11 West 30th Street (Empire State Lofts)

Fifteen stories of masonry loft construction on a fifty-by-ninety-nine-foot lot, with the mass stepping back as it rises. The setbacks produce the building's best feature: private outdoor space on the upper floors, with south-facing terraces from the eleventh floor and north-facing terraces from the ninth, per listing records. Unit designations in recorded transfers run on an F (front) and R (rear) convention through the middle floors — 6F and 6R, 9F and 9R, 11F and 11R — with full-floor apartments above, which is consistent with a building that was cut two-per-floor in the lower stack and left whole higher up. A 2016 filing combined 6F and 6R into a single apartment, and city records show the residential count sliding between 17 and 18 across the period, so the current mix should be read from the current certificate of occupancy rather than from any aggregated feed.

City records currently map the lot in a paired manufacturing-and-residential zoning district (M1-8A/R12), a designation applied to this part of Midtown South comparatively recently. It has little practical effect on an existing residential cooperative, but it governs what can be built on the lots around it — relevant to light and view on the lower floors.

This is not a full-service building and should not be underwritten as one. There is no published doorman, no gym, no amenity package. What the building does offer, per management-sourced records, is a private storage room for every apartment, located off the hallway on the same floor, many of them plumbed with running water — an unusually generous arrangement that reflects the loft floor plates.

No audited financial statements for Empire State Lofts Limited are on file with us. The things that most determine carrying cost in a small loft co-op — the underlying mortgage balance and maturity, the reserve position, any live assessment, the commercial lease rollover schedule, and the building's Local Law 11 facade cycle — are not in the records we reviewed, apart from the public facade filings noted below, and should come from the managing agent. The building includes approximately 7,800 square feet of commercial space. Obtain the commercial ownership and lease schedule together with the current financial statements to determine what income reaches the cooperative, its share of the budget and any rollover or collection exposure.

Public records do show two facade cycles: a 2007 sidewalk shed and remedial repair program, and a 2017 facade and roof repair filing accompanied by a sidewalk shed. Both are consistent with a building meeting its statutory facade inspection obligations.

• Subletting is permitted after one year of owner occupancy, capped at two years in any four, with a sublet fee of 10 percent of monthly maintenance. A subtenant application fee of $250 and a refundable $1,000 move-in/out deposit apply, per management-sourced records.
• The flip tax is 2 percent of the purchase price and is paid by the seller.
• Live/work is permitted, with up to two employees per unit.
• No maximum financing percentage is published. This is the single most important open item in the file. A prospective buyer should obtain the board's current financing ceiling and post-closing liquidity expectation in writing from the managing agent before making an offer, because both are set by board practice rather than by any published document we can verify.
• Pet, pied-à-terre, trust and LLC policies are not published. We do not infer them from building type.

Recent sales

Recent transfers 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 $998/sf (floor-adjusted) across 1 sale. Floor-adjusted means each sale is restated to a constant mix of floors, so the figure can differ from the plain median of the sales listed above. Median listing discount 3.6% 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 1-00832-0032). 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 on co-ops is not officially recorded, figures shown are approximate.

Get the financing ceiling in writing first. Nothing else in this file matters if you cannot clear the board's debt limit, and it is not published anywhere we can verify.

Ask for the financials and the commercial lease schedule together. The building has about 7,800 square feet of commercial space. Whether it produces income for the cooperative, and how much, depends on who owns it and on the leases, which the schedule will show. The underlying mortgage balance and maturity belong in the same request.

Resolve the conversion date and get the offering plan. Public records point to 1987; listing records say 1981. The plan settles it and also establishes the original share allocation, the proprietary lease terms, and whether the live/work permission is a plan-level right or a board practice that can be withdrawn.

Underwrite the live/work rule as a feature, not a guarantee. Confirm with the managing agent that your specific intended use — client visits, deliveries, signage — falls inside what the board actually permits.

Check the party-wall opening. The 2015 connection to 7–9 West 30th Street should be explained by the managing agent and reviewed by your attorney.

The live/work permission is your differentiator. Very few Manhattan co-op boards allow a shareholder to run a business with employees from the apartment. Market to the buyer who needs that, not to the generic loft buyer.

Lead with frontage, ceiling height and terrace. Those are the three variables that separate one apartment in this building from another, and they are measurable — so measure them and publish them.

Prepare the building documents in advance. In a seventeen-unit building with no published financing policy in the records we reviewed and no offering plan or audited statements in our file, buyers' attorneys will ask for these documents early. Have the financials, the lease schedule and the board's policy answers ready before you list, so diligence questions are answered quickly.

If you're considering 11 West 30th Street, also evaluate:

• 284 Fifth Avenue — the cooperative on the same block, at the Fifth Avenue corner; the closest possible comparison on location and share-pool scale
• 212 Fifth Avenue — 1913 office building converted to condominium; the full-service alternative farther south along Fifth Avenue
• 225 Fifth Avenue — 1907 commercial building converted to condominium residences; the doorman-building alternative on Madison Square Park
• 1107 Broadway — conversion of a 1915 commercial building; NoMad loft-scale living at the top of the market
• 1182 Broadway — prewar loft converted to condominium; a direct read on loft-conversion pricing in the neighborhood
• 1200 Broadway — 1869–1871 hotel converted to cooperative ownership; the other NoMad co-op with genuinely prewar bones
• 11 East 29th Street — 2008 condominium; the new-construction comparison on the east side of Fifth
• 15 East 30th Street — 2021 new-construction condominium directly across Fifth Avenue; the top of the block's price range
• 241 Fifth Avenue — 2012 condominium; a boutique full-service alternative