Perkins Eastman is a New York architecture firm founded in 1981 by Bradford Perkins and Mary-Jean Eastman, now one of the largest American practices at roughly 1,000 staff across twenty-six studios. Most of its work is healthcare, senior living, education, and civic buildings; the David H. Koch Center at Memorial Sloan Kettering and the TKTS booth at Father Duffy Square are among its New York projects. Its Manhattan condominiums come from a tight window, 2005 to 2010, and include The Cielo, The Centria, 303 East 33rd Street, and 123 Third Avenue. The credit carries no pricing premium; it tells you the era and the product type.
Who they are
Perkins Eastman is one of the largest architecture firms in the United States — around 1,000 to 1,100 staff across twenty-six studios, and roughly the fourteenth largest American practice by the trade rankings. Most of its work is healthcare, senior living, education, and civic buildings. The four Manhattan condominiums in our catalog come from a residential group inside a much bigger institutional practice, and that context matters when you are reading the buildings.
The firm was founded in New York in 1981 by Bradford Perkins and Mary-Jean Eastman, initially in partnership with Eli Attia under the name Attia & Perkins, with about forty staff. It reorganized as Bradford Perkins & Associates between 1983 and 1985, became Perkins Geddis Eastman when Barbara Geddis joined as partner, and took its present name in 1991 when Geddis left. The firm traces a longer lineage to the Chicago practice Dwight Heald Perkins opened in 1897; Dwight Perkins was Bradford Perkins's grandfather.
Growth came mostly through acquisition. Pittsburgh in 1994, Stamford in 1998, Toronto in 1999, Shanghai in 2005, Boston and Dubai in 2007, Mumbai and Guayaquil in 2008. The 2011 merger with Ehrenkrantz, Eckstut & Kuhn brought in a well-regarded urban design practice; ForrestPerkins and the Design Partnership of Cambridge followed in 2016, Dougherty & Dougherty in 2018, VIA and MEIS in 2021.
Andrew Adelhardt, Shawn Basler, and Nick Leahy have served as co-CEOs since January 2019, with Bradford Perkins as chairman and Mary-Jean Eastman as vice chair. The executive committee was expanded again in January 2026. The New York studio, at 115 Fifth Avenue, runs about 320 people.
The work
The firm's best-known New York work is institutional: the David H. Koch Center for Cancer Care at Memorial Sloan Kettering, the NewYork-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Center for Community Health, the Brooklyn College Tow Center for the Performing Arts, the Tenement Museum, and the TKTS booth and Father Duffy Square redevelopment in Times Square. Market-rate residential is a smaller line of business, and all four of our buildings fall inside a tight window — 2005 to 2010, the condominium development cycle that ended with the financial crisis.
450 East 83rd Street (The Cielo) came first, built for J.D. Carlisle Development with construction finishing in 2005 and occupancy in 2006. It is a 27-story, 307-foot tower of roughly 120 residences on the York Avenue corner, with a light curtainwall stepped back above a five-story masonry base, corner windows, and vertical piers organizing the glass. Ceilings run 10 to 11 feet. The developer commissioned a large Richard Haas trompe-l'oeil mural on the wall facing the building across East 83rd Street and set up a rotating art program in the lobby — the same artist, incidentally, who painted the atrium at Alwyn Court twenty-five years earlier.
16 West 48th Street (The Centria), also for J.D. Carlisle, opened in 2006 across the street from Rockefeller Center. Roughly 34 stories and 151 residences in a two-tone gray-blue tinted curtain wall. The form is a direct reading of the site constraints: the north facade slopes back along the sky-exposure plane the zoning requires, and the east facade cantilevers over the adjacent structure to recover floor area. The color-shifting curtain wall was among the larger single applications of its type when the building opened.
303 East 33rd Street, completed in 2009 for Toll Brothers City Living with The Kibel Companies, is a twelve-story building of about 129 residences in Kips Bay — a red-masonry base under metal-clad upper floors, with deliberately asymmetrical massing. It was built to LEED Gold, among the first residential buildings in the neighborhood to reach that standard.
123 Third Avenue was built in 2009 with first occupancy in 2010, developed by F&T Group with Orange Management. Seventeen stories, 47 residences, credited to the firm's Studio 12. The envelope is gray masonry with blue-tinted glass and deep corner windows, set back above the fourteenth floor to produce upper-floor terraces. It was marketed on environmental performance at a moment when East Village condominiums generally were not.
