Developer Neighborlee Living, led by Kurt Jetta, has received approval from the Palm Beach County Commission for a four-story, 38-unit apartment project featuring micro-units as small as 240 square feet. The development, called Neighborlee Living Westgate, will be located at 2818 Westgate Avenue in unincorporated Palm Beach County near West Palm Beach. The site is governed by the Westgate Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA).
Kurt Jetta said that the target renters for this project are recent college graduates.
Micro-units are becoming more common in new apartment developments across the United States. In Miami’s Allapattah neighborhood, a planned 400-unit project will include 40 micro-units. Proponents believe that smaller apartments can help address housing affordability challenges in cities nationwide. According to Multifamily Dive, 66 percent of Seattle’s planned apartments are micro-units.
The Neighborlee Living Westgate development will include 26 micro-units at 240 square feet each, 10 studios at 360 square feet each, and two one-bedroom units at 538 square feet each. Most of these units are reserved for renters earning between 60 percent and 80 percent of the area median income (AMI) for Palm Beach County, which is $104,000 as of 2024.
According to Neighborlee’s website, monthly rents will be $1,200 for micro-units, $1,600 for studios, and $2,000 for one-bedroom apartments. Studios and one-bedroom units will also come with a $250 per month voucher toward childcare costs.
While there are thousands of residential units planned or under construction in West Palm Beach, most cater to higher-income tenants. For example, Related Ross’ Laurel apartment tower opened last year with one-bedroom rents starting at $3,500.
“I’ve always been wired to pay attention to the people making $50,000 and below,” Jetta said. “I just felt like they were underserved and misunderstood.”
Jetta noted that revenue per square foot is higher in micro-units than traditional apartments but acknowledged that developing affordable projects remains challenging due to construction costs.
“We were taken aback by the costs [of construction],” he said.
This is Jetta’s first development project in Palm Beach County. After receiving approval from county officials, he reflected on how regulations affect housing production.
“We never ran into some cumbersome regulation,” he said. “Everybody’s well-meaning, everybody’s doing their job, but still you don’t get the affordable housing output people want to see.”
