191 Willoughby Street (University Towers)
191 Willoughby Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201
Fort Greene, Brooklyn
BBL 3020610060 · BIN 3058256
- Year built
- 1958
- Type
- Cooperative
- Units
- 183
- Floors
- 15
- Landmark
- No
- Pets
- Not publicly documented — confirm against current house rules
191 Willoughby Street is the building University Towers uses as its own address, and it is the easternmost of the three 15-story towers that share a single cooperative corporation on a superblock between Willoughby Street and Myrtle Avenue. Together the three buildings hold roughly 550 apartments — which makes University Towers, by a wide margin, the largest concentration of for-sale housing on the Fort Greene–Downtown Brooklyn seam.
That matters more than it should have to. The blocks immediately west and north filled in between 2008 and 2023 with tall residential construction that is overwhelmingly rental, some of it organized as condominium on paper and never offered for sale. University Towers is a shareholder-owned cooperative in the ordinary sense: shares, a proprietary lease, a purchase application, a board interview, and a closing at a negotiated price. For a buyer who wants to own rather than rent within a five-minute walk of BAM, that shortlist is short.
The buildings went up in 1958 and spent three decades as rentals. Brownstoner's building history places the conversion to cooperative ownership in 1989 and links the original development to Long Island University's adjacent Brooklyn campus — an account this profile records as neighborhood history rather than as documented fact, because no primary source confirms it. The verifiable part is the physical arrangement, and it is the more useful part: three towers, each on roughly 1.8 acres, set well back from the street with lawns, planting and parking filling the ground between them. Site plan, not façade, is the architecture here.
The screening question every buyer should ask about a large 1950s Brooklyn co-op — is this a Mitchell-Lama? — resolves cleanly. University Towers is absent from HPD's roster of city-supervised Mitchell-Lama developments and from the state-supervised roster alike. There is no income ceiling, no surrender-and-resell mechanism, no HPD role in the transaction. The contrast is close at hand: Atlantic Terminal at 161 South Elliott Place, a few blocks southeast, remains an active city-supervised Mitchell-Lama with a waiting list, and behaves nothing like this building in a transaction.
What is left is a postwar apartment product that has become genuinely scarce in this part of Brooklyn: elevator building, staffed lobby, laundry, fitness space, on-site parking, generous room sizes and closet counts, and a maintenance structure supported by a 550-unit share base rather than by ten shareholders splitting a boiler replacement. Fort Greene Park and the Prison Ship Martyrs' Monument are three blocks east; the Brooklyn Cultural District begins two blocks south; the Navy Yard is a walk north.
Architecture and unit composition
191 Willoughby Street is a 15-story brick tower of the plain postwar type, sited on an open parcel rather than at the sidewalk. Its neighbors at 175 Willoughby Street and 122 Ashland Place are the same height and vintage; Department of Finance records give 183 units here and at 175 Willoughby, and 184 at Ashland Place. The three parcels together run to roughly 233,000 square feet of land — the reason a 15-story building on this block reads as less dense than a mid-rise on a Fort Greene row-house street.
The apartment mix follows the 1950s middle-income template: studios through three-bedrooms, with room proportions and closet counts that compare favorably with anything built since 2000. Condition varies enormously across the building after nearly four decades of shareholder ownership, and condition — not line — is what a buyer is really pricing. Floor and exposure govern light and view, with upper floors on the north and west picking up Downtown Brooklyn and longer skyline. Because the building sits outside any historic district, windows and exterior work proceed without Landmarks review, which simplifies both corporate capital planning and shareholder alterations.
Building operations
One corporation, University Towers Apartment Corp., owns and runs all three buildings: a single board, a single budget, a single set of house rules, one financial statement covering roughly 550 apartments. That scale is what pays for on-site security, fitness facilities, laundry rooms and grounds maintenance at a maintenance level a small Fort Greene co-op could never carry, and it spreads capital costs across a large share base. The cooperative's own website identifies FirstService Residential as managing agent.
Parking deserves specific attention because it is structured unusually. The cooperative describes more than 200 spaces available for purchase or rent from shareholders — spaces that change hands between residents rather than being assigned by the corporation from a list. Establish before contract whether a space is included, how it is priced, and how the corporation papers the transfer.
For capital diligence, treat this as what it is: a 1958 masonry high-rise. FISP/Local Law 11 façade cycles, elevator modernization, roofing, and the heating and domestic-water plant are the recurring items. Because the corporation is unitary, request financial statements, reserve position and assessment history for the whole complex, not just this building.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Jun 24, 2026 | 8J | $772,000 |
| Mar 9, 2026 | 11K | $535,000 |
| Nov 28, 2025 | 14J | $775,906.5 |
| Nov 28, 2025 | 12J | $735,000 |
| Sep 26, 2025 | 4L | $929,000 |
| Jun 4, 2025 | 6N | $570,000 |
Sales sourced from NYC Department of Finance recorded transfers (BBL 3-02061-0060) 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
Settle the Mitchell-Lama question and move on. The building appears on neither the city-supervised nor the state-supervised roster, and there is no income restriction or resale formula. Atlantic Terminal at 161 South Elliott Place is the nearby development that does carry those constraints.
Pull the house rules and purchase application before you bid. Pets, sublets, pied-à-terre use, washer/dryer and financing standards are undocumented publicly and specific in practice.
Underwrite the whole complex. One corporation covers all three towers. A façade or elevator project at 122 Ashland Place lands on your maintenance bill.
Treat parking as a negotiated item. Spaces trade shareholder-to-shareholder, so a space is bought or rented, not inherited with the apartment.
Buy the condition, not the line. After nearly four decades of shareholder ownership the apartments range from original to fully rebuilt, and that range is where the price spread lives.
What to know if you’re selling
Say clearly that this is for-sale housing. On a block dominated by rental towers, the ownership form is the differentiator, and buyers scanning the neighborhood assume the opposite.
Pre-empt the Mitchell-Lama question in the listing. It is the first question sophisticated Brooklyn buyers ask about any 1950s co-op at this scale, and an unanswered one costs showings.
Comp across all three towers. The right set is University Towers itself, not the historic district's prewar co-ops. Renovated versus original is the dominant variable within it.
Market the ground. Setback, lawns, cross-ventilation and on-site parking are precisely what the surrounding lot-line construction cannot offer.
Prepare the building package first. Financials, reserve position and current capital work should be assembled before the first showing; large co-op paperwork slows unprepared deals.
Comparable buildings
If you're considering 191 Willoughby Street, also evaluate:
- 122 Ashland Place (University Towers) — the Ashland Place tower under the same cooperative corporation; the closest possible comparable
- 195 Willoughby Avenue (Willoughby Walk) — Clinton Hill's 1959 urban-renewal cooperative tower; the nearest peer in vintage and site plan
- 185 Hall Street (Willoughby Walk) — the second Willoughby Walk tower, same corporation, same postwar register
- 185 Clinton Avenue (Clinton Hill Co-ops) — the large Clinton Hill co-op campus; the other big block of for-sale housing nearby
- 345 Clinton Avenue (Clinton Hill Apartments) — companion campus building at comparable scale
- 110 Livingston Street — Downtown Brooklyn's large converted building; the closest big for-sale alternative to the west
- 75 Henry Street — Brooklyn Heights' large postwar cooperative; a scale-and-vintage benchmark
- 135 Eastern Parkway (Turner Towers) — Prospect Heights' large prewar co-op; a price-per-room reference at scale
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 University Towers?
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 University Towers 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.