184 Columbia Heights
184 Columbia Heights, Brooklyn, NY 11201
Brooklyn Heights, Brooklyn
BBL 3002080319 · BIN 3001506
- Year built
- 1929
- Type
- Cooperative
- Units
- 19
- Floors
- 6
- Landmark
- Designated
- Flip tax
- 1% of purchase price, paid by seller by certified check on or before sale, applied to capital (By-Laws Art. II Sec. II(e))
- Financing
- Shares may be pledged for no more than 75% of appraised fair market value (board may impose lower); board-approved recognized financial institutions only; Recognition Letter/Letter of Agreement required; no single lender may finance more than 25% of total outstanding shares (By-Laws Art. II Sec. V)
- Subletting
- Board approval after written notice, references and possible interview; registered copy of sublease required; escalating surcharge on the spread between occupation charge and sublet rent - 10% years 1-2, 50% years 3-4, 100% year 5+; board decision final; unapproved sublet void (By-Laws Art. II Sec. IV)
- Washer / dryer
- Prohibited - 'No washing machines or other machines causing excess noise or vibration shall be used in any apartment'; basement laundry with corporation clothes-drying apparatus and washing machine (Rules and Regulations)
- Pets
- No animal kept or harbored without written permission of the Lessor, revocable at will; leashed in elevator and public halls (Rules and Regulations)
Compiled by The Roebling Research Desk from the building’s offering plan, amendments, and related building documents (primary source dated 1987 (last recorded bylaw amendment)). Board policies can change by amendment — confirm at the offer stage.
184 Columbia Heights sits on the single most valuable block face in Brooklyn Heights: the west side of Columbia Heights between Clark and Pierrepont, where the rear of every building gives onto the Promenade and, past it, New York Harbor. It is a small, six-story, nineteen-door house on a street of them, and its interest to a buyer is a combination that almost nothing else in the district offers — Promenade-block geography paired with a cooperative corporation that predates the neighborhood's conversion era by six decades.
That last point is the building's real distinction. Nearly every co-op in Brooklyn Heights is a converted rental: a sponsor bought the building, filed an offering plan in the 1970s or 1980s, and sold shares to sitting tenants. 184 Columbia Heights has no offering plan because it never needed one. The corporation's seal records its incorporation in 1921, its bylaws carry an amendment history running from June 1949 forward, and shareholders sign an Occupancy Agreement and pay occupation charges — the vocabulary of the first generation of American cooperative housing, retained here in continuous use. The building belongs to the same short list of Heights addresses that were owner-occupied from the start, and the paperwork proves it.
That history has left a governing structure with real teeth, and it is the first thing a buyer's attorney should read. Resale requires not only board approval and an interview but a right of first refusal running first to the corporation and then to every individual shareholder, each of whom has ten days to take the deal at the accepted price. A 1 percent transfer fee is payable by the seller to capital. Financing is capped at 75 percent of appraised value, the lender must be board-approved, and no single lender may hold more than a quarter of the building's shares — a covenant that protects the co-op from concentration risk but that can, in practice, steer a purchaser to a different bank. Subletting is permitted but deliberately unattractive over time: the shareholder surrenders 10 percent of the sublet spread in the first two years, half of it in years three and four, and all of it thereafter. The message of the document is consistent and unambiguous: this is a house for owner-occupants.
The operating profile matches. For seventeen shareholder units the corporation carries a payroll with pension, welfare, and uniform lines — a unionized attended-building staff at a scale where most Heights co-ops make do with a part-time porter. That buys service and it costs money, and it is the principal reason occupation charges here run heavier per room than at comparable small prewars a few blocks inland.
For sellers, the pitch is short and strong: the Promenade block, a 1921 cooperative corporation, an attended lobby, and a house that has never been anything other than owner-occupied. For buyers, the diligence list is equally short: read the bylaws before you fall in love with the apartment.
Architecture and unit composition
Six stories of masonry on the Columbia Heights row, sharing the block with the district's Art Moderne outlier at 160 Columbia Heights to the north and the Pierrepont Place mansion group at the block's southern end. The LPC's district records leave both the architect and the style fields undetermined for this address, so the honest description is what the building is: a restrained brick apartment house of the Heights' early-twentieth-century apartment generation, contributing to the district rather than commanding it.
