15 Mercer Street
15 Mercer Street, New York, NY 10013
SoHo
BBL 1002307504 · BIN 1003001
- Year built
- 1886
- Type
- Condominium
- Units
- 6
- Floors
- 6
- Landmark
- No
Every recorded sale at this building, 2003–2025
Price-per-square-foot over time, the line- and floor-premium curves, and every recorded sale.
- Median $/sf
- $2,033
- Listing discount
- 6.2%
- Recorded sales
- 14
- On record
- 2003–2025
Five apartments. One per floor. That is the whole building, and it is the entire argument.
15–17 Mercer Street went up in 1886 to Samuel A. Warner's design for the developer Samuel Inslee, as a store-and-loft building on the block of Mercer between Canal and Grand — the southern tail of what became the SoHo–Cast Iron Historic District in 1973. It spent a century as commercial space. The residential building it is now was created between 1997 and 2000: a sponsor entity bought it in September 1997, filed a condominium offering plan that the Attorney General accepted on May 12, 1999, and closed the first residential units in August 2000. The plan describes the conversion in plain terms as a change from office use to residential use.
The structural fact that separates this building from most SoHo condominiums is its occupancy classification. The residences were converted as joint living-work quarters for artists, the only as-of-right residential use permitted in the M1-5B district that then covered the block. The offering plan says so, and it goes further than most: it states outright that because the condominium statute does not require a purchaser to hold artist certification, a purchase by a non-certified buyer would leave the condominium out of compliance with the Zoning Resolution. That disclosure sat unresolved in SoHo for two decades, and it is the single item a buyer here most needs to understand.
The picture changed on December 15, 2021, when the City Council adopted the SoHo/NoHo Neighborhood Plan. The rezoning replaced the block's M1-5B designation with M1-5/R7X inside the new Special SoHo-NoHo Mixed Use District, barred any new conversion to joint living-work quarters after that date, and created a voluntary path for existing conforming JLWQA space to be converted to ordinary residential use. A 2022 amendment to the Multiple Dwelling Law then provided that any non-artist who was a permanent occupant of a JLWQA unit as of December 15, 2021 is deemed to satisfy the "artist" requirement. The practical effect for a building like this one is that the certification exposure that hung over SoHo loft resales for forty years now has a defined resolution — but whether this condominium has taken the voluntary conversion path is a question for the managing agent and the certificate of occupancy, not one that public records answer.
The other thing to understand is the scale of the enterprise. This is a five-residence condominium with no staff, no amenities and, on the evidence of the audited financial statements on file, an operating budget in the low six figures for the whole building. Ownership here is closer to owning a stake in a small building with four neighbours than to owning a condominium unit in the ordinary sense.
Architecture and unit composition
The building is six stories of nineteenth-century store-and-loft construction with a cast-iron front, and the 2006 Department of Buildings filings — a job to patch and repair the cast-iron façade, with a sidewalk shed and pipe scaffold alongside it — are a useful reminder that a cast-iron elevation is a maintenance item, not just a period detail. LPC's permit file for the lot carries three approvals since 2019, including a 2022 Certificate of No Effect for painting the façade under its original historic conditions.
Above the commercial base, each of the five residential floors is a single home. Listing records describe plates roughly 42 feet wide and about 2,900 square feet, with a row of columns running down the center of the floor and ceiling heights between roughly eleven and over fourteen feet. The elevator opens into the residences. Those are the classic advantages of a small full-floor loft conversion: light on two ends, no interior corridor, no shared landing, and no neighbour above or below in the conventional sense.
They come with the classic disadvantages too. A single elevator serving five homes is a single point of failure. Column grids constrain replanning. And in a landmarked cast-iron building, window replacement, storefront work at the base, and anything visible from the street are all LPC matters before they are contractor matters.
Building operations
The audited financial statements on file — the most recent located in The Roebling Research Library covers the years ended December 31, 2014 and 2015 — describe an unusually lean operation, and a buyer should read them as a warning as much as a comfort.
Total residential common charges for the entire building ran under $80,000 a year, against total operating expenses in the mid-$70,000s. There was no mortgage and no interest expense. Members' equity at the most recent year-end on file stood below $20,000, and the auditor included an emphasis-of-matter paragraph noting that the condominium had not conducted a study of the remaining useful lives of the common property or of the cost of future major repairs and replacements — with the explicit observation that when replacement funds are needed, the condominium may borrow, raise common charges, pass special assessments, or defer the work.
That is the operating reality of a five-unit condominium in an 1886 building: very low monthly carrying cost, and effectively no reserve standing between the owners and the next capital event. Roof, elevator, façade and cast-iron restoration in a landmarked building are all expensive, and here each would be divided five or six ways. Anyone buying should obtain the current financial statements and the current budget, ask directly about reserve balance, assessment history and any planned Local Law 11 work, and price the answer.
Policy framework
Ownership form: Condominium. The plan on file provides that both the sale and the lease of a unit are subject to a right of first refusal in favor of the board of managers — a broader ROFR than some condominium plans carry, because it reaches leases as well as sales.
