110 Livingston Street
110 Livingston Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201
Downtown Brooklyn, Brooklyn
BBL 3002697501 · BIN 3002642
- Year built
- 1926
- Type
- Condominium
- Units
- 299
- Floors
- 17
- Landmark
- No
- Flip tax
- Seller-paid transfer fee: 10% of gross sale price if resold before second anniversary of unit's closing; 1% thereafter (sponsor-purchase reserve contribution deductible from base)
- Subletting
- Permitted via lease application through managing agent (BoardPackager; Good Cause Eviction disclosure, house-rules acknowledgments)
- Washer / dryer
- In-unit washers referenced in house rules (vibration/noise settings required); confirm per-unit permissions
Compiled by The Roebling Research Desk from the building’s offering plan, amendments, and related building documents (primary source dated 2026-08). Board policies can change by amendment — confirm at the offer stage.
Few New York buildings have lived three lives this distinct. McKim, Mead & White designed 110 Livingston Street in 1926 as the clubhouse of the Brooklyn Elks — a full-block Beaux-Arts palazzo with a swimming pool, banquet hall, bowling alleys, and dormitory floors, built at the moment when Brooklyn's fraternal institutions still commissioned architecture at civic scale. The limestone-and-terra-cotta façade, with its Corinthian columns and Renaissance-revival ornament, was the point: the Elks were building a monument, and they hired the most famous architectural firm in America to do it.
The second life made the address a byword. From 1940 until 2003, 110 Livingston Street was the headquarters of the New York City Board of Education, and over those decades the address itself became the city's shorthand for educational bureaucracy — the title of David Rogers's landmark 1968 study of the school system, and the phrase parents and politicians used when they meant the system rather than the schools. When the Bloomberg administration moved the Department of Education to the Tweed Courthouse and sold the building in 2003, the New York press covered it as the end of an era, which it was.
The third life is the one that matters for buyers. Two Trees — the Walentas family firm that built residential DUMBO from the Clock Tower onward — acquired the building from the City in 2003 and converted it with Beyer Blinder Belle, the preservation-minded firm behind Grand Central Terminal's restoration and Two Trees' own conversion at 1 Main Street. The conversion added new floors above the original cornice line, restored the lobby's coffered ceiling, and wrapped the interior courtyard in a Richard Haas trompe-l'œil mural; the condominium commenced operations March 29, 2007. At 299 units it instantly became — and remains — one of the largest condominiums in the Borough Hall orbit, and its 2005–2008 sales cycle established the price of entry for Downtown Brooklyn's conversion market a decade before the new-tower generation arrived.
Two structural features distinguish the building today. First, the sponsor never fully exited: as of the end of 2024, 110 Livingston Development LLC still owned 62 residential units — roughly 22 percent of the common interest — operated as rentals, a fact with real consequences for building governance, financing questions, and resale dynamics. Second, the offering plan embedded an unusual anti-speculation mechanism that still governs every resale: a seller pays a fee of 10 percent of the gross price on any unit resold within two years of its closing, dropping to 1 percent thereafter. In practice the 1 percent tier applies to nearly all trades now, but it is a real cost line in every seller's net sheet and a genuine rarity in condominium form.
Architecture and unit composition
The building occupies its full block front with the deep floor plates of an institutional palazzo, and the conversion turned that depth into variety: the 299 units run from studios through three-bedroom layouts, with the added upper floors and setback levels carrying terraced units and the 19 separately deeded roof-terrace units — private outdoor parcels sold as their own condominium units, an uncommon structure that lets an apartment and its roof terrace trade together or, in principle, separately. House rules cap roof-terrace loading at 30 pounds per square foot and regulate installations, a diligence point for any terrace-unit purchase.
Interiors reflect the 2005–2007 conversion vocabulary — open kitchens, large double-hung windows in the original masonry openings, and the higher ceilings characteristic of institutional floor-to-floor heights on the original levels. Because the original building was a clubhouse and office block, window rhythm and ceiling height vary by floor and line more than in a purpose-built tower; the added floors read as contemporary construction. Exposures split between the civic-center streetscapes (Livingston Street, Boerum Place) and the quieter interior courtyard with the Haas mural.
The ground floor carries the building's civic gift: the former auditorium space at 22 Boerum Place, which Two Trees donated in 2022 to ISSUE Project Room, the experimental-arts organization that has programmed the theater since the conversion era, with City capital funding supporting its renovation.
