- Year built
- 2002
- Type
- Condominium
- Units
- 1401
- Floors
- 11
- Landmark
- No
Every recorded sale at this building, 2002–2025
Price-per-square-foot over time, the line- and floor-premium curves, and every recorded sale.
- Median $/sf
- $1,958
- Listing discount
- 5.4%
- Recorded sales
- 28
- On record
- 2002–2025
Most Manhattan condominiums sit on top of retail. This one sits on top of a theater, and it exists because of it. In 2001 a Chelsea dance organization that had outgrown its quarters filed to build an eleven-story building on West 19th Street in which the lower floors would house rehearsal studios and a performance space and the upper floors would hold twelve apartments. The residential condominium is, in effect, the capital structure that paid for the cultural facility beneath it — a model that Manhattan nonprofits have used repeatedly since, and that this building executed early and cleanly. The base is still in that use today, held as a separate commercial condominium unit by New York Live Arts.
That arrangement produces a building unlike anything else on the block. The residential density is extraordinarily low for a 2003 Chelsea building — twelve apartments across eleven floors means one or two homes per floor, with lofts in the 2,000-to-2,700-square-foot range, column-free plans, near-nine-foot ceilings, and a balcony on each. What would ordinarily be the base of the residential stack is instead a theater, so residents enter a building whose ground floor is a cultural institution rather than a lobby-and-storefront arrangement.
The architecture argues the same point. Rawlings Architects gave the building a flat, spare street wall with horizontal ribbon glazing rather than the punched masonry openings of the loft buildings around it — an early-modernist idiom rather than a contextual one. On a block of nineteenth-century row houses and early-twentieth-century lofts, it reads as deliberate rather than accidental, and it has aged better than most 2003 Chelsea construction.
The structural fact buyers most often get wrong here is the tax posture, and it is worth stating plainly because the public data invites the error. PLUTO reports a building-level exemption of roughly $2.78 million on this lot. None of it benefits the residences. That figure is the nonprofit exemption carried by the theater unit — a charitable exemption on the commercial condominium unit, not a residential abatement. The residences carried a ten-year 421-a exemption that expired after the 2012/13 assessment roll; every residential unit lot has shown a zero exemption on every roll since. Anyone underwriting this building from aggregate city data will materially understate the taxes.
Architecture and unit composition
Eleven floors on a 75-foot-wide lot, with roughly 50,800 square feet of gross building area split between a theater-and-studio base of about 24,000 square feet and roughly 26,700 square feet of residential space above. That split explains the plans: with the whole floor plate available to one or two apartments and the structure carrying a performance space below, the residential floors are column-free and generously proportioned, which is not typical of new construction at this size.
Residences are full-floor and half-floor lofts. Marketed and recorded configurations have run from two to four bedrooms in the roughly 2,000-to-2,700-square-foot band, with private balconies, near-nine-foot ceilings and open kitchens. The upper floors gain open northern outlooks over the lower buildings across West 19th Street. Because there are only twelve residences and no two floors were finished identically, individual apartments differ substantially in layout and renovation history — line-by-line analysis matters here more than a building average.
One item to test in person: sound. A theater and rehearsal studios in the base of a residential building is a designed condition, and the structure was built for it, but the acoustic performance of a specific apartment relative to the performance schedule below is the kind of thing that only a site visit at the right hour resolves.
Building operations
The building runs as a small mixed-use condominium. Common charges are allocated across a residential and a commercial component, which is the single most important operating feature to understand: the theater unit is a large share of the building's gross area, and how the declaration allocates common expenses, capital costs, insurance, and Local Law compliance between the commercial and residential components determines what a residential owner actually pays. Ask for the declaration's common-interest schedule and the current budget, and read them together.
Twelve residences is a small denominator for building-wide costs — roof, facade, elevator, mechanicals — and the building is now past twenty years old, which is the age at which curtain-wall sealants, roofing and building systems begin to come due. Request the reserve balance, the assessment history, and the current Local Law 11 cycle status.
Policy framework
Ownership form: Condominium. Transfers close through the board's right of first refusal rather than a cooperative-style approval, which produces faster and more predictable timelines. Recorded deeds in this building include purchases taken in the name of revocable trusts and of limited liability companies, consistent with the standard condominium framework.
Pets, subletting and pied-à-terre: Governed by the declaration, by-laws and house rules rather than by any public filing. Confirm current terms — including any minimum lease term — with the managing agent.
Flip tax: Not documented in public records. Confirm any resale capital contribution before pricing a sale.
Real estate taxes: No exemption of any kind appears on the residential unit lots. The ten-year 421-a benefit that ran from the building's completion expired after the 2012/13 roll; residences have been fully taxable since 2013/14. The exemption visible on this lot in aggregate city data belongs entirely to the theater unit and is a charitable exemption, not an abatement. Underwrite full unabated taxes against the current bill for the specific unit.
