142 West 26th Street

The building is a twelve-story brick loft on a 4,366-square-foot lot, carrying roughly 52,500 square feet — about 49,500 residential and 3,000 of ground-floor retail. The elevation is brick with Renaissance-derived detailing, restrained and commercial in the manner of 1911 loft construction, and it aligns with the cornice lines of its neighbors rather than competing with them.

Internally the building runs mostly one apartment to a floor above the base, with thirteen residences across twelve stories. Recorded share transfers over the last fifteen years carry designations including 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11 and 12B — floor numbers rather than line letters, which is what a full-floor building produces. The upper floors have the best light and the fewest obstructions; the lower residential floors sit closer to the street and to the retail below.

Loft plates of this era renovate well and renovate expensively. DOB filings across the 2000s and 2010s show a steady run of apartment gut renovations — partition and plumbing work, mechanical ventilation, kitchen and bath reconfiguration — and a 2019 filing covering the installation of gas ranges, hot-water heaters and washer/dryers in select apartments, which tells you both that in-unit laundry is permitted and that not every residence had it. Condition varies widely between units; the building average is not a useful guide.

This is an unstaffed cooperative with a keyed elevator, a laundry room, video intercom, and ground-floor commercial space whose ownership, leases and actual contribution to corporate income should be established. There is no doorman, no concierge and no amenity suite, and the maintenance line reflects that.

The capital record visible in DOB filings: facade investigation and sidewalk shed in 2009, facade work at the 10th through 12th floors in 2009–2010, a full exterior facade restoration filing in 2013 with heavy-duty shed, bulkhead skylight repair in 2014, and retail-space renovations in 2010–2011. The filings do not establish completion or current condition. Evaluate facade work alongside the roof, elevator, building systems and other capital requirements, and confirm the share allocations and obligations of all 13 residential and five commercial units before estimating an apartment’s contribution. Reconcile any corporate commercial rent with ownership records, leases and audited statements, then compare net income and reserves with actual project costs; retail area alone does not establish capacity to avoid an assessment.

Because no offering plan or audited financial statements for this building were located in either document library, a buyer's attorney should obtain the current financials, the underlying mortgage terms and maturity, the reserve position, the commercial lease terms, and the assessment history directly from the managing agent.

Ownership form: Cooperative. Purchasers buy shares in 142 W 26th Owners Corp., take a proprietary lease, and go through the board's application process; confirm the package and interview requirements with management. Management has published that applications are reviewed in order of receipt, not by desired closing date — which means the practical timeline is a function of when your package is complete, and an incomplete package goes to the back of the queue.

Financing ceiling: 75 percent maximum, 25 percent minimum down, per management-sourced records.

Post-closing liquidity: Not published. Small loft co-ops with commercial income commonly expect one to two years of maintenance in reserve after closing, but the figure here is board policy and unpublished. Ask for it, then run the Co-op Board Qualification Calculator against the real number.

Flip tax: 2 percent of the gross sale or contract price, paid by the buyer at closing, per management-sourced records.

Subletting: Permitted subject to board approval. The sublet fee is one-third of annual maintenance, paid by the shareholder. Seasoning requirements, maximum term and renewal policy are not published — confirm with the managing agent.

Pied-à-terre, trusts and LLCs: Not documented. Whether the board entertains non-primary-residence purchases, purchases in trust, entity purchases, guarantors or co-purchasers is unpublished board policy at this building and should be established before an offer, not after.

Pets: Permitted upon board approval.

In-unit washer/dryer: Permitted; installed in a number of residences, and the subject of a 2019 building-wide DOB filing.

Real estate taxes: No abatement beyond the standard Class 2 co-op/condo abatement for primary residents. The J-51 benefit from the early-1980s conversion is long expired.

Recent sales

Recent transfers 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 $897/sf (recorded) across 1 sale. Median listing discount 4.7% 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 1-00801-0065). 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 on co-ops is not officially recorded, figures shown are approximate.

The flip tax is yours. Two percent of the purchase price, paid by the buyer at closing. Add it to your closing-cost model before you set your offer, and use the Buyer Closing Cost Calculator with the flip tax included.

Pull the certificate of occupancy. The residential conversion dates to 1980, when this lot was in a manufacturing district. Whether the C of O carries a Joint Live-Work Quarters for Artists designation is unresolved in the digitized record and is the one item that could restrict lawful occupancy. It is a routine request and it should be made.

Confirm the building. Block 801 carries three converted lofts with similar addresses. 128 West 26th Street (lot 7504) and 146 West 26th Street (lot 7502) are separate condominium buildings on this same block. 142 West 26th Street is the cooperative, on fee lot 65, and it is a different building with a different tenure, different economics and a different policy stack.

Read the commercial income. Roughly 3,000 square feet of ground-floor retail sits under thirteen apartments. Establish the corporation’s rental entitlement and actual net income, then compare it with reserves, expense allocations and project estimates. Get the lease terms and expiration dates.

Underwrite full taxes. The J-51 benefit expired in the 1990s. There is no runway.

Condition is everything here. Full-floor loft plates from 1911 have been renovated to wildly different standards across this building. Price the specific unit, and run the Renovation Cost Calculator against anything unrenovated.

Lead with the floor, not the finishes. A full-floor home with ten-foot ceilings and direct elevator entry is the scarce thing. Buyers can renovate; they cannot manufacture the plate.

Disclose the buyer-paid flip tax up front. Sophisticated buyers and their attorneys will find it. Presenting it early with a full carrying-cost picture produces better outcomes than letting it surface after the offer is accepted.

Have the C of O and the building's capital record ready. We did not locate an offering plan in the libraries reviewed. Provide the certificate of occupancy, current financials and facade records so buyers can evaluate them; document availability alone does not determine the diligence timetable.

Price against loft product, not against prewar apartment stock. The West 20s carry a lot of small-room prewar co-ops with entirely different economics. The right comparable set is the converted lofts.

If you're considering 142 West 26th Street, also evaluate:

• 146 West 26th Street — the converted loft condominium two doors west on the same tax block; the closest physical peer and the condominium alternative
• 128 West 26th Street — the third converted loft on this block; same street, different tenure and unit mix
• 22 West 26th Street — 1910 loft converted to cooperative in 1981; the closest match by vintage, tenure and conversion era
• 233 West 26th Street — loft cooperative on the same street west of Seventh Avenue
• 144 West 27th Street — converted loft one block north; comparable scale and staffing model
• 110 West 25th Street — loft building one block south in the same submarket
• 219 West 25th Street — West Chelsea loft alternative at a different price per foot
• 254 West 25th Street — small loft building; the boutique alternative
• 250 West 27th Street — converted loft with a comparable buyer pool
• 141 West 24th Street — the amenity-carrying alternative south of the block, for buyers weighing services against square footage