Apartment configuration follows the bylaws' fixed share allotment: each apartment carries an unchangeable block of shares, tied to its designation, and one line has already been combined across two floors. Because the corporation has never filed an offering plan, there is no public schedule of room counts or square footage — the share allotment in the bylaws, read against the current stock ledger, is the reliable instrument for comparing one apartment to another, and any buyer should ask for both. What varies most in a house of this size is the rear exposure: apartments on the western elevation look across the Promenade and the harbor, and that view line is protected in practice by the Promenade itself and by the historic district. Exterior work, windows included, runs through the Landmarks Preservation Commission.
Building operations
184 Columbia Heights, Incorporated is governed by a five-member board, at least three of whom must live in the building — a resident-majority requirement written into the bylaws rather than adopted by custom. The board appoints a Manager with authority over day-to-day operation, hiring recommendations, and ordinary contracts, and retains a certified public accountant to audit the treasurer's accounts and prepare the annual statement delivered to shareholders ten days before the annual meeting. Books and the stock and transfer ledger are open to shareholder inspection during business hours. The corporation's fiscal year ends September 30.
On the financial side, the building has historically operated with modest reserves and a real underlying mortgage: a National Consumer Cooperative Bank first mortgage of $800,000 taken in May 2001 at 7.27 percent on a sixty-year amortization with a ten-year term, alongside a $100,000 line of credit. Those instruments are two decades old and will have been refinanced; the current underlying debt, its rate, its maturity, and any line-of-credit drawdown are all live diligence items. So is the reserve position. The corporation's statements have disclosed that no study of remaining useful lives or replacement costs of the common property has been performed — for a masonry building of this age, that puts façade cycles under Local Law 11, the roof, the elevator, and the boiler squarely on the buyer's question list.
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 transfers 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Jan 22, 2026 | 1B | $850,000 |
| Jan 21, 2026 | 2B/3B | $2,680,000 |
| Jul 11, 2025 | 5A | $1,450,000 |
| Aug 14, 2023 | 4AB | $2,450,000 |
| Aug 19, 2021 | 2A | $1,350,000 |
| Jun 6, 2019 | 1D | $1,502,500 |
Sales sourced from NYC Department of Finance recorded transfers (BBL 3-00208-0319) 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
Read the bylaws before the offering. The right of first refusal, the 1 percent transfer fee, the 75 percent financing ceiling, and the sublet surcharge are all in the governing document, and each one changes how you structure a deal.
Confirm your lender qualifies. The board must approve the institution, a recognition agreement is required, and the 25 percent single-lender concentration cap can, in a small corporation, close a door that would be open elsewhere.
Plan for basement laundry. In-unit washer-dryers are barred by house rule. In a building of this vintage that restriction is also a plumbing reality, not only a policy choice.
Ask about the underlying mortgage and the reserve. The documented NCB financing is two decades old and the corporation has disclosed that no reserve study exists. Current debt terms, current reserves, and the capital plan are the three numbers that matter.
Verify the unit and share count. City records show nineteen units against seventeen shareholder units in the corporation's statements; combinations explain the difference, and your attorney should confirm the specific apartment's allotment.
What to know if you’re selling
Lead with the block, then the corporation. Promenade frontage is the headline; a cooperative incorporated in 1921 and never converted is the line no competing listing on the street can copy.
Prepare the buyer for the right of first refusal. It is a ten-day mechanic, it is routine in practice, and it derails deals only when it arrives as a surprise late in contract.
Market to owner-occupants. The sublet surcharge structure makes this a poor investor building by design; time spent on investor traffic is time lost.
Document the exposure. Whether the apartment holds a western outlook over the Promenade and the harbor is the single largest driver of value inside the building; photograph and describe it precisely.
Comparable buildings
If you're considering 184 Columbia Heights, also evaluate:
- 160 Columbia Heights — the Art Moderne co-op at Clark Street on the same block; balconies and setback terraces on the harbor elevation
- 129 Columbia Heights — Frank L. Lowe's 1907 Beaux-Arts co-op at Clark Street; the street's first apartment-house generation
- 177 Columbia Heights — the east-side Columbia Heights co-op peer, at similar scale
- 135 Willow Street — the postwar co-op one street east; a very different service and cost profile
- 115 Willow Street — Slee & Bryson's 1926 Gothic co-op, converted by its own tenants
- 128 Willow Street — Slee & Bryson's 1925 co-op on the same corridor
- 35 Pierrepont Street — Freehof's 1929 nine-story co-op at the block's southern cross street
- 142 Hicks Street — comparable unit count in the North Heights, at a substantially lower cost basis
- 35 Clark Street — George F. Pelham's 1922 co-op one block north
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.
Considering a move at 184 Columbia Heights?
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 184 Columbia Heights 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.