183 Plymouth Street (185 Plymouth)
183 Plymouth Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201
DUMBO, Brooklyn
BBL 3000207501 · BIN 3000013
- Year built
- 1900
- Type
- Condominium
- Units
- 10
- Floors
- 6
- Landmark
- Designated
- Pied-à-terre
- Allowed
Ten apartments in a stable. That is the whole of 183 Plymouth Street, and it is why the building holds a position in DUMBO that scale alone would never earn it. The Landmarks Preservation Commission's district record attributes the 1900 structure to Arbuckle Brothers — John Arbuckle's coffee and sugar concern, whose warehouses and refineries ran the waterfront east of the Brooklyn Bridge and whose name sits behind more DUMBO brick than any other single firm. The building it left behind runs 200 feet from Plymouth Street through to John Street, which is why the LPC files it under both addresses, and why the conversion that followed had to solve a problem most DUMBO lofts never face.
That problem was depth. A block-through warehouse built for pallets and horses has a middle no window reaches. Alloy Development's answer, executed between 2012 and 2014, was subtraction: cut a void down through the center of the building, landscape it, glaze the apartments onto it, and let the courtyard do the work a light well or a shaftway would have done badly. The result is eight floor-through lofts averaging north of 3,000 square feet with 13-foot ceilings, two penthouses added above the original roof, and a plan in which every residence has both street exposure and a private green outlook into the middle of its own building. Second-floor bridges cross the courtyard; the ground level reads as garden rather than airshaft.
The building also documents a particular moment in Alloy's history. The firm that would later convert 168 Plymouth Street and market it, accurately, as the last loft conversion inside the historic district was here working at the opposite end of the scale — a single small building, ten homes, sold out in early 2013 before the work was finished, with the first closings recorded in June 2014. Alloy designs, develops and sells its own buildings from an office a block away at 20 Jay Street, and this is the project where that model was proven at loft scale in DUMBO.
For owners, the consequence is scarcity of a kind the market cannot manufacture. The DUMBO Historic District closed the door on ground-up development within its boundaries at the end of 2007; the supply of genuine brick-and-timber loft floors of this size, inside the district, with private outdoor space and a courtyard, is fixed at what already exists.
Architecture and unit composition
The original structure is brick and heavy timber — the older of DUMBO's two loft species, and the rarer one in a neighborhood whose signature buildings are the reinforced-concrete daylight factories the Robert Gair Company put up a few blocks west. Timber columns, exposed beams, and masonry bearing walls set the interior character; the conversion left them legible and kept the new insertions minimal, concentrating cabinetry and plumbing into compact volumes rather than rebuilding the floor plates around them.
Layouts run to the horizontal. The eight loft floors are floor-through, served by keyed elevator access, and average over 3,000 square feet — family-scaled by any Brooklyn measure and unusually so for a ten-unit building. The two penthouses sit above the original roofline and carry the largest outdoor allotments; public records and the sponsor's materials describe interior areas in the 2,100- to 3,000-square-foot range with terraces of comparable size at the north and south ends. Skylit bathrooms, wide-plank flooring and the courtyard glass wall recur through the inventory. Because the property sits inside the historic district, exterior work — windows, repointing, terrace railings, rooftop mechanicals — carries Landmarks review in addition to the Buildings Department, a timeline fact that belongs in any renovation budget written here.
Building operations
185 Plymouth Street Condominium runs a deliberately light operation: no staffed lobby desk, virtual door service, an elevator keyed to the residences, a fitness room, bicycle storage and a package room, with the courtyard as the shared amenity that actually differentiates the building. Management is handled by Jordan Cooper LLC per the condominium's current HPD registration. At ten residential units plus a commercial unit and a parking unit, the common-charge base is thin by design, and a single capital item — roof, elevator, courtyard drainage, façade cycle — moves the budget more than it would in a hundred-unit building. Reserve position and assessment history are the first documents to request.
The commercial unit deserves attention in diligence for the same reason it does at every small DUMBO conversion: its permitted uses, its share of common charges, and its representation on the board of managers are all governed by the declaration and by-laws rather than by neighborly custom.
Recent sales
The retrade record
Lines that have traded more than once in the public record — the building’s appreciation arc, apartment by apartment.
Recent closings at this building, sourced from NYC Department of Finance records. Apartment-level detail (line, condition, asking-price context) verified upon consultation request.
| Date | Unit | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Feb 27, 2024 | 4S | $4,600,000 |
| Sep 25, 2018 | 2C | $1,115,607.47 |
| Jul 14, 2017 | 4S | $4,575,000 |
| May 1, 2017 | 3S | $4,400,000 |
| Jan 27, 2017 | 3N | $3,590,000 |
| Jun 21, 2016 | 2N | $2,100,000 |
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 3-00020-7501) 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.
What to know if you’re buying
You are buying a floor, not an apartment. The lofts are floor-through with keyed elevator access. That prices differently from stacked inventory in larger conversions; match your comparables accordingly.
The courtyard is the building's engine. It is what makes deep floor plates livable and what gives every residence a private outlook. Look at it in two seasons, and read the declaration on who maintains it and at whose cost.
Ten units is a small denominator. Ask for the reserve balance, the last five years of assessments, and the elevator and roof histories. One capital project here is everyone's capital project.
Confirm the fee architecture in writing. Flip tax, move deposits, working-capital contribution and sublet rules are board-level facts no public record settles.
What to know if you’re selling
Lead with the numbers that are actually rare. A 3,000-plus-square-foot floor-through loft with 13-foot ceilings and a landscaped courtyard, inside the DUMBO Historic District, is a one-paragraph pitch competing listings cannot write.
Name Alloy and name Arbuckle. Provenance sells here, and this building has a documented 1900 industrial pedigree and a design-developer with a track record two blocks away.
Photograph the courtyard as architecture. It is the conversion's whole idea. Shoot it in leaf, and shoot the bridges.
Anchor to matched loft comparables from 2025 forward. Same-building history first, then the district's other authentic conversions. Tower per-square-foot figures invite the wrong negotiation.
Comparable buildings
If you're considering 183 Plymouth Street, also evaluate:
- 168 Plymouth Street — Alloy's later and larger conversion two blocks west; the direct pedigree comparable
- 37 Bridge Street (Kirkman Lofts) — boutique soap-factory conversion at a similar unit count; the closest scale peer
- 30 Main Street (The Sweeney Building) — Gair-era conversion; the loft alternative with a fuller amenity load
- 1 Main Street (The Clock Tower) — the conversion that set DUMBO's loft benchmark
- 51 Jay Street — loft-style condominium a block away on the eastern side of the neighborhood
- 70 Washington Street — the large-format Gair conversion; scale and services against this building's privacy
- 133 Water Street — boutique contemporary inside the district, with terraces and deeded parking
- 98 Front Street — newer boutique condominium at the neighborhood's eastern edge
Considering a move at 185 Plymouth?
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 185 Plymouth 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.