- Year built
- 1912
- Type
- Cooperative
- Units
- 38
- Floors
- 12
- Landmark
- No
Every recorded sale at this building, 2003–2026
Price-per-square-foot over time, the line- and floor-premium curves, and every recorded sale.
- Median $/sf
- $1,276
- Listing discount
- 3.3%
- Recorded sales
- 28
- On record
- 2003–2026
This is a working loft building that became apartments before that was a strategy. Built in 1912 for the wholesale trades that had followed Broadway north past Madison Square, it spent most of the century as commercial floors, and it was converted to residential use around 1980 — early, quietly, and at a moment when nobody was calling this block anything. There is no marketing name, no conversion-era brand, and no landmark designation. What there is instead is twelve floors of original loft structure, mostly in half- and full-floor residences, held by a cooperative corporation that has owned the whole parcel for four and a half decades.
The conversion is documented where conversions of that era usually are: in the tax roll. The Department of Finance J-51 record shows a benefit initiated in 1981 against roughly $202,000 of certified alteration cost, structured as a twelve-year exemption with a 90 percent abatement. The roll runs through tax year 1992 — the abatement pool was exhausted by 1991–92 and the exemption ran out with it. There is no live exemption or abatement on this lot today; the DOF exemption detail is empty. That matters for a buyer only in the negative sense, which is the useful sense: the taxes you see are the taxes, with nothing left to burn off.
The most consequential recent development has nothing to do with the building itself. On August 14, 2025, the City Council approved the Midtown South Mixed-Use Plan, replacing four decades of manufacturing-only zoning across a 42-block area with paired mixed-use districts. This lot was rezoned. It now sits in M1-8A/R11 inside the Special Midtown South Mixed-Use District, and city land-use data records a residential floor-area ratio of 12.0 — 15.0 under the affordable-housing option — against a built FAR of 8.78. In plain terms: the block's development posture changed materially in one action, and the buildings around this one now carry residential development rights they did not carry two years ago. That cuts both ways for a shareholder, and it is worth understanding before you buy or sell here.
Architecture and unit composition
The building is a twelve-story masonry loft of the 1912 commercial type: a pier-and-spandrel front with terra-cotta ornament concentrated at the top floor, deep floor plates, and the large window openings that make these buildings worth converting. The Roebling Research Library's read of the DOB record confirms real envelope work — a 2016 job restored a vertical masonry crack running from the sixth to the eleventh floor and patched terra-cotta ornament at the twelfth-floor cornice, following a sidewalk shed erected the same year. A shareholder should read that as a building that addressed a facade problem rather than deferred it, and should ask the managing agent what the current facade cycle looks like.
Recorded transfers describe the apartment stock better than any published unit count does. Shares change hands under designations like 2E and 2W, 3C and 3W, 4C and 4E, 9C and 9W, 10C, 10E and 10W, and full-floor lines on the eighth and eleventh floors — an east/west/center split on the lower and middle floors resolving into whole floors above. A 2014 alteration combined two eleventh-floor apartments into one. So the practical reality is a building of half-floor and full-floor lofts, where the line and the floor level, not the room count, set value.
Building operations
Modest and appropriate to the format: a part-time doorman, video intercom, and both passenger and freight elevators per listing records, with pets permitted. There is ground-floor and lower-level commercial space on the lot — city land-use records carry 13,900 square feet of retail area — which means commercial rent participates in the operating budget. That is a genuine advantage in a small loft co-op and a genuine question at diligence: ask for the commercial lease terms, the expiration dates, and how the board underwrites that income when it sets maintenance.
Policy framework
Nothing here is published, and we will not guess at it. For this cooperative, the financing ceiling, minimum down payment, post-closing liquidity expectation, flip tax structure, sublet policy, pied-à-terre posture and the treatment of trusts and LLCs are all board-set and all live only in the managing agent's file and the offering plan. Listing records confirm pets are permitted and that the building has a part-time doorman; beyond that, treat every policy question as open until the managing agent answers it in writing.
Facade safety — Local Law 11
The latest available FISP filing classified the facade as Safe — no repairs were required at that inspection. Facade inspections run on a fixed five-year cycle; future inspection, repair, and any assessment decisions remain building-specific.
How to read this, and where it comes from
QEWI = Qualified Exterior Wall Inspector — the licensed engineer the city requires to sign the report (the independent expert, not the managing agent).
Source: NYC DOB facade filings (FISP) · The Roebling Research Library. City record last verified September 2026.
Recent sales
Shares here have traded steadily and on the open market since at least 2004, to unrelated individual purchasers, across the full range of unit lines — half-floors on the lower floors, whole floors above. Trading volume is what you would expect from a building of this size: a handful of closings in a strong year, sometimes none. That thinness is the defining feature of the pricing problem. Loft co-ops of this type price on ceiling height, light on two exposures, floor level, and condition, and they price against the converted-loft condominium stock nearby rather than against pre-war apartment houses. The 2025 rezoning is now part of the story on both sides of a negotiation. Unit-level transaction history is maintained in The Roebling Research Library and shared with clients during diligence.
