101 Wooster Street

Fifty feet of Wooster Street frontage on a lot 100 feet deep, seven stories, roughly 30,500 gross square feet. The base is cast iron and stone; the shaft above is brick with terra-cotta ornament. Buchman & Deisler were prolific loft architects in this decade, and the building is characteristic of their commercial work: a tall, regular, generously fenestrated elevation designed to put daylight deep into a hundred-foot floor plate.

That floor plate is what buyers are actually buying. Nine residences across seven floors, with 26,143 square feet of residential area, produces very large full-floor and near-full-floor lofts with the column spacing, ceiling heights and window walls that the original commercial use dictated. Because the residential portion sits above a retail base occupying the cellar and lower floors, the lowest residential floor is not the ground floor, and light and outlook improve markedly with height. Department of Buildings records show a 2016 filing for new roof decking and a wood-and-steel pergola, so at least one upper apartment has roof access.

The built FAR of 6.26 against a 5.00 residential FAR is worth understanding rather than skimming: the building is larger than the current residential envelope would permit, which is common for a converted loft and which means there is nothing to add. Any enlargement, penthouse or rooftop addition would require zoning relief on top of a Landmarks approval.

An elevator cooperative of this size runs lean. Recent capital work is legible in the Department of Buildings file and is the right kind: a 2017 filing for street-façade masonry and terra-cotta repair, a building-wide manual and automatic fire alarm with central-station connection in 2017, sprinkler modifications through the retail fit-outs of 2016 and 2017, and — the most substantial item — a 2020 installation of a fire pump to replace the pressurized roof tank serving the sprinkler system. That is a real capital project and it is finished, which is better news for a buyer than a building that has deferred it.

Staffing, elevator service arrangements, heat and utility configuration, and whether the building carries a resident superintendent are not established in the public record and should be confirmed with the managing agent.

Nothing in this building's policy stack is published anywhere. No offering plan and no financial statement for 101 Wooster Street was located in either the Compass Offering Plan Library or The Roebling Research Library. Every item below has to be obtained in writing from the managing agent, and in a nine-unit loft cooperative it should be obtained before an offer rather than after acceptance:

Board package and interview. Nine shareholders means the reviewing board is a small group of neighbors. Expect a complete financial package with tax returns, statements and reference letters, and expect an interview. Prepare with the Co-op Board Qualification Calculator.

Financing ceiling and post-closing liquidity. Undocumented. SoHo loft cooperatives of this size commonly cap financing below 80 percent and apply a post-closing liquidity requirement expressed as a multiple of monthly carrying cost. Ask for both numbers, and ask what the board has actually required of recent purchasers rather than what the proprietary lease says.

Sublet policy and flip tax. Undocumented. Ask whether sublets are permitted at all, after what period of ownership, for what term, and at what fee; and ask for the flip tax formula in writing, since in a building with these price points it is the largest single line in a seller's net proceeds.

Pied-à-terre, trusts and LLCs. Undocumented. If your purchase depends on an entity, a trust, or non-primary occupancy, raise it in the first conversation.

JLWQA occupancy, and what the 2021 rezoning did and did not change. This is the term buyers most often miss. The apartments are Joint Living-Work Quarters for Artists. Historically that meant occupancy was tied to artist certification. The SoHo/NoHo Neighborhood Plan adopted in December 2021 created a mechanism for legalizing non-artist residential occupancy through a per-square-foot contribution to a city arts fund, while leaving JLWQA in place as an option. What matters for an individual purchaser is whether this building — or the specific apartment — has been converted to conventional residential use, whether the certificate of occupancy still reads JLWQA, and what the cooperative's position is on the arts-fund path. Put that question to the managing agent and to your attorney early; it can affect financing and it will affect the title and lien search.

Loft Law status. No Interim Multiple Dwelling registration for this building was located in the records reviewed, and the conversion history — a mid-1980s alteration legalized through the Department of Buildings and supported by J-51 — is consistent with a building that left Loft Board jurisdiction rather than one that remained under it. That is an inference from the record, not a certification. Confirm loft-law status with the managing agent.

Recent sales

Recent transfers at this building, curated by The Roebling Team research desk. Prices are the transfer amounts recorded with the NYC Department of Finance; apartment-level detail is checked against the building’s own file in The Roebling Research Library before publishing.

Market read. Most recent trades (2023) cleared a median $1,743/sf across 1 sale. Median listing discount 8.6% from the last ask — a recurring negotiation gap worth pricing into any offer or listing strategy.

Sales sourced from NYC Department of Finance recorded transfers (BBL 1-00501-0028) 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; square footage on co-ops is not officially recorded, figures shown are approximate.

Ask the retail question first. A 2014 lease with $21 million of stated consideration and $20 million of leasehold financing above it is the largest single unknown in this building's economics. Establish whether the commercial rent flows to the cooperative, on what terms, and when it resets.

Read the certificate of occupancy on the JLWQA point. Occupancy classification here is a live diligence item, not a historical footnote, and it interacts with the post-2021 zoning framework. Your attorney should confirm it in writing before contract.

Confirm the unit count and the combination history. Department of Buildings filings run from twelve units down to nine over twenty years. If the apartment you are buying is a combination, confirm it was legalized — the 2009 TPPN 3/97 filing suggests the building has been through that exercise, but it should be verified apartment by apartment.

Underwrite the underlying mortgage. Roughly $3.9 million consolidated in April 2022, with new money advanced at that closing. Ask for the maturity date, the rate and the amortization, and run the result through the True Monthly Carrying Cost Calculator.

Lead with the floor plate. Nine residences in 26,000 square feet of residential area is a scale of loft that SoHo does not produce any more. That, not the building's amenity set, is the argument.

Have the JLWQA answer ready. Buyers' attorneys ask about it, lenders occasionally ask about it, and a seller who can answer it in one document rather than three phone calls keeps the deal moving.

Assemble the financials and the retail lease summary before listing. Because nothing here is published, the first serious buyer will ask for all of it at once. Getting the flip tax in writing at the same time lets you run the Seller Closing Cost Calculator before you set an asking price.

If you're considering 101 Wooster Street, also evaluate:

• 105 Wooster Street — the condominium on the same block, for buyers weighing tenure against character
• 102 Wooster Street — the loft building directly across the street
• 80 Wooster Street — comparable SoHo loft cooperative a block south
• 139 Wooster Street — converted loft cooperative north of Prince
• 160 Wooster Street — larger Wooster Street loft building
• 42 Wooster Street — southern SoHo loft alternative
• 583 Broadway — Broadway loft cooperative of similar vintage and scale
• 475 Broadway — cast-iron loft conversion nearby
• 491 Broadway — comparable Broadway loft building