Why Buy Anything You Could Borrow (Especially if You’re Renting)?

Brooke Renteria moved to a studio in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, from California two years ago. All she had to unpack were her suitcases. The unit of less than 400 square feet in Caesura, an apartment building cater-corner from the Brooklyn Academy of Music, came with a Murphy bed, a built-in table/desk and a 49-inch smart TV.

Ms. Renteria, who is 24 and works in tech, also had access to the building’s Common Goods room, a basement closet stocked with household items that residents could check out for free. Among the dozens of objects: a sewing machine, a Ninja professional blender and a white porcelain dinner service for 12.

“I think I used a chair or two from there” when friends were visiting, she said recently as she passed through Caesura’s lobby, where candy jars held pet treats and a monitor flashed details about yoga classes.

Caesura is not cheap. When the 12-story building with 123 units opened in 2018, its 34 furnished micro studios started at $2,588 a month for 314 square feet. Ms. Renteria pays $2,900 for hers. But unlike the swimming pools and fancy gyms in many of Brooklyn’s newly sprouted towers, Caesura’s Common Goods are an amenity geared toward thrift rather than luxury, a way to declutter tight quarters and encourage tenants to participate in the philosophically and ecologically benevolent culture of sharing.

Common Goods are meant to “support affordability, reduce consumption and enhance residents’ sense of being part of a larger community,” said Joshua Haggarty, the associate developer of asset management at Jonathan Rose Companies, Caesura’s developer. The program was created in the same spirit of sociability as the building’s fitness center, rooftop garden and bike storage room, he said.