- Year built
- 1921
- Type
- Condominium
- Units
- 70
- Floors
- 5
- Landmark
- No
Own an apartment here? See what it would sell for.
A Private Pricing Opinion — what your apartment at 1 Tiffany Place would likely sell for today, what it costs to sell, and what you’d walk away with — reviewed personally against condition, exposures, renovation quality, and the competition actually on the market.
The Columbia Waterfront's for-sale market is mostly converted factory lofts on one cobblestone street, and 1 Tiffany Place is the largest and earliest of them. Tiffany Place runs a single block between Degraw and Kane Streets on the harbor side of the expressway trench. It was paved in Belgian block in 1849 and was lined with factories by the 1880s. No. 1 is the biggest of the surviving industrial buildings on the block: five stories of red brick with star-anchor tiebacks on the façade.
The first fact to correct is the name. Listing records routinely call this a Tiffany lamp factory. Published research into the street's history finds that Tiffany Place was named by 1847, before Louis Comfort Tiffany was born. The same research finds that the building on this corner by 1904 was the Walther & Company glazed-paper factory, which made decorative papers. Nothing connects the building to Tiffany Studios. The story is harmless, but it is wrong, and the actual history is the better one.
The second fact is the date. This is an early Brooklyn loft conversion. The condominium association was incorporated in April 1986. Tiffany Place Associates recorded the declaration in December 1986, and ACRIS shows the sponsor closing nearly all of its unit sales in 1987. Secondary sources that date the conversion to the early 2000s are wrong. The building has been owner-governed for close to forty years.
The third fact is how the building works day to day. The association bought an apartment for its superintendent in 2010. It runs its own subway shuttle van and bills three neighboring buildings 76 percent of the van's operating cost. It sub-meters electricity. It carries parking through both deeded units and a leased lot. That is a self-run building, and its finances deserve a read before an offer.
Architecture and unit composition
The building is a five-story brick factory with a cellar, converted to 70 apartments on floors one through five. The offering plan's floor plans show the conversion's logic. Lettered lines (A, B, C and onward) stack through the floors, and the upper two floors often have different layouts from the lower three. Some first-floor apartments have large cellar storage rooms tied to them. Buyers should confirm whether a specific unit's cellar space is part of the unit or a limited common element. Apartment designations run from 1A to 5P.
The conversion kept the industrial shell: large factory windows, loft ceilings of roughly 9 to 10.5 feet per listing records, and heavy masonry walls. It added residential fireplaces in many apartments. Those fireplaces now have their own history on the books. The association ran a fireplace remediation project from 2017 and funded it with a separate assessment, which was completed and paid off in 2022, per the audited financial statements.
Building operations
Capital posture. The latest audited statements on file are for 2022. They show:
- Reserves of about $435,000 at year-end 2022.
- A small mortgage on the superintendent's apartment: about $261,000 outstanding, refinanced in 2017 at 4.4 percent, with a balloon of roughly $204,000 due May 18, 2027.
- A $400,000 bank line of credit, undrawn at year-end 2022.
The balloon is modest for a 70-unit building, but it matures in the next eight months. Ask the board how it will be refinanced or paid off.
The standing capital charge. Since July 2011, owners have paid a capital-improvement assessment fixed at 10 percent of each year's budgeted expenses, on top of common charges, per the audited statements. Treat it as a permanent part of carrying cost.
Operating results. The association has run operating deficits in recent years. The auditors also note that it has no reserve study (a formal estimate of future repair costs) and no funding plan for future major repairs. That is common in older self-managed Brooklyn condominiums, and it is still worth pricing in.
Outside income. Revenue beyond common charges comes from parking fees, storage rents, and rooftop telecom leases. Two telecom leases on file ran to 2023, and a third was not renewed in 2021. Ask whether the remaining leases were extended, because that income offsets common charges.
Property taxes. The conversion carried J-51, the city's tax benefit for residential conversions and rehabilitations, on all 70 residential lots, per the Department of Finance's historical J-51 file:
- The exemption started in 1987 on a 14-year schedule and phased out by 2000.
- The abatement, equal to 90 percent of certified conversion cost, was exhausted in 2005.
No building-wide exemption or abatement applies today. The only exemptions on the current roll are personal ones held by individual owners.
Recent sales
1 Tiffany Place is one of the Columbia Waterfront's most-traded addresses. It trades as a prewar loft conversion, priced in dollars per square foot and compared against the district's other converted factories and, at a discount, against Cobble Hill across the trench. The discount is for the walk. The Columbia Waterfront has no subway station, sits outside the historic districts, and is separated from its neighbors by the expressway. The building's own shuttle van is its answer to the subway gap.
Pricing inside the building is driven by light and line more than floor. The upper-floor layouts differ from the lower ones. Fireplace condition, cellar storage and a deeded parking unit are each a real adjustment. At the district level, work from the last complete year (2025) and extend the comparable set back several years, because a small market's annual medians rest on a handful of trades. Unit-level transaction history is maintained in The Roebling Research Library and shared with clients during diligence.
