105 Chambers Street (The Cary Building)

The site is 50 feet wide and just over 151 feet deep, and the building covers essentially all of it across six stories. That geometry is what makes the residences work: each floor is a long, column-lined loft plate with light at both ends and no interior air shaft. The 2012 conversion divided floors two and three into four and three residences respectively and the fourth floor into two, with the fifth and sixth floors and roof retained as the two penthouse units, designated PHN and PHS.

The cast iron itself is the point of the exterior. King & Kellum's arcade runs in tiers of round-arched openings separated by engaged columns, an Italianate palazzo idiom executed in iron rather than stone — the technology that made Tribeca and SoHo possible. LPC records masonry as the primary material and cast iron as the secondary, which reflects the construction: iron fronts on load-bearing masonry side walls, not an iron frame.

Later work reshaped the interior more than the shell. A 2000 alteration inserted a new stair and elevator shaft through all floors and reworked the Chambers Street storefronts; a proposed seventh-story enlargement was filed in 2001 and withdrawn, with the scope revised to reframing the existing sixth floor where heavy timber had to be replaced. Sidewalk sheds and façade work appear in the record in 2001, 2014 and 2015. At six stories the building sits below the Local Law 11 façade-inspection threshold, which applies to buildings taller than six stories; confirm DOB's classification and ask for any façade repair records. Repair of a landmark cast-iron front is expensive regardless, and LPC controls the specification.

This is a self-contained small building, not a serviced one. The residential common elements amount to the lobby, one elevator, the stair, and the roof terrace serving the upper duplex. There is no doorman and no staff of the kind a full-service condominium carries, which leaves a corresponding share of the maintenance burden with the board. Common charges are not assumed to be low or high here: compare the unit's actual charges, taxes and assessments with similar Tribeca units.

The commercial component is material here. The ground-floor retail unit is a separate condominium unit with its own ownership and its own history — it has traded, been financed, and been re-let independently of the residences — and the building has hosted commercial and institutional tenants on the lower floors within recent memory, including an educational use on the second floor approved in 2010 before that floor became residential. Any buyer should ask for the current declaration and by-laws to understand how common charges, roof and façade costs, and voting are allocated between the residential and commercial interests. In a mixed condominium, that allocation sets how costs are shared between the commercial and residential owners.

There is no offering plan for 105 Chambers Street in The Roebling Research Library at the time of writing, and the building publishes no policy stack. Rather than infer one, we state what is documented and what is not.

Ownership form: Condominium. Transfers proceed through the board's right of first refusal rather than a cooperative-style approval; confirm the application process and timing in the current declaration and bylaws.

Financing, pets, subletting, pied-à-terre and entity ownership: Not documented in public records. Request the declaration, by-laws, house rules and the current budget from the managing agent, and confirm any transfer fee or resale capital contribution in writing before contract.

Tax posture: The roll shows no exemption on any unit lot. Check the apartment's tax bill for any abatement before underwriting taxes.

Recent sales

Recent closings at this building, from The Roebling Research Library. 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 (2022) cleared a median $1,357/sf (recorded) across 3 sales.

Sales sourced from NYC Department of Finance recorded transfers (BBL 1-00145-7501; each condominium apartment is its own tax lot). Apartment-level facts (line, condition, asking-price context) curated and cross-verified in The Roebling Research Library. Not all transactions cross-verify with ACRIS records — sponsor and LLC purchases sometimes record at stipulated values rather than market price; square footage from recorded condo declarations and offering plans.

Landmark review is the headline. As an individual landmark inside a historic district, the building needs LPC permits for exterior work, windows, storefronts and anything visible from the street or roof; the scope decides whether staff can approve it or it goes to a Commission hearing. Budget time as well as money, and ask what the building has already been approved for.

Read the mixed-use documents before you read the floor plan. The retail unit is a separate owner with a separate agenda. How the declaration splits façade, roof and elevator costs between commercial and residential is the number that will show up in your carrying cost for the next twenty years.

The roll shows no exemption. Check the apartment's tax bill for any abatement. When comparing monthlies against abated Tribeca new-development inventory, compare each unit's charges, taxes, financing and assessments.

The comparable set is thin and partly internal. Four arm's-length trades in one year is not a price history. Have your broker underwrite against the wider Tribeca loft market, not against the building's own record.

Lead with the landmark and the plate. An individually designated 1857 cast-iron building with through-block floorplates is a short list in Manhattan. That story does real work with the Tribeca buyer pool.

Be ready for façade and LPC questions early. Buyers' counsel will ask about façade condition, past repair work and any open LPC applications. Local Law 11 inspection cycles apply only to buildings taller than six stories, so confirm DOB's classification before describing a filing cycle. Have the answers in the package rather than in a negotiation.

Expect the buyer to test the comparables. With so few arm's-length sales in the building, pricing has to be argued from the neighborhood set. Bring the loft comps, the ceiling heights, and the square footage math to the first conversation.

• 87 Chambers Street — a Chambers Street loft condominium on the same corridor, closest in scale and buyer profile.
• 91 Chambers Street — adjacent block, comparable boutique loft conversion.
• 100 Reade Street — the Reade Street side of the same Tribeca South fabric.
• 157 Chambers Street — a further-west Chambers Street conversion with a similar unit count.
• 165 Chambers Street — comparable small Tribeca loft condominium.
• 134 Duane Street — a Tribeca South loft building of similar date and scale, cooperative rather than condominium.
• 137 Duane Street — nearby loft condominium in a designated Tribeca block.
• 52 Thomas Street — small Tribeca loft conversion with landmark constraints.
• 30 Warren Street — the newer end of the Tribeca South buyer pool, useful as a pricing contrast.
• 166 Duane Street — boutique loft condominium in the historic district.