- Year built
- 1959
- Type
- Cooperative
- Units
- 248
- Floors
- 16
- Landmark
- No
- Amenities
- 24-hour doorman and concierge, live-in resident manager with union staff, renovated lobby and first-floor sitting area, central laundry (card system), bike room by license, private storage lockers, planted garden, and the on-site attended garage with direct building access
Every recorded sale at this building, 2003–2026
Bedroom-by-bedroom medians, the full transfer record, and how units trade against ask.
- 1BR median
- $790K
- Recent range
- $540K – $2.2M
- Listing discount
- 2.7%
- Recorded transfers
- 259
Gramercy Arms is the largest cooperative building in the blocks between Union Square and Gramercy Park, and its scale is the reason it works. Two hundred and forty-eight apartments across sixteen floors support a staffed lobby, a live-in resident manager, a union crew, a laundry, a bike room, storage lockers and a 56-space garage — an amenity stack that the four- and five-story walk-ups filling the rest of this block cannot carry. The building trades as the full-service option in a neighborhood that mostly does not offer one.
It is also unusually well documented. The 1984 offering plan, the house rules and recent audited financial statements are on file with us, and together they answer questions that market lore usually gets wrong here. The plan was an eviction plan, not a non-eviction plan, which is why the building converted cleanly and why there is no meaningful legacy population of non-purchasing tenants three decades on. The share count — 95,716 shares across 248 apartments — is identical in the 1984 plan and in the most recent audit, meaning no reallocation has ever muddied the per-share math that governs the flip tax and the maintenance allocation.
The building's financial shape is conservative in one important respect and worth understanding in another. The underlying mortgage is $9,000,000, interest-only, fixed at 2.75 percent and not due until November 1, 2031 — roughly $36,000 of building debt per apartment, at a rate no cooperative will replicate today, with the refinancing risk pushed well past most buyers' holding periods. That is a genuine asset. Against it, real estate taxes run close to half of the operating budget, and the building has carried an ongoing operating assessment on top of carrying charges for several years, running on the order of eleven percent of the carrying-charge line. A buyer comparing monthly costs to a Gramercy condominium needs to add the assessment to the maintenance and then remember that the maintenance already covers taxes, staff and heat.
The last structural point is the ground floor. The 1984 plan allocated shares to a Professional Unit and to additional Professional Apartments — the doctors' and dentists' offices that were standard in post-war buildings of this vintage. That inventory has been converting: a 2026 alteration filing with the Department of Buildings covers the renovation of an existing medical office unit into a residential unit, with a certificate-of-occupancy change. Anyone buying a low-floor line should ask the managing agent which professional units remain and what the corridor traffic looks like.
Architecture and unit composition
The building is a white-brick post-war apartment house of the type that reshaped Third Avenue after the elevated railway came down in the mid-1950s. It rises sixteen floors on a 103-foot East 15th Street frontage and runs nearly the full depth of the block along Third Avenue, with balconies on many lines, a canopied and planted East 15th Street entrance, and a driveway feeding the garage below. The architect is not documented in any public record we can verify, and we do not attribute the design.
Interior lettering runs deep — lines A through U and beyond, with a high count of small and mid-size apartments. The Department of Buildings record is a running history of combinations: 1R and 1S in 2003, 3U and 3T in 2010, 8U and 8T in 2008, 15P and 15R in 2017, 16S and 16T in 2013, 12J and 12K, 4D and 4E. Combining across the T–U and P–R pairs is evidently routine and board-approved, which is what a buyer looking for a real three-bedroom in this building should be planning for rather than searching for. Post-war proportions here mean defined foyers, through-wall air-conditioning sleeves (window units are prohibited by the house rules), and an 80 percent floor-covering requirement in every room but the kitchen, baths, closets and foyer.
Building operations
Staffing is full-service and unionized — the cooperative contributes to the Building Service 32BJ pension fund under a collective bargaining agreement, and payroll runs about a fifth of the operating budget. The lobby is attended around the clock, the resident manager lives in the building, and residents deposit a set of keys with the superintendent for emergency access as a condition of the house rules.
The garage is a real business, not a courtesy. Fifty-six spaces are leased to an outside operator under a lease running to November 30, 2030, with stepped minimum rents, percentage rent above a revenue threshold, a real-estate-tax participation capped at five percent a year, and a letter of credit in place of a cash deposit. Garage income has been the building's largest non-carrying-charge revenue line. Shareholders arrange parking directly with the operator; rates are the operator's, not the cooperative's.
Capital posture is steady rather than aggressive. The building spent heavily on exterior walls in 2022 and touched the boiler the same year; plumbing work followed in 2023. Reserves stood near $1.9 million at the most recent year-end on file, alongside a tax escrow and an undrawn $1 million credit line. One caveat belongs on the page because it matters at diligence: the cooperative's governing documents do not require reserve accumulation, the board has not commissioned a study of the remaining useful lives of building components, and the auditors have formally noted the omission of the supplementary information about future major repairs that accounting standards call for. That is common in older co-ops and it is not a distress signal, but it means the reserve number is a balance, not a plan.