The retrade record
Lines that have traded more than once in the public record — the building’s appreciation arc, apartment by apartment.
Recent closings at this building, sourced from NYC Department of Finance records. Apartment-level detail (line, condition, asking-price context) verified upon consultation request.
| Date | Unit | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Mar 12, 2026 | 5N | $915,000 |
| Jan 8, 2026 | 5E | $880,000 |
| Sep 24, 2025 | 4B | $774,000 |
| Aug 18, 2025 | 3B | $735,000 |
| Aug 19, 2025 | 2F | $1,360,000 |
| Jul 1, 2025 | 4F | $1,100,000 |
Full closing history with price-per-square-foot over time, the complete retrade record, and every line that has traded.
Sales sourced from NYC Department of Finance recorded transfers (BBL 3-00320-7501) and verified listing data. Apartment-level facts (line, condition, asking-price context) curated and cross-verified by The Roebling Team research desk. Not all transactions cross-verify with ACRIS records — sponsor and LLC purchases sometimes record at stipulated values rather than market price.
At the recent median sale of $880K (7 sales since 2024), a buyer putting 25% down would pay about $32,683 to close, or 3.7% of the price.
- Mansion tax: $0
- Mortgage recording tax: $12,705
- Title insurance: $3,960
- Attorneys, lender, building fees, reserves and filings: $16,018
Assumes a resale (the seller pays transfer taxes), a $4,500 attorney fee and a mortgage on the rest.
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What to know if you’re buying
Expect a co-op-style package. The admissions committee asks for tax returns, a balance sheet and references. Assemble them before the contract is signed so the review does not hold up the closing.
Add the 10 percent capital charge to your carrying cost. Common charges alone understate the monthly figure. Run True Monthly Carrying Cost with both.
Ask three questions about the balance sheet. How will the May 2027 balloon on the superintendent's-apartment mortgage be handled? What do the latest audited statements (2023 or later) show for reserves? Are the rooftop telecom leases still producing income?
Settle what comes with the unit. Parking is split between deeded units and a leased lot, and some cellar storage is tied to specific apartments. Get the parking and storage position for your unit in writing.
No abatement is burning off. The J-51 benefit ended long ago, so the current tax bill is the real one. That is an advantage over newer 421-a buildings nearby, where taxes are still rising.
What to know if you’re selling
Correct the Tiffany story yourself. Buyers who look it up will find it is false. The Walther & Company factory and the 1849 cobblestones are the better history, and they are true.
Put the working features up front. The fireplace remediation is finished and paid for, the building has a live-in superintendent, and the shuttle van covers the subway gap. Each of these answers an objection before the buyer raises it.
Price against the Tiffany Place loft set first, then against Cobble Hill with the crossing discount stated. The buyer will make that comparison anyway.
Comparable buildings
If you're considering 1 Tiffany Place, also evaluate:
- 501 Hicks Street (Cobble Hill School Condominium): a mid-1980s conversion of a 1922 school with on-site parking, from the same conversion cohort across the trench
- 110 Warren Street (Columbia Commons): the district's ground-up 2010 condominium, where an active 421-a benefit sets up the tax comparison
- 401 Hicks Street (The Arches at Cobble Hill): an adaptive-reuse condominium inside the Cobble Hill Historic District
- 417 Hicks Street: the 2010 conversion of Alfred Tredway White's model housing, directly across the trench
- 344 Degraw Street: a Carroll Gardens condominium with parking and storage units, on the same street a few blocks east
- 200 Congress Street: the largest Cobble Hill cooperative, with its own garage, for the tenure comparison
- 29 Tiffany Place (The Ariana Condominium) and 63 Tiffany Place: the two other converted factory condominiums on the same tax block
- 60 Tiffany Place: the loft conversion across the street
More Columbia Waterfront buildings
- 100 Congress Street — 2008 condominium
- 110 Warren Street (Columbia Commons) — 2010 condominium
- 118 Union Street (Fifth Columbia Terrace) — 1990 condominium
- 255 Columbia Street — 2014 condop
- 60 Tiffany Place — 1978 condominium
- 75 Columbia Street — 2008 condominium
The neighborhood
For the full neighborhood — its buildings, character, and market — read The Roebling Team Guide to Columbia Waterfront.
How to read the facts on this page. Items attributed to an offering plan describe the building as it was offered at that filing — unit mix, square footage, the amenity program as planned. They are not a statement about how the building operates today. Tax and compliance figures are sourced separately to current City records and carry their own dates. House rules, staffing and fee policy can change by board resolution without any public filing: treat every policy line here as a starting point for diligence and confirm it with the managing agent. Where this page compares one building or neighborhood to another, that is our analysis of the recorded record — it names the measure, the period and the sample it rests on, and it is an observation about medians rather than a prediction about any particular apartment.
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