214 Clinton Street

Billard's building carries the Romanesque Revival vocabulary of the early 1890s Brooklyn flats house — round-arched openings, heavy masonry and corbelled brickwork, worked at five stories over a raised base. The corner condition at Clinton and Pacific gives two street elevations and, for the apartments on that end, light on two exposures — the most reliable value differentiator in a walk-up of this scale.

The 1985 share schedule covered 34 apartments across the two buildings, with the superintendent's apartment outside the offering; the plan places the superintendent in apartment 3-C. Layouts are prewar flats layouts — separate rooms rather than open plans, and room count rather than square footage as the useful unit of comparison.

Exterior work runs through the Landmarks Preservation Commission, and the plan spells out the scope with unusual specificity: windows, storefront and signage work, exterior painting, ironwork, gates and through-wall air-conditioner sleeves all require approval. The amendment record shows the sponsor installing an LPC-approved door at 147 Pacific Street during the conversion period — a useful precedent when a shareholder proposes any exterior change.

The corporation has run the two buildings since the 1987 closing on a deliberately lean model. The conversion budget carried a part-time resident superintendent engaged as an independent contractor, gas-fired heat and hot water from Brooklyn Union Gas, separately metered apartment electricity, quarterly extermination and a small professional-fee allowance — no elevator, no laundry contract, no doorman payroll. The plan's drafters flagged the obvious risk with the arrangement, noting that the cooperative might struggle to retain a satisfactory part-time superintendent at the wage contemplated; how the board resolved that over four decades is a fair diligence question.

Maintenance was set at $1.1333 per share per month in the first cooperative year and had reached $1.34 per share by July 1990. The first mortgage at conversion was a $475,000 loan taken in January 1985 at 13 percent for the first five years, converting to an indexed rate thereafter — a period artifact that has long since been refinanced, and the current underlying mortgage terms and maturity are among the first things to request. For an 1892 masonry building, FISP/LL11 façade cycles, roof, and window replacement under Landmarks review are the recurring capital items. Management history and current agent details are maintained in The Roebling Research Library and confirmed with clients during diligence.

Recent sales

Sales sourced from NYC Department of Finance recorded transfers (BBL 3-00285-0030) 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.

Get the current policies in writing. Sublet rules, pets, financing standards and any flip tax are board-made and postdate the plan documents entirely. Management's current answers control; the 1985 paperwork does not.

Ask about the underlying mortgage. In a 35-unit corporation the underlying debt is the single largest driver of maintenance. Request the current terms, rate and maturity, plus three years of financial statements and the assessment history.

It is a five-story walk-up. Assess the specific floor honestly against your holding period and resale audience.

Landmarks governs the windows. If the apartment needs new windows or a through-wall air conditioner, the Commission is part of the schedule and part of the cost.

Confirm the share ledger. The plan allocated 11,656 shares to 34 apartments; the cooperative's later budget records 12,016 shares outstanding. Your attorney should verify the specific apartment's allocation.

Name the architect and the year. The LPC's district records attribute the building to H. W. Billard for developer Michael McGuire, 1892, Romanesque Revival. Almost no comparable Cobble Hill walk-up listing can put three documented attributions in the first paragraph.

Lead with carrying cost. A low-overhead corporation with no elevator or doorman payroll produces maintenance figures that beat the district's full-service inventory. Show the number and show what it buys.

Address Atlantic Avenue head-on. Frame the walk to the corridor as the amenity it is, and let a buyer weigh the noise question in daylight rather than discover it at the second showing.

Price per room against the small-co-op set. The right comparables are Cobble Hill and Boerum Hill walk-up cooperatives of similar scale, not condominium conversions with elevators.

If you're considering 214 Clinton Street, also evaluate:

• 174 Pacific Street — 28-unit Cobble Hill co-op on the same street; the closest direct comparison
• 175 Amity Street — 17-unit Cobble Hill co-op two blocks south; boutique scale, similar operating model
• 177 Amity Street — 15-unit co-op neighbor on the same block
• 200 Congress Street — the district's large elevator co-op with a garage; the amenity alternative in cooperative form
• 423 Atlantic Avenue — 59-unit Boerum Hill co-op on the corridor's north side
• 450 Clinton Street — 36-unit Carroll Gardens co-op further down the same street
• 301 Henry Street — prewar co-op just north of Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn Heights
• 299 Henry Street — small prewar co-op peer at the Heights' southern edge
• 417 Hicks Street — the Tower Buildings of Cobble Hill Towers; landmark walk-up stock in condominium form