Two items are live. The façade cleared its most recent inspection cycle — after SWARMP ("safe with a repair and maintenance program") findings in the 2008, 2013 and 2019 cycles, the Cycle 9 report filed January 9, 2024 reported the façade SAFE, following the 2022 exterior-wall work. Separately, a building-wide gas infrastructure replacement — new gas piping in the cellar and new valves at every stove in the building — was filed with the Department of Buildings in May 2025 and has been amended through 2026. Gas riser work is disruptive by nature and is frequently assessed. Ask for the scope, the schedule and the funding plan before you sign.
Policy framework
Board package and interview. A full package and an in-person board interview are standard. Run the Co-op Board Qualification Calculator before offering, and expect the board to look at post-closing liquidity and debt-to-income even though the financing ceiling is permissive.
Financing. Up to 80 percent per listing records — high for a co-op of this size and age, and one of the building's real competitive advantages against Gramercy condominiums. Verify the board's current maximum in writing; ceilings move.
Post-closing liquidity. No published requirement. This is the number most likely to decide a marginal application, and it is available only from the managing agent. Ask before you bid.
Subletting. Two years of ownership and occupancy first; then one year, extendable one more on a showing of need, then a three-year wait. The annual fee is 18 percent of one month's maintenance. Subtenants are interviewed.
Pied-à-terre, trusts and LLCs. Pieds-à-terre are permitted, and listing records document parent purchases for working children and gifting. Purchases in the name of a trust or an LLC are not addressed in the documents on file and are a board-discretion item everywhere; get the answer from the managing agent in writing before contract.
Flip tax. $11 per share, seller-paid.
Moving and alterations. A $1,000 refundable damage deposit and a $150 non-refundable move fee, one move per building day, weekdays 9 to 5 only. Alterations require a signed alteration agreement and board approval for anything touching plumbing, electrical, walls, ceilings or floors.
Local Law 97
- 2024–2029 annual penalty
- $857/yr
- 2030–2034 annual penalty
- $139,977/yr
- Per unit / month range
- $0 – $47
Source: NYC LL84 benchmarking and PLUTO · The Roebling Research Library. City record last verified September 2026.
See full Local Law 97 analysis — emissions history, scenarios, methodology →Facade safety — Local Law 11
The latest available FISP filing classified the facade as Safe — no repairs were required at that inspection. Facade inspections run on a fixed five-year cycle; future inspection, repair, and any assessment decisions remain building-specific.
How to read this, and where it comes from
QEWI = Qualified Exterior Wall Inspector — the licensed engineer the city requires to sign the report (the independent expert, not the managing agent).
Penalties shown are amounts DOB assessed against filings on record across 2005–10 to 2020–25. The FISP dataset does not record whether they were paid, contested or remain open, so treat the figure as history rather than a current balance and confirm the building’s standing with the managing agent.
Source: NYC DOB facade filings (FISP) · The Roebling Research Library. City record last verified September 2026.
Recent sales
Gramercy Arms is the value entry to full-service living between Union Square and Gramercy Park. The building's product is small-to-mid-size post-war apartments — studios, one-bedrooms and two-bedrooms, with three-bedroom scale available almost exclusively through combinations — priced on a per-room basis well below the pre-war co-ops on Gramercy Park itself and below the new-construction condominiums on Third Avenue and East 21st Street. Pricing within the building tracks three things in order: line and exposure (the Third Avenue side is louder than the interior and 15th Street lines), whether the apartment has a balcony, and the depth of the last renovation. Combined apartments clear at a premium to the sum of their parts because the board approval and construction work is already done.
The carrying-cost comparison is the one buyers get wrong. Maintenance here includes real estate taxes, heat, water, staff and the underlying mortgage interest; a condominium's common charges do not include taxes. Add the building's operating assessment to the quoted maintenance before you compare anything. Run the True Monthly Carrying Cost Calculator on the real number.
Unit-level transaction history is maintained in The Roebling Research Library and shared with clients during diligence.
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.
| Date | Unit | Apartment | Price | PPSF | vs. Ask |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aug 12, 2026 | 7E | 1 BA · 600 sf | $630,000 | $1,050/sf | -4.5% |
| Jul 2, 2026 | 10T | 1 BR · 1 BA | $1,050,000 | -4.5% | |
| May 15, 2026 | 4C | 1 BA | $565,000 | -5.7% | |
| Feb 10, 2026 | 1F | 2 BR · 1 BA | $750,000 | -25.0% | |
| Dec 30, 2025 | 2C | 1 BA · 525 sf | $540,000 | $1,029/sf | -1.6% |
| Oct 16, 2025 | 8H | 1 BA | $633,999 | -2.5% | |
| Oct 10, 2025 | 8R | 1 BR · 1 BA | $690,000 | -9.8% | |
| Aug 25, 2025 | 7C | 1 BA | $560,000 | -2.6% |
Market read. Most recent trades (2026) cleared a median $1,040/sf across 1 sale. Median listing discount 2.4% from the last ask — a recurring negotiation gap worth pricing into any offer or listing strategy.
