128 East 28th Street

The lot is 43 feet wide and 98.75 feet deep, with the building occupying a 43-by-69-foot footprint. PLUTO records 19,821 square feet of building area — roughly 15,125 residential and 4,696 retail — against 25,357 square feet of total construction floor area on the new-building application; published accounts of 28,000 square feet reflect gross rather than zoning or assessed area. Built floor area of 4.67 FAR exceeds the 4.00 residential figure because the lot is split-zoned and the base is commercial.

With neighbors on both flanks, glazing concentrates on the north street elevation and the south rear elevation and the side walls are solid. The canted window geometry on the street face changes the sightline from inside each room, which is worth standing in a unit to judge rather than reading from an elevation photograph.

Eleven residences and one retail unit is a very small operating base. There is no full-time staff, no attended lobby and no service program beyond the bike room, storage and roof deck. Obtain the current budget and declaration to establish actual costs and item-specific allocation between the eleven residences and the retail unit; the staffing model alone does not establish a lean budget.

We have not seen a budget or an audited statement for this condominium, and its operating baseline is still forming — the residential sellout only completed in November 2024. A buyer should ask for the current operating budget, the reserve position, the board minutes since sellout, and the commercial unit's relationship to the condominium: who owns the retail unit, what common charges it pays, and what voting interest it holds. In a twelve-lot condominium the commercial owner is a material governance participant, and that is the single most important diligence question at this address.

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

Pied-à-terre, LLC, trust and foreign ownership: Not documented; confirm in the declaration, bylaws and house rules.

Subletting: Not documented; confirm in the declaration, bylaws and house rules, including minimum lease terms.

Financing: Not documented; confirm in the declaration, bylaws and house rules.

Pets and flip tax: Not documented in the records available to us. Confirm both with the managing agent.

Real estate taxes: No exemption on any unit lot in FY2024 through FY2027. Underwrite full unabated taxes on the specific unit.

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 (2024) cleared a median $1,613/sf (floor-adjusted) across 6 sales. 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 1.5% 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 1-00883-7501; 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.

Ask who owns the retail unit and what it votes. In a twelve-lot condominium the commercial owner is a governance factor, not a footnote.

The roll shows no exemption, and eleven units is a small denominator. Check the apartment's tax bill for any abatement, and establish each capital item’s allocation between the eleven residences and the retail unit under the declaration. Get the budget, the reserve balance and the minutes since the November 2024 sellout.

PLUTO's build year is not the completion year. City data says 2019, the year the new-building permit issued; the architect reports substantial completion in October 2022, and the final certificate of occupancy issued in November 2024. Anything keyed to the PLUTO year makes the building look older than it is.

There is no staff. Access runs on a virtual doorman system — a lifestyle question as much as a budget one.

If you're considering 128 East 28th Street, also evaluate:

• 181 East 28th Street — new-construction condominium on the same street; the nearest peer by product type
• 31 East 28th Street — a 1913 building converted to a 21-unit condominium in 2006; the loft-conversion alternative on the same street
• 30 East 29th Street — CetraRuddy Architecture new construction one block north
• 107 East 31st Street — 15 residences, completed 2007–2008; the prior-generation boutique condominium at similar scale
• 241 Fifth Avenue — ODA, 2012; the design-led NoMad condominium of the prior cycle
• 111 East 30th Street — Philip Birnbaum, 1984, roughly 52 residences; the larger-denominator alternative with a conventional service model
• 200 East 27th Street — the Kips Bay alternative one block south, at different scale and economics