Building operations
The condominium operates with an attended lobby, union (32BJ) staff, submetered electricity rebilled to units, and a budget the audited statements show in consistent surplus, with a reserve fund invested in Treasury instruments and roughly $2.8 million on hand at the end of 2024. Recent capital cycles documented in the audited statements include façade, roof, and exterior work, elevator upgrades, gym renovation, HVAC and plumbing work, and lobby refurbishment. Common charges rose 3.8 percent in 2024 and 2.98 percent in 2025 — measured, ordinary-course increases — and a portion of common charges is designated annually for major repairs and replacements rather than levied as separate special assessments.
One legacy quirk: the condominium purchased its superintendent's unit from the sponsor in 2009 for $750,000, financed by a sponsor-held mortgage at 9 percent that fully amortizes by 2037 — a small, fixed obligation visible in the financial statements. Management transitioned from Two Trees Management Co. to Solstice Residential Group, LLC on May 1, 2023, ending the sponsor-affiliated management era; applications run digitally through the managing agent. Audited financials, house rules (amended January 2025), and application forms are maintained in The Roebling Research Library and shared with clients during diligence.
Recent sales
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 |
|---|---|---|
| May 19, 2026 | 7D | $1,525,000 |
| Apr 16, 2026 | PHL | $1,336,500 |
| Mar 20, 2026 | 9P | $992,888 |
| Sep 9, 2025 | 7P | $999,000 |
| Aug 19, 2025 | 6C | $1,180,000 |
| Aug 4, 2025 | 6L | $808,000 |
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 3-00269-7501) 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.
What to know if you’re buying
Underwrite the sponsor's position. With roughly a fifth of the building still sponsor-owned and rented, ask current questions: sponsor arrears status (current per the 2024 audit), board composition, and any lender treatment of the ownership concentration. This is a known, stable arrangement — but it belongs in your diligence file.
The transfer fee is a seller cost that shapes pricing. Nearly all resales now sit in the 1 percent tier, but confirm the unit's closing date; a sub-two-year resale carries a 10 percent fee that changes everything about how it will be priced.
Terrace and roof-terrace units are a separate market. The 19 deeded roof-terrace units are their own condominium units with their own rules and load limits; review the deed structure and house rules before pricing the outdoor space.
Expect conversion-era variety. Ceiling heights, window patterns, and layouts vary meaningfully between original floors and the added upper stories; walk multiple lines before anchoring on price per square foot.
The location trades civic energy for convenience. Court Street retail, Borough Hall's full transit complex (2/3/4/5/R with A/C/F nearby), and Brooklyn Heights two blocks west; the immediate blocks are courts-and-college downtown rather than brownstone quiet.
What to know if you’re selling
Tell the building's story — it is the moat. McKim, Mead & White provenance, the Board of Education history, Beyer Blinder Belle's conversion, and the Haas courtyard give this building a narrative no glass tower nearby can match. Use it.
Price against the building and its conversion peers. The right comparable set is 110 Livingston's own recent trades and the conversion-condo tier, with the new-development towers as a ceiling reference rather than a peer group.
Compete with the sponsor's rentals deliberately. Renovated, well-staged resales separate cleanly from rental-condition sponsor stock; condition documentation and staging carry unusual weight here.
Net out the transfer fee early. The 1 percent (or 10 percent) fee, confirmed against your closing date, belongs in the first net-proceeds conversation.
Closings run condominium-fast. Waiver of first refusal rather than co-op approval; 30–45 day pacing is typical once terms are set.
Comparable buildings
If you're considering 110 Livingston Street, also evaluate:
- 75 Livingston Street — 1926 neo-Gothic office tower turned cooperative; the prewar-conversion alternative across the civic center, in co-op form
- 77 Livingston Street — prewar tower cooperative on the same block axis
- The Clock Tower (1 Main Street) — Two Trees' first conversion; the DUMBO loft expression of the same sponsor's preservation playbook
- The Sweeney Building (30 Main Street) — DUMBO conversion condominium peer
- One Clinton (1 Clinton Street) — new-development condominium at Cadman Plaza; the contemporary comparison point
- Boerum Court (96 Schermerhorn Street) — prewar cooperative south of the civic center at an accessible price point
- The Symon (76 Schermerhorn Street) — boutique new-development condominium nearby
- The Lookout Hill (199 State Street) — boutique condominium near the State Street row
- 11 Schermerhorn Street — small prewar cooperative on the Heights side of Schermerhorn
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