The retrade record
Lines that have traded more than once in the public record — the building’s appreciation arc, apartment by apartment.
Other recent transfers
| Date | Unit | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Oct 15, 2003 | 1T | $369,000 |
Full closing history with price-per-square-foot over time, the complete retrade record, and every line that has traded.
Sales sourced from NYC Department of Finance recorded transfers (BBL 1-00871-0039) 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.
What to know if you’re buying
The 80 percent financing ceiling is the headline. Most Manhattan co-ops of this size cap at 75 percent and many at 70. If you are choosing between this building and a nearby condominium primarily because of down-payment constraints, price both — the co-op's per-room pricing plus an 80 percent loan is frequently the cheaper path to the same square footage.
Underwrite the underlying debt as an asset. A $9 million interest-only loan at 2.75 percent maturing in November 2031 is a below-market liability that no board could reproduce today. It also means the building faces a refinancing at whatever rates prevail in 2031, with no amortization having reduced the principal. Both halves of that are true; price the near term and note the far one.
Ask about the assessment and the gas work in the same breath. The operating assessment has been running for years and should be treated as part of the carry, not as a temporary item. The building-wide gas piping and stove-valve replacement filed in 2025 is the kind of project that generates a capital assessment. Get the board's minutes and the current budget through your attorney.
Check what is on your floor. Low floors historically carried professional offices with separately allocated shares, and at least one is being converted back to residential use under a 2026 filing. Corridor traffic, waiting-room noise and elevator use differ meaningfully between a floor with a dental practice and one without.
Third Avenue versus the interior. This is a corner building on a busy avenue with a bus route. Stand in the apartment with the windows open before you decide the exposure is worth the light.
What to know if you’re selling
Lead with the financing ceiling and the underlying loan. Eighty percent financing and a 2.75 percent interest-only underlying mortgage to 2031 are the two facts that separate this building from its competition, and neither one shows up in a photograph. Put them in the first paragraph.
State the assessment plainly. Buyers discover operating assessments at attorney review and reprice. Disclosing it upfront costs you nothing and protects the contract.
Renovated clears; estate condition clears on math. The buyer pool here is deliberate and value-driven. Price an unrenovated apartment against a credible renovation budget rather than against the last renovated comparable. Run the Renovation Cost Calculator before setting the ask.
Remember the seller pays the flip tax. Eleven dollars a share is a real number on a large line or a combination. Build it into your net-proceeds analysis with the Seller Closing Cost Calculator.
Comparable buildings
If you're considering 145 East 15th Street, also evaluate:
- Gramercy Plaza (130 East 18th Street) — 1962 co-op converted in 1984; the closest like-for-like in age, scale and conversion vintage
- 205 Third Avenue — 1964 full-service co-op on the same avenue; the direct alternative
- 333 East 14th Street — 1965 co-op a few blocks south; similar product at a lower price band
- 200 East 16th Street — 1930 pre-war co-op; the pre-war alternative at the same latitude
- 61 Irving Place — converted mid-century co-op on the quiet block one street west
- Stuyvesant Town / Peter Cooper Village — the neighborhood's other large post-war residential landscape
- 300 East 23rd Street (Tempo) — the new-development condominium alternative nearby
- 250 East 21st Street — 2021 boutique condominium; the top of the local condo market
- 15 Union Square West — loft-scale condominium on the square; the design-led alternative
- 121 East 22nd Street — full-amenity condominium a few blocks north
- 102 East 22nd Street — the other, unrelated Gramercy Arms; a 1928 Art Deco co-op north of the park
The neighborhood
For the full corridor — architecture, schools, transit, and pricing across Gramercy — read The Roebling Team Guide to Gramercy.
The full playbook — what goes in the package, how boards read your financials, the interview, and the timeline — plus sample cover, reference, and personal letters you can adapt.
How to read the facts on this page. Items attributed to an offering plan describe the building as it was offered at that filing — unit mix, square footage, the amenity program as planned. They are not a statement about how the building operates today. Tax and compliance figures are sourced separately to current City records and carry their own dates. House rules, staffing and fee policy can change by board resolution without any public filing: treat every policy line here as a starting point for diligence and confirm it with the managing agent.
Considering a move at Gramercy Arms?
Request a private building brief with the relevant comparable sales, current and off-market availability, and an apartment-specific view of value.
Own an apartment here? See what it would sell for.
A Private Pricing Opinion — what your apartment at Gramercy Arms would likely sell for today, what it costs to sell, and what you’d walk away with — reviewed personally against condition, exposures, renovation quality, and the competition actually on the market.