How the work is regarded
Perkins Eastman is judged on program and delivery more than on facades, and its awards concentrate in healthcare, senior living, and education. The residential work in Manhattan drew little critical attention when it went up and has drawn little since. No Perkins Eastman building here holds landmark designation, and none of these four appears in the standard critical literature on New York architecture.
Read on their own terms, the four are competent, zoning-literate buildings of their moment. The Centria's sloped north face and cantilevered east face are honest expressions of a hard mid-block site. Two of the four — 303 East 33rd Street and 123 Third Avenue — chose masonry-forward envelopes and environmental performance at a time when the default was full curtainwall, and that decision has aged well on both operating cost and street presence. The Cielo is the most conventional of the group and also the most ambitious on finish, with Bulthaup kitchens, Sub-Zero and Wolf appliances, and limestone baths specified at the top of the 2006 Yorkville market.
The firm's institutional discipline shows up in the parts of these buildings buyers touch daily: circulation, service planning, amenity layout, and back-of-house are consistently better resolved than in comparable developer product of the same years.
What the credit means for value
The credit carries no premium. It tells you the era and the product type: a full-service condominium from the 2005-2010 development cycle, built by an established developer with a real amenity program. Price the apartment, the line, and the block.
Two of the four have genuine sustainability credentials. 303 East 33rd Street was built to LEED Gold and 123 Third Avenue was designed around environmental performance. That shows up in the operating economics and in Local Law 97 exposure, which is now a live carrying-cost question for every building of this vintage. Check a specific building's position with our Local Law tools.
The curtainwall buildings are entering their first major capital cycle. The Cielo and The Centria are twenty years old. Curtainwall seals, glazing units, mechanical systems, and roofs from that period are at or near replacement. Read the reserve study and the assessment history before you underwrite the carry.
Condominium flexibility is the common structural advantage. All four permit subletting, pied-à-terre use, and entity ownership under their declarations, with financing unrestricted by co-op caps and closings on condominium timelines. Confirm the current house rules in writing at contract.
Attribution here is straightforward. The firm's name appears in the records one way, the buildings are recent, and the credits are documented. Where a building page draws on a listing record instead of a filed drawing set, the page says so.
Buying one today
Price to floor, line, and exposure. These buildings have wide internal spreads. At the Cielo especially, a high-floor unit with open exposure is a materially different product from a low-floor one at the same address, and the building average will mislead you.
Model the full monthly carry. Common charges plus separately assessed taxes plus utilities and insurance is the number that matters, and it varies by line. Confirm any current assessment and the working-capital contribution due at closing.
Compare against the right set. The benchmark is other new-construction condominium inventory within a few blocks. Comparing these to the surrounding pre-war co-ops mixes two different products and two different cost structures.
Weigh the outdoor space. The setbacks at 123 Third Avenue and the terraces at several of these buildings produced private outdoor space at price points where it is scarce. Where it exists, it is usually the strongest part of the value case.
Working with The Roebling Team
Condominiums from the 2005-2010 cycle are at the point where reserve position and facade condition start to separate buildings that looked identical five years ago. If you are buying or selling in one of them, a thirty-minute consultation is the right starting point.
Corey Cohen, Principal The Roebling Team at Compass 646.939.7375 · c.cohen@compass.com
Run the numbers
Related architect spotlights
- Kohn Pedersen Fox — the other large corporate practice with Manhattan residential work of the period
- SLCE Architects — the high-volume architect of record on much of the same development cycle
- Costas Kondylis and Partners — the tower specialist working the same market in the same years
Perkins Eastman buildings with Roebling building pages
| Building | Completed |
|---|---|
| 123 Third Avenue | 2009 |
| 16 West 48th Street | 2006 |
| 303 East 33rd Street | 2009 |
| 450 East 83rd Street (The Cielo) | 2005 |
This page reflects publicly available information and The Roebling Team transaction experience, compiled by The Roebling Research Desk from public records and the offering plans held in The Roebling Research Library. The Roebling Team at Compass does not represent any individual building's management, board, or sponsor. Where sources disagree on attribution or biography, the disagreement is noted rather than resolved. © 2026 The Roebling Team at Compass.
Buildings designed by Perkins Eastman
