166 Montague Street (The Franklin Trust Company Building)

Morse's exterior is the reason to be here. The masonry, the arch, the tile roof and dormers, and the vertical proportion of a ten-story 1891 commercial building read from Montague Street as nothing else in the neighborhood does. Because the street-facing façades are protected both by the historic district and by the conservation easement, they cannot be altered or replaced beyond ordinary repair and maintenance without approval — a durable constraint on the building and a durable guarantee to the buyer. The building is over six stories, so Local Law 11 cyclical façade inspection applies.

Inside, the unit plan follows the floor. The second floor was cut as loft apartments: 2A at roughly 1,562 square feet as a two-bedroom, two-bath loft; 2B at 983; 2C at 1,044; and 2D at 884 as a studio with a bath and a half and a sleeping loft. Floors three through eight run a conventional mix — one-bedrooms of roughly 699 to 838 square feet and two-bedrooms of roughly 1,218 to 1,242 — with three-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bath configurations of about 1,536 to 1,656 square feet on the upper floors. The top of the building carries the two most distinctive homes: a three-bedroom of about 1,550 square feet and penthouse 9C at roughly 1,863 square feet with a 260-square-foot terrace, offered at $1,986,000 when the plan came out. Residential floor area runs a little over 27,600 square feet against roughly 9,900 square feet of commercial space.

Layout quality varies more than square footage does. A gut conversion inside a nineteenth-century office structure produces irregular window placement, deep floor plates on some lines, and ceiling conditions that differ floor to floor. Read the plans in Part II of the offering plan against the specific unit before any offer.

The condominium began operating on January 4, 2010 with United Management Corp., a sponsor affiliate, as managing agent — disclosed as a related-party transaction in the first audited financial statement. Sponsor control of the board was set by the plan to end five years after the first conveyance or on the sale of half the common interests, whichever came first, and the sponsor held three of five seats as late as March 2012. The sell-down took time, as it did for any conversion that hit the market in 2008: at December 31, 2010 the sponsor still owned 42 percent of the residential units together with the office and retail units, and by February 2012 fourteen unsold units were offered between $810,000 and $1,608,000. That transitional period is the context for the early financial statements and should be read as history; confirm the sponsor's remaining position, if any, in diligence.

The operating budget is small and legible. The 2012 budget projected $360,828 in revenue — $256,697 from residential common charges, $21,457 from the office unit, $7,774 from the retail unit and the sponsor's $75,000 contribution — against $300,500 of operating expenditure, led by utilities at $85,000 and payroll at $82,500. Certain costs sit with residential owners alone: staff wages, electricity, water and sewer, HVAC and gym maintenance, rooftop and landscaping. The Roebling Research Library holds the offering plan and amendments one through eight, the declaration and by-laws, the house rules, and financial statements through 2014–15; current financials, the reserve position and the latest façade cycle are reviewed with clients during diligence.

Recent sales

Sales sourced from NYC Department of Finance recorded transfers (BBL 3-00249-7502) 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.

You are buying a condominium in a co-op neighborhood. That is most of the value: right of first refusal instead of board approval, condo-fast closings, entity and trust ownership, leasing latitude — none of which the surrounding Heights cooperative stock offers.

Reconcile the unit count and read your unit's plan. Twenty-three residential units in city records and in the condominium's own audited statement; twenty-four in the 2008 plan; twenty-five in the architect's project description. Confirm the schedule and common interest for your specific unit against Schedule A.

Reserves and assessments deserve a hard look. No initial reserve fund, no reserve study at inception, and a small unit count mean capital events land heavily. Ask for the reserve balance, the assessment history since 2010, and any engineer's report.

The façade answers to two authorities. The historic district and a private conservation easement both govern the street elevations, and Local Law 11 inspection applies. That protects the architecture and disciplines the capital budget; find out where the building stands in its current cycle.

Model the tax bill, and understand the mixed-use base. Any J-51 benefit tied to the conversion is at or past the end of its useful life, so run True Monthly Carrying Cost analysis against the current bill. A retail unit in the cellar and basement and an office unit at the first floor and mezzanine are part of the condominium, and the plan disclaims any representation about noise or traffic from either.

Lead with the building, then the apartment. Franklin Trust Company, 1891, George L. Morse, Romanesque Revival, hipped tile roof, Benjamin Franklin over the door. Very few Brooklyn Heights listings can open that way, and buyers searching for architecture rather than square footage are the ones who pay up here.

State the ownership form early. In this neighborhood "condominium" is a headline, expanding the pool to entity purchasers, trusts, non-resident buyers, and anyone unwilling to sit for a co-op board.

Price on the line, not the building average. A second-floor loft, a balcony unit, an upper-floor three-bedroom and the penthouse are four different products. Anchor to the closest same-line sale and adjust for condition and exposure.

Have the building's papers ready, and photograph the landmark. Current financials, reserve position, the façade easement and the latest Local Law 11 status answer the questions a sophisticated buyer's attorney will ask, and answering them early prevents a mid-contract renegotiation. The entrance arch and the roofline belong in the marketing above the kitchen.

If you're considering 166 Montague Street, also evaluate:

• 1 Clinton Street (One Clinton) — the neighborhood's contemporary condominium alternative, a block away; new construction against landmark conversion
• 62 Montague Street (The Arlington) — Montrose Morris's 1887 apartment house at the Promenade end of the same street; the co-op character comparable
• 57 Montague Street (The Breukelen) — the corridor's large full-service prewar co-op
• 65 Montague Street — the accessible interwar co-op tier at the west end of Montague
• 20 Henry Street — boutique north-Heights condominium; the small-building condo peer
• 9 College Place (Love Lane Mews) — converted condominium on a mews block, similar scale, different architecture
• 76 Schermerhorn Street (The Symon) — condominium a few blocks south with a comparable buyer profile
• 8 Old Fulton Street (Brooklyn City Railroad Company Building) — the district's other landmarked nineteenth-century commercial conversion
• 110 Livingston Street — the McKim, Mead & White Board of Education building converted to condominiums; the large-scale landmark-conversion comparable