136 West 17th Street

The lot is 25 feet wide by 92 deep, and the building fills it — 25 by 92 at the base, ten floors, 104 feet to the roof. On a parcel that narrow, with no corner and no protected exposures on either flank, the whole architectural argument has to happen on the street elevation, and it does: a glazed front with the top floors pulled back to make terraces. The rear yard cut in the 2002 alteration gives the south side of each floor plate real light rather than a lot-line condition.

Unit sizes from DOF's lot record run tightly: 2A through 6A between roughly 1,259 and 1,266 square feet, PHB at roughly 1,318, and PHA at roughly 1,906 across two levels. The ground-floor commercial unit is roughly 1,657 square feet and was built out as a medical office in 2005 and 2006 under separate DOB filings — worth knowing, because it means the building's street level operates on a weekday professional schedule rather than as retail.

Alteration filings on individual apartments record what buyers will actually find inside: a gas fireplace installed on the third floor in 2009 and another removed in 2010, limestone pavers laid on a terrace in 2014, a hot tub filed for the second-floor terrace in 2009 and another at roof level in 2007. Fireplaces exist in the building but are not uniform across the line, and whether a given one is gas or wood-burning is a unit-level question rather than a building-level one. Confirm it in the specific apartment.

Seven residences, one elevator, no staff. Access is by video intercom with a virtual doorman system per management-sourced records; a keyed-elevator arrangement delivers residents directly into their apartments. Private storage and in-unit washer/dryers are documented in listing records. Pets are permitted. A heavy-duty sidewalk shed was filed in 2003 for façade repair under Local Law 33 of 1991, and a fire-protection plan was filed for the completed building in 2010 — the ordinary maintenance rhythm of a small Chelsea condominium, with nothing in the public record suggesting an unusual capital burden.

The absence of staff is the single operational fact that most changes the experience relative to a full-service building. It removes an on-site staffing expense; actual common charges depend on the full budget and allocation. It also means deliveries, contractors and building access are self-managed, and that the board is small enough that a single unengaged owner is a meaningful fraction of it. Ask for the last two years of financial statements and the current budget before contract; in a seven-unit building the reserve position and any assessment history are far more consequential per apartment than they would be in a hundred-unit house.

The condominium framework governs: no board interview, with the board holding a right of first refusal on a sale rather than an approval right. Pets are permitted per management-sourced records. Confirm financing, trust and entity purchases, subletting and pied-à-terre use in the current declaration, bylaws and house rules. No flip tax or resale capital contribution is documented in public records for this building; whether one exists is a question for the managing agent, and it should be asked rather than assumed.

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 (2025) cleared a median $2,000/sf (recorded) across 1 sale. Median listing discount 2.8% 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 1-00792-7507; 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.

The vintage in city data is wrong, or rather absent. PLUTO shows no year built. Appraisers and lenders pulling automated data on this address will find a blank or will default to the 2004 alteration year. The records establish a 2004 permit, a 2005 declaration and ancillary filings, and 2006 first closings. They do not alone establish completion or first occupancy; request the CO/TCO and relevant sign-offs.

The roll shows no abatement to lose. Underwrite the tax line from the apartment's current bill; there is no benefit phase-out ahead, but future bills still change with assessments and rates.

Size the building risk honestly. The condominium has seven residences and a separately owned commercial unit; confirm the declaration's allocation of capital expenses and any expenses assigned to particular units. Read the financials and the reserve position, and ask specifically about façade compliance cycles and elevator work, and compare their expected cost with the full capital plan and reserves.

Confirm the fireplace and outdoor space unit by unit. DOB filings show fireplaces and terraces in some apartments and not others, and at least one fireplace was removed. Do not price a feature that is documented at the building rather than at the apartment.

Check what is happening at street level. The ground-floor unit is a separately owned commercial condominium built out as a medical office. Confirm the current occupant and the by-laws' commercial-use provisions.

Lead with the full floor. Whole-floor living with a keyed elevator opening into the apartment is the product, and it is rare below 1,500 square feet in Chelsea. Say it plainly.

Get ahead of the missing year built. Buyers and their counsel will pull the city record and see nothing. Supply the alteration number, the permit date, the declaration date and the first-closing dates up front, and the question closes before it becomes a valuation discussion.

Present the tax line as a feature. Model ten years of current taxes and other charges alongside the benefit schedules of abated alternatives; no scheduled benefit phase-out does not mean taxes or other costs stay fixed. Run the comparison for the buyer rather than leaving it to them.

Have the financials ready. In a seven-unit condominium, a buyer's attorney will want the budget, the reserve balance and the assessment history immediately. Delay reads as a problem even when there isn't one.

If you're considering 136 West 17th Street, also evaluate:

• 133 West 17th Street — the 24-unit loft cooperative directly across the street on block 793; the share-ownership alternative on the opposite block face
• 151 West 17th Street — a 2001–2002 Chelsea condominium; the closest peer by vintage and tenure
• 121 West 17th Street — a 1911 building converted to cooperative use in 1988; the prewar co-op alternative on the block
• 113 West 17th Street — a 1911 warehouse converted to condominium lofts in 1982; loft proportions in condominium form
• 15 West 17th Street — a 1907 loft converted to a ten-residence condominium; the closest match in building scale
• 14 West 17th Street — a self-managed Beaux-Arts loft cooperative; the same street, an entirely different governance model
• 100 West 18th Street — 2006 new-construction Chelsea condominium; the contemporaneous ground-up alternative
• 126 West 16th Street — a 15-residence condominium built around an 1886 church; boutique scale one block south
• 144 West 18th Street — a 1910 loft converted to an 18-unit condominium in 2002; the loft-conversion comparison
• 111 West 16th Street — an 83-residence prewar cooperative; the full-service alternative at the opposite end of the scale