126 East 86th Street (ARLOPARC)

The building occupies a narrow rectangular interior lot, which governs everything about the massing. With no corner and no protected exposures on either flank, the design concentrates glass on the East 86th Street elevation and leaves the side walls largely solid. This is a deliberate response to a real risk rather than an oversight: the adjacent low-rise buildings are themselves developable, and lot-line windows on an interior Manhattan site can be lost to a neighboring project without recourse. The trade is light on one axis for permanence on the others.

The façade is limestone at the base rising into buff brick, with arched ground-floor openings, a bronze-toned canopy, and applied exterior lighting. The commercial unit at the base, addressed 126A East 86th Street, is a separate condominium unit and traded separately from the residences in 2025.

Residences are half-floor and full-floor plates. Two-bedroom homes occupy the lower and middle floors; three-bedroom and full-floor four- and five-bedroom homes rise through the upper stack; the duplex penthouse sits at the top with private terrace. Nearly every residence carries private outdoor space, and the west-facing upper floors gain Central Park outlooks over the shorter Carnegie Hill blocks. Ceiling heights above nine feet, herringbone European white oak, and full moldings run through the inventory. Layouts on the full-floor plates place the kitchen on the circulation path between the entertaining and sleeping wings, which is worth walking before contract — it reads differently in person than on the floor plan.

ARLOPARC runs as a full-service condominium with an attended lobby, full-time doorman and concierge coverage, and a three-level amenity program. Wellness is the organizing idea: the fitness center, the spa with infrared and traditional saunas and a treatment room, and the club room and fireplace terrace are the spaces the building was marketed on and the spaces that carry the operating load. The children's playroom, library, music practice room, bike room, and rooftop terrace round out the program.

For a building of 28 residences, that is a substantial fixed cost spread across a small denominator. Common charges should be evaluated per square foot against the specific unit and against the building's operating budget, not against the amenity roster. The building is new enough that its first several operating years are still establishing the reserve and expense baseline, and any buyer should ask for the current budget, the reserve position, and the sponsor's remaining unsold inventory before contract.

Ownership form: Condominium. Purchases close through the standard right-of-first-refusal mechanism rather than a cooperative board approval. Thirty to forty-five days is a typical closing estimate.

Pets: Permitted per management-sourced records. Confirm weight and breed limits in the house rules.

Pied-à-terre, subletting, LLC, trust and foreign ownership: Not documented; confirm in the declaration, bylaws and house rules, including minimum lease terms for subletting.

Minimum down payment: 20 percent per listing records.

In-unit washer/dryer: Permitted; residences are equipped.

Flip tax: Not documented in public records. Any resale capital contribution should be confirmed with the managing agent before pricing a sale.

Real estate taxes: No exemption appears on the residential unit lots in the FY2026 or FY2027 assessment rolls. Abatements apply on the bill, so check the specific unit's tax bill, and run True Monthly Carrying Cost analysis against the current bill rather than against a projected schedule.

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 $2,123/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 5.5% 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 1-01514-7503; 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.

Reconcile the conflicting unit counts. City data for this lot reports 55 residential units. The building has 28. The DOB new-building application, the recorded condominium subdivision, and the ACRIS unit-lot schedule all agree on 28 residences plus one commercial unit. The discrepancy can affect calculations that use a unit count; identify which count a model actually uses and how it affects the result before rejecting its output.

Underwrite full taxes from day one. There is no 421-a, no J-51, and no other exemption on the residential unit lots. This is the fact most likely to change your monthly number relative to abated new construction elsewhere.

Review the amenity operating costs. The building has three amenity levels across 28 residences. Read the current operating budget, reserve position and common charges; compare actual costs and services with specific alternatives before ranking affordability.

Test the exposures. The side walls are largely blind by design, and the adjacent low-rise buildings are developable. Understand which windows in a specific unit are lot-line windows and what could be built next door.

Walk the full-floor plan. On the full-floor plates the kitchen sits on the primary circulation route to the bedrooms. Some buyers find that unremarkable and some do not; it is worth resolving in person.

86th Street is a working street. Bus routes, retail loading, and the Lexington Avenue subway a half block east are part of the address. The triple-glazed windows are a real mitigation — test them at rush hour rather than midday.

Lead with scarcity, not with finishes. New construction between Park and Lexington is uncommon, and much of the surrounding area sits in historic districts where any new building needs Landmarks Preservation Commission approval. Present that scarcity against the current new-construction inventory nearby rather than as a permanent condition.

Be direct about the tax posture. Sophisticated buyers will find it themselves. Presenting the full unabated number up front and pairing it with the True Monthly Carrying Cost analysis produces better outcomes than letting it surface in diligence.

Price against new construction, not against the prewar co-ops. The buildings on either side of ARLOPARC are prewar cooperatives with entirely different economics, policies and buyer pools. The right comparable set is the small group of new-construction Upper East Side condominiums.

The building is young, and same-building comparables are thin. With 28 residences and a sellout that ran from 2024 into 2026, resale pricing depends on line-specific and floor-specific analysis rather than on a building average.

If you're considering ARLOPARC, also evaluate:

• The Benson (1045 Madison Avenue) — Peter Pennoyer Architects for Naftali Group, 2022; the traditionally detailed new-construction Upper East Side condominium at a higher price tier
• 180 East 88th Street — 47-residence Carnegie Hill new-construction condominium tower; the nearest new-development alternative and a very different architectural argument
• The Hayworth (1289 Lexington Avenue) — 61-residence 2019 new construction on Lexington Avenue; the closest peer by vintage and corridor
• The Lucida (151 East 85th Street) — Cook + Fox full-amenity condominium one block south on Lexington; the larger, older full-service alternative
• 20 East End Avenue — Robert A.M. Stern Architects; traditionally detailed new construction on the far east side, at lower density and further from transit
• 11 East 86th Street — Sylvan Bien's 1960 cooperative on the same street closer to Fifth; the postwar co-op alternative
• 115 East 86th Street — 1928 building converted to cooperative in 1982; the prewar co-op alternative on the block
• 120 East 86th Street — 16-residence prewar cooperative; the small-building alternative with entirely different policy and financing rules
• 108 East 86th Street — 1924 cooperative converted from rental; same block, prewar scale and economics