Occupancy: Joint living-work quarters for artists, per the offering plan and DOB filings. Confirm the current certificate of occupancy and whether the condominium has pursued conversion to ordinary residential use under the post-2021 framework.
Pets: The plan does not prohibit them; it authorizes house rules limiting and requiring registration of pets. Get the current house rules.
Financing: No financing ceiling is documented in public records. Confirm with the managing agent.
Flip tax: None documented in the offering plan. A working capital contribution of two months' common charges is payable at closing under the plan.
Real estate taxes: No exemption and no abatement at the building level, and no J-51. Underwrite full unabated taxes from the current bill on the specific unit lot.
Landmark: Exterior work and permitted interior work go through the Landmarks Preservation Commission.
Local Law 97
This building is below the 25,000 sq ft threshold at which LL97 emissions caps apply. No regulatory capital pressure from this law specifically, current or 2030.
See full Local Law 97 analysis →Recent sales
Recorded transfers in this building are few by construction — six unit lots, and roughly two dozen deeds across a quarter century, including the original sponsor sales. Resales have been episodic, with individual floors trading two or three times since the 2000 sellout, and the recent pattern has been transfers into LLCs and revocable trusts as much as into individual names.
On a dollars-per-square-foot basis, the right comparable set is small full-floor SoHo loft conversions inside the Cast-Iron district, not new-development condominiums and not the larger amenity buildings north of Grand. Two variables move price here more than finish level: the occupancy classification, which sophisticated buyers and their counsel will diligence, and the reserve position, which changes the true monthly number more than the common charge does. Index any market statement to the last complete year. Unit-level transaction history is maintained in The Roebling Research Library and shared with clients during diligence.
Recent closings 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nov 21, 2025 | 4 | 2 BR · 2 BA · 3,000 sf | $6,100,000 | $2,033/sf | -6.2% |
| Sep 11, 2023 | 2 | 2 BR · 2 BA · 2,944 sf | $6,650,000 | $2,259/sf | -8.9% |
| Apr 29, 2022 | 5 | 2 BR · 2 BA · 3,000 sf | $7,480,000 | $2,493/sf | -5.9% |
| Feb 24, 2020 | 2 | 2 BR · 2 BA · 2,944 sf | $5,950,000 | $2,021/sf | -7.8% |
| Jun 7, 2018 | 3 | 1 BR · 1.5 BA · 2,972 sf | $5,950,000 | $2,002/sf | -7.0% |
| Nov 9, 2016 | 5A | 2,908 sf | $7,400,000 | $2,545/sf | off-mkt |
| Jan 27, 2012 | 2 | 2 BR · 2,944 sf | $3,550,000 | $1,206/sf | -13.1% |
| Jun 30, 2011 | 1A | 5,960 sf | $4,815,000 | $808/sf | off-mkt |
Market read. Most recent trades (2025) cleared a median $2,033/sf across 1 sale. Median listing discount 6.2% 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.
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 1-00230-7504) 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 from recorded condo declarations and offering plans.
What to know if you’re buying
Diligence the JLWQA question first, not last. The offering plan itself flags that a purchase by a non-certified buyer puts the condominium out of compliance with the Zoning Resolution. The December 2021 rezoning and the 2022 Multiple Dwelling Law amendment changed the landscape substantially, but you need the current certificate of occupancy and a clear answer from the managing agent, reviewed by counsel, before contract.
Read the financials for the reserve, not the common charge. The common charges are remarkably low. The reason is that the building has historically not funded a reserve and has not commissioned a reserve study. Ask what has changed since the statements on file, and what capital work is contemplated.
Do not use the Department of Finance year built. DOF carries 1910. LPC and PLUTO both carry 1886, and LPC names the architect. Any analysis keyed to a 1910 building is starting from the wrong vintage.
Confirm which unit lot you are buying. There are six lots and only five residences; lot 1306 is the commercial unit.
Note the neighbour. 10 Greene Street, on the same tax block, is a separate condominium (condominium no. 2953, unit lots 1601–1605), not part of this building. Same block, different declaration, different economics.
Assume Landmarks review. Cast-iron façade, storefront and window work all run through LPC.
Comparable buildings
If you're considering 15 Mercer Street, also evaluate:
- 47 Mercer Street — loft conversion of an 1872 cast-iron store building; the closest direct peer by vintage, street and typology
- 77 Mercer Street — cast-iron store building converted to condominium; larger, with the same landmark constraints
- 22 Mercer Street — adaptive reuse of a nineteenth-century cast-iron and masonry loft building; the alternative treatment of the same building type
- 70 Greene Street — three residences plus one commercial unit created by alteration; the closest match on unit count and governance scale
- 93 Greene Street — SoHo loft conversion condominium; comparable full-floor product
- 107 Greene Street — SoHo condominium a few blocks north; the larger-building comparison
- 42 Crosby Street — Cast-Iron district condominium; useful as a contrast on amenity and cost structure
- 105 Wooster Street — small SoHo condominium; the same low-density economics on a different street
- 40 Mercer Street — new-construction condominium on the same street; the full-service alternative and an entirely different cost base
The neighborhood
For the full corridor — architecture, schools, transit, and pricing across Greenwich Village — read The Roebling Team Guide to Greenwich Village.
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.
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