15 Mercer Street

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, and no adjoining apartment or shared landing on that floor.

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.

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 the operation in 2014–2015, rather than its present financial position.

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.

Those dated statements do not establish current total carrying costs or available reserves. Members’ equity is not the same as cash reserved for capital work, and the absence of a reserve study alone does not establish an unfunded project. Roof, elevator, façade and cast-iron restoration in a landmarked building are all expensive, and funding depends on current resources, project scope and the declaration’s allocations among the five residential units and commercial unit. Anyone buying should obtain the current financial statements and the current budget, ask directly about reserve balance, assessment history and planned façade maintenance, and price the answer.

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.

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 $2,033/sf (recorded) across 1 sale. Median listing discount 6.2% 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 1-00230-7504; 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.

Diligence the JLWQA question first, not last. The historical plan warning does not make purchase alone equivalent to unlawful occupancy; establish the proposed occupants’ eligibility or required conversion before they move in. 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 charges, reserves and capital needs. The 2014–2015 statements report residential charges under $80,000 annually, equity below $20,000 and no reserve study; they do not establish a current reserve balance or explain today’s charges. 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.

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