14 Wooster Street

M. G. Pigueron's 1903 design is a seven-story store-and-loft building in limestone, brick and ashlar, three bays and six windows wide, built for George Pigueron and completed in eight months. It is not a cast-iron building and does not pretend to be one; it belongs to the later, quieter phase of the district, when masonry-fronted loft buildings filled the blocks nearest Canal Street. The 1973 designation report noted the ground floor bricked in and the cornice lost — alterations of the mid-century manufacturing era rather than the original design.

Residences occupy the upper floors, one per level. The plates are undivided and column-lined, with the structure, party walls and window rhythm of the original loft intact; shareholder renovation programs over the last two decades have introduced contemporary systems without subdividing the floors. Listing records describe private keyed elevator entry into each residence and typical configurations of three to four bedrooms. Because the floors were never cut into a marketed unit mix, no two residences here are alike, and square footage should be verified per unit rather than taken from a building-level figure.

This is a self-contained six-shareholder house with no doorman and no amenity program: elevator, superintendent service through the managing agent, and common outdoor space at the roof level per listing records. Recent capital activity is straightforward and documented in Department of Buildings filings — boiler removal and replacement with new indirect-fired water heaters in 2015 and 2016, a 2016 facade program covering repointing, crack repair and patching on floors one through seven under a heavy-duty sidewalk shed, and structural repair to seventh-floor ceiling joists in 2010.

One item belongs in every diligence file for this building: an Alteration Type 1 application (job 120561748), filed in December 2010, remains open in the department's records with permits issued and no sign-off, with a sprinkler and standpipe application filed in 2017 expressly in conjunction with it. An open Alt-1 is the application type that amends a certificate of occupancy. Ask the managing agent and the building's expediter what the current status is, what the amended certificate of occupancy will say, and who bears the cost of closing it out. This is not an alarming fact in a loft building of this vintage — it is a common one — but it is a fact a buyer's attorney should resolve rather than inherit.

The house rules on file in The Roebling Research Library establish what a shareholder may do inside the building: residential use only, with a lawful home occupation permitted where zoning, the certificate of occupancy and the board all allow it; up to two common household pets per unit, leashed or carried in the common areas; no transient or hotel use and no signage; quiet hours from 10:00 p.m. to 8:00 a.m.; construction confined to weekdays between 9:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m.; detailed weight and drainage rules for terrace and roof planters; and a board pass-key to each unit.

What the house rules do not establish — and what is not published anywhere — is the transactional policy stack: the financing ceiling and minimum down payment, post-closing liquidity expectations, the sublet policy and any seasoning period, the flip tax or transfer fee, and the board's posture on pied-à-terre purchasers, trusts and LLCs. In a six-shareholder cooperative these are board-level decisions rather than plan-level ones, and they can be changed by resolution. Do not assume a market-standard answer here; get each one in writing from the managing agent before you commit.

Recent sales

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.

Market read. Most recent trades (2024) cleared a median $1,322/sf across 1 sale. Median listing discount 5.3% 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 1-00229-0013) 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.

Underwrite the board before you underwrite the apartment. Six shareholders means six votes, no sponsor and no professional owner to absorb a surprise. Read the last two years of financial statements, the minutes and any assessment history, and ask what the plan is for the next facade cycle.

Get the policy stack in writing. Financing ceiling, minimum down, post-closing liquidity, sublet rules, flip tax, pied-à-terre, trusts and LLCs — none of it is published. Ask for all of it in one written request to the managing agent, and price your offer around the answers. Run the Co-op Board Qualification Calculator before you bid.

Resolve the JLWQA question for your specific unit. Ask whether the residence is classified as joint living-work quarters for artists on the current certificate of occupancy, whether the building has pursued conversion to unrestricted residential use under the 2021 SoHo/NoHo rezoning, and what that would cost. It affects nothing about how you live in the apartment and everything about how cleanly it resells.

Close out the open Alteration Type 1, and respect the landmark. Job 120561748 has been open since 2010; your attorney should determine its scope, its remaining cost and who is responsible for finishing it. Separately, any exterior change visible from Wooster Street — windows, storefront, roof-level work — requires a Certificate of Appropriateness.

Lead with the plate. A full floor of roughly 44 feet of frontage, undivided, in the SoHo-Cast Iron Historic District is the product. Very few buildings in the district can offer it, and none of the recent condominium conversions can.

Have the diligence package assembled before you list. Financials, house rules, the written policy stack, the status of the open Alt-1, and the certificate of occupancy. In a six-unit co-op, a buyer's attorney will ask for all of it, and the deal slows exactly as long as the answers take.

Be accurate about the building's history. Built in 1903 to M. G. Pigueron's design, a cooperative since 1996, and inside the 1973 SoHo-Cast Iron Historic District rather than the 2010 Extension. Being right about your own building is credibility you can spend in the negotiation.

If you're considering 14 Wooster Street, also evaluate:

• 27 Wooster Street — small SoHo loft condominium south of Grand; the nearest condominium alternative on the same street
• 43 Wooster Street — boutique Wooster Street loft building at similar scale
• 102 Wooster Street — Wooster Street loft conversion in the core of the district
• 105 Wooster Street — boutique SoHo loft condominium
• 22 Mercer Street — through-block cast-iron loft condominium one block east, in the same historic district; the staffed-building comparison
• 161 Grand Street — 1911 loft building converted to condominium around 2000-01, a block away
• 173 Grand Street — small southern-SoHo loft building on the same axis
• 93 Mercer Street — boutique SoHo loft building with large plates
• 57 Greene Street — SoHo cast-iron loft conversion in the core of the district
• 477 Broome Street — SoHo loft building at comparable scale