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.
| Date | Unit | Apartment | Price | PPSF | vs. Ask |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jul 7, 2026 | 10W | 1 BR · 1 BA · 850 sf | $1,085,000 | $1,276/sf | -7.7% |
| Mar 31, 2025 | 2E | 1 BR · 1.5 BA | $1,737,500 | -3.5% | |
| Dec 30, 2024 | 3 | 2 BR · 1 BA · 3,200 sf | $3,100,000 | $969/sf | -2.4% |
| Sep 28, 2023 | 12C | 1 BR · 1.5 BA | $1,549,000 | -3.1% | |
| Aug 8, 2022 | 9W | 3 BR · 2.5 BA · 3,200 sf | $4,850,000 | $1,516/sf | +0.0% |
| Jul 28, 2022 | 9 | 3 BR · 2.5 BA · 3,200 sf | $4,850,000 | $1,516/sf | +0.0% |
| Jun 2, 2022 | 6C | 4 BR · 2.5 BA · 3,145 sf | $3,250,000 | $1,033/sf | -7.1% |
| Jan 31, 2014 | 8 | 5 BR | $5,005,000 | +0.2% |
Market read. Most recent trades (2026) cleared a median $1,276/sf across 1 sale. Median listing discount 3.3% from the last ask — a recurring negotiation gap worth pricing into any offer or listing strategy.
The retrade record
Lines that have traded more than once in the public record — the building’s appreciation arc, apartment by apartment.
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 1-00804-0049) 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.
What to know if you’re buying
Get the certificate of occupancy before you get attached. The 1980–81 conversion predates the online DOB record. Nothing we can reach in the public file documents a joint living-work quarters restriction here — the alteration filings carry an ordinary residential occupancy, recorded as "RES" and, in filings from 2016 forward, R-2, and none is flagged for the Loft Board — but the certificate of occupancy is the only document that settles the question, and the managing agent has it.
Underwrite the board package as a share purchase, not a deed. You are buying stock and a proprietary lease. That means a full board package, a board interview, and a board that can decline without giving a reason. Assume a financing ceiling below what a condominium would allow, assume a post-closing liquidity test measured in years of maintenance and debt service, and assume the board will look at your liquid reserves at least as hard as at your income. Run the Co-op Board Qualification Calculator before you make an offer, not after.
Ask five questions in writing. The maximum financing percentage; the flip tax and who pays it; whether subletting is permitted at all, and after what seasoning period; whether pied-à-terre and trust or LLC ownership are entertained; and whether there is a live assessment. In a building this size, any one of them can decide the deal.
Read the commercial income, and read the taxes. The retail space is a real line in the budget, and the J-51 benefit is long gone — there is no abatement cushioning the tax bill and nothing left to expire. What you see is the steady state.
Know what the rezoning did. The August 2025 Midtown South action changed the zoning under and around this building. Ask your attorney what M1-8A/R11 in the MSX district means for the block's development pipeline, for light and air on your exposures, and for the cooperative's own unused development rights.
What to know if you’re selling
Lead with the loft, and be precise about the address. The building is indexed by the city as 114 West 29 Street across a three-building tax lot. Buyers searching public records will land on the wrong record and reach the wrong conclusions about floor count and unit count. Get ahead of it: state the BIN, state the twelve stories, and explain the merged lot in the first conversation.
Correct the public record in the marketing, with sources. City land-use data records four floors for this parcel. It is wrong for this building, and a buyer's attorney will find it. Show the DOB filings that record twelve stories and the recorded transfers on the twelfth floor.
Assemble the policy stack before you list. Because none of it is published, every serious buyer's attorney will ask the same questions of the managing agent and every one of those requests costs days. Get the financing ceiling, flip tax, sublet policy and current assessment status in hand at listing.
Position against condominium loft product, honestly. Your buyer is cross-shopping converted-loft condominiums with lighter approval mechanics. The co-op answer is scale and basis; the board process is the cost. Say both.
Comparable buildings
If you're considering 116 West 29th Street, also evaluate:
- 46 West 29th Street — pre-war NoMad loft cooperative; the closest like-for-like on tenure and vintage
- 249 West 29th Street — 1927 Art Deco loft cooperative on the Chelsea–NoMad border
- 22 West 26th Street — pre-war loft cooperative near Madison Square Park
- 130 West 30th Street — Cass Gilbert's landmarked Assyrian Revival loft tower, converted to condominium; the landmarked alternative a block north
- 121 West 19th Street — the Lion's Head, a 1903 Chelsea loft converted to condominium; the condo-mechanics comparison
- 141 Fifth Avenue — 1897 Merchant's Bank building converted to a boutique Flatiron condominium
- 11 East 29th Street — Sky House, the full-service NoMad condominium tower; the new-construction alternative
- 118 East 29th Street — boutique pre-war condominium on the Flatiron–Rose Hill seam
The neighborhood
For the full corridor — architecture, schools, transit, and pricing across Chelsea — read The Roebling Team Guide to Chelsea.
The full playbook — what goes in the package, how boards read your financials, the interview, and the timeline — plus sample cover, reference, and personal letters you can adapt.
How to read the facts on this page. Items attributed to an offering plan describe the building as it was offered at that filing — unit mix, square footage, the amenity program as planned. They are not a statement about how the building operates today. Tax and compliance figures are sourced separately to current City records and carry their own dates. House rules, staffing and fee policy can change by board resolution without any public filing: treat every policy line here as a starting point for diligence and confirm it with the managing agent.
Considering a move at 116 West 29th Street?
Request a private building brief with the relevant comparable sales, current and off-market availability, and an apartment-specific view of value.
Own an apartment here? See what it would sell for.
A Private Pricing Opinion — what your apartment at 116 West 29th Street would likely sell for today, what it costs to sell, and what you’d walk away with — reviewed personally against condition, exposures, renovation quality, and the competition actually on the market.