $700/month for this size.

Offers Jay:

Buy a 1 bed condo at 1K a month.

Notes John:

That’s $500 more than my mortgage. What is funny is, most people trying to rent this closet couldn’t qualify for my mortgage. So we make low-income people pay more because they’re low income?

Suggests Angela:

Yikes! At a minimum, they’re trying to pull in $265k in rent for 192 micro units. That’s robbery.

Replies John:

Talks about how to maximize space, when it’s really just about maximizing profit.

 Counters Robert:

Economizing on space is good. If this was 200 units of 2,000 square-foot units, most y’all would be kvetching about “luxury condos.” It really seems like the prime motivation for lots of you is just opposition to any kind of change, even change that gives people a place to live. That’s reactionaryism.

Concludes Sheena:

I seriously hate everything that Colorado is becoming.

Have a suggestion for a place we should profile in Room Service? Send an email to editorial@westword.com. That’s also where you can send a response about this piece, or simply post a comment.