108 Duane Street

The lot runs roughly 49 feet along Duane Street to a depth of 100 feet, with a building footprint about 49 by 87 feet and roughly 31,300 square feet of zoning floor area. The base is the original cast-iron storefront of fluted Corinthian columns and wide double doors. Above it, four brick floors are organized as two stacked pairs of two-story arched bays, separated by a brownstone cornice and finished with a stepped corbel table — a brick-fronted variant of the Duane Street loft type, in a district where most of the surviving fabric is stone or iron.

The penthouse addition sits above that, two stories of matching brick in a neo-Romanesque Revival idiom. It is the reason the building reads as seven stories today when Department of Finance records for the pre-conversion lot still showed five.

Residences occupy floors two through the penthouse. Department of Finance sizes them from roughly 1,096 to roughly 4,000 square feet, with the largest carried as an open loft. The upper residences include terraces. Two owners hold adjacent unit lots, which is common in loft buildings where floors were split and later recombined; a buyer should establish from the floor plan and the recorded schedule which lots a given residence actually comprises. The oversized arched window openings on the Duane Street front are the defining interior feature on the original floors.

The building runs lean by design. The offering plan discloses a non-resident superintendent, on the express basis that a condominium of fewer than thirteen residential units is not required to keep one on site, and contemplates owners engaging a part-time superintendent for at least twenty-five hours per week. Two elevators are under service contract. Common electricity covers hallways, cellar and sub-cellar, mechanical systems and the elevators; unit electricity is separately metered. There is no doorman, no amenity program and no staffed lobby.

The capital record shows the ordinary Tribeca loft cadence — sidewalk shed and pipe scaffold cycles in 2002, 2011 and 2016, a boiler installation in 2013, and repeated interior alteration filings at unit level. Two items deserve direct questions at diligence. First, the offering plan disclosed that the property held a temporary certificate of occupancy arising from the penthouse work, with the sponsor undertaking to obtain a permanent certificate within two years of the first closing; a 2016 Alteration Type 1 then amended the certificate again for a change of use in the cellar. Confirm the current certificate-of-occupancy status before contract. Second, four of the fifteen unit lots are commercial or storage lots in tax class 4, and their common-charge share and capital participation sit inside the same condominium as the residences.

Ownership form: Condominium. Purchases close through a right of first refusal rather than a cooperative board approval.

Pets: Permitted under the offering plan's house rules — dogs, cats, caged birds and fish — with the board reserving the right to restrict size, weight and number.

Subletting: Permitted. Short-term rentals and Airbnb are not permitted. Smoking is not permitted.

Pied-à-terre, corporate purchase and corporate lease: All permitted per management-sourced records.

Post-closing liquidity: Required per management-sourced records — an unusual requirement in a condominium and worth quantifying with the managing agent before you write an offer.

Insurance: Homeowner's insurance and renter's insurance are both required.

Flip tax: None. The plan provides that no transfer fee is payable to the board or the managing agent, apart from the working-capital contribution of two months' common charges due at closing.

Real estate taxes: No exemption appears on the residential unit lots in the FY2027 roll, and no J-51 grant appears for this lot in the Department of Finance's historical J-51 file. 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 (2026 to date) cleared a median $1,360/sf (recorded) across 1 sale.

Sales sourced from NYC Department of Finance recorded transfers (BBL 1-00150-7504; 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.

Confirm the certificate of occupancy. The offering plan disclosed a temporary certificate arising from the penthouse addition, with a sponsor undertaking to obtain a permanent one. A 2016 alteration amended it again. Get the current document.

This was a non-eviction conversion. Ask the managing agent whether any non-purchasing tenancy from the 2011 plan remains, and in which unit. It is a routine question with a material answer.

Ignore PLUTO's 1915. The building dates to 1855–56. Age matters for structure, for insurance and for how you read the capital plan.

The building has no resident staff. That is disclosed in the plan. Compare the actual common charges with the staffing level when pricing the trade-off.

Establish which lots a residence comprises. Several owners hold adjacent unit lots. The recorded schedule, not the floor plan, is the controlling document.

Lead with the plate and the light. Full-floor and half-floor lofts with oversized arched openings, in a building that is not itself landmarked, are a specific, findable proposition.

Correct the year built. Buyers pulling city data will see 1915 and price a different building. The 1855–56 Mason Brothers provenance is both accurate and a genuine differentiator on this block.

Be direct about staffing and taxes. No resident super, and the roll shows no tax exemption. Sophisticated Tribeca buyers will find both; presenting them up front, alongside the building's actual common charges, avoids surprises late in the process.

Price against loft conversions, not towers. The comparable set is the small converted loft condominiums of the Duane and Reade Street grid.

If you're considering 108–110 Duane Street, also evaluate:

• 66 Reade Street — separate condominium on the same tax block, inside the Tribeca South Historic District; the landmarked alternative next door
• 134 Duane Street (Main Duane) — converted Duane Street loft condominium a block west
• 137 Duane Street — small Duane Street loft ownership at comparable scale
• 142 Duane Street — Duane Street loft building held as a cooperative; the tenure alternative on the same street
• Duane Park Lofts (166 Duane Street) — larger converted loft condominium at Duane Park
• 100 Reade Street — Reade Street loft conversion
• 10 Leonard Street — boutique Leonard Street loft condominium
• 24 Leonard Street — small Tribeca loft condominium with similar economics
• 108 Leonard Street (The Clock Tower) — the full-service landmark alternative at much larger scale
• 105 Chambers Street — nearby converted loft ownership south of Duane