Local Law 97
- 2024–2029 annual penalty
- $4,010/yr
- 2030–2034 annual penalty
- $45,367/yr
- Per unit / month range
- $28 – $315
Source: NYC LL84 benchmarking and PLUTO · The Roebling Research Library. City record last verified September 2026.
See full Local Law 97 analysis — emissions history, scenarios, methodology →Facade safety — Local Law 11
The latest available FISP filing classified the facade as Safe — no repairs were required at that inspection. Facade inspections run on a fixed five-year cycle; future inspection, repair, and any assessment decisions remain building-specific.
How to read this, and where it comes from
QEWI = Qualified Exterior Wall Inspector — the licensed engineer the city requires to sign the report (the independent expert, not the managing agent).
Source: NYC DOB facade filings (FISP) · The Roebling Research Library. City record last verified September 2026.
Recent sales
Recent closings at this building, curated by The Roebling Team research desk. Prices are the transfer amounts recorded with the NYC Department of Finance; apartment-level detail is checked against the building’s own file in The Roebling Research Library before publishing.
| Date | Unit | Apartment | Price | PPSF | vs. Ask |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aug 12, 2025 | PH | 4 BR · 3 BA · 2,400 sf | $4,700,000 | $1,958/sf | -3.1% |
| Aug 12, 2025 | 11 | 4 BR · 3 BA · 2,400 sf | $4,700,000 | $1,958/sf | off-mkt |
| Jun 4, 2024 | 6S | 3 BR · 2 BA · 2,027 sf | $3,295,000 | $1,626/sf | -12.1% |
| Apr 19, 2023 | 8 | 3 BR · 2 BA · 2,400 sf | $5,750,000 | $2,396/sf | -32.4% |
| Jul 13, 2022 | 4N | 3 BR · 2 BA · 2,277 sf | $3,400,000 | $1,493/sf | -9.3% |
| Apr 27, 2022 | 9 | 3 BR · 2 BA · 2,287 sf | $4,595,000 | $2,009/sf | -3.3% |
| Apr 1, 2020 | 8 | 3 BR · 2 BA · 2,675 sf | $4,000,000 | $1,495/sf | -16.6% |
| Dec 6, 2018 | 10 | 3 BR · 2.5 BA · 2,400 sf | $5,200,000 | $2,167/sf | -16.8% |
Market read. Most recent trades (2025) cleared a median $1,958/sf across 2 sales. Median listing discount 5.4% from the last ask — a recurring negotiation gap worth pricing into any offer or listing strategy.
The retrade record
Lines that have traded more than once in the public record — the building’s appreciation arc, apartment by apartment.
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 1-00769-7506) 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; square footage from recorded condo declarations and offering plans.
What to know if you’re buying
Model the taxes from the actual bill, not from city aggregates. The exemption that appears on this building in public data belongs to the theater. The residences have been fully taxable since the 2013/14 roll. This is the error most likely to break your carrying-cost math.
Read the commercial/residential cost allocation before anything else. The theater and studio unit occupies roughly half the building's gross area. How the declaration splits common charges, capital assessments, insurance and Local Law compliance between the commercial and residential components is the defining economic fact of owning here. Have your attorney read the declaration's common-interest schedule against the current budget.
Twelve units is a small denominator on a twenty-plus-year-old building. Roof, facade, elevator and mechanical work divided across twelve residences produces real per-unit numbers. Ask for the reserve balance, the assessment history and the Local Law 11 status.
Visit during a performance, and walk the entrance. The base is an active performing-arts facility, and a residential lobby sharing a building with a public cultural venue works differently from a conventional one. The building was designed for this and residents have lived above it for two decades, but form your own view at an hour when the studios and theater are in use.
Confirm the policy stack in writing. Pets, minimum sublet term, pied-à-terre use and any flip tax are all set in documents that are not public. Get them from the managing agent before you offer.
What to know if you’re selling
Sell the plan, not the neighborhood. Two-thousand-plus-square-foot column-free floors with balconies, one or two per floor, are scarce in Chelsea at any vintage. That is the argument, and it does not depend on finishes.
Address the tax posture up front. A sophisticated buyer will find the burned-off 421-a in diligence. Presenting the current, unabated bill at the outset — paired with the True Monthly Carrying Cost Calculator — produces better outcomes than letting it surface late.
Explain the theater, don't apologize for it. The cultural base is the building's identity and the reason its residential floors are configured as they are. Buyers who want it are a real pool; buyers who don't self-select early, which is efficient for everyone. And with twelve residences and long holding periods, resale pricing depends on floor- and condition-specific analysis rather than on a building average.
Comparable buildings
If you're considering The Dance Building, also evaluate:
- 192 Eighth Avenue (Novum Chelsea) — five-residence condominium on the same tax block; the closest neighbor in scale and the nearest boutique alternative
- 241 West 19th Street — 1100 Architect condominium of 2006–07 on the same street; the full-service alternative a block west
- 251 West 19th Street — 1910 loft building converted to condominium in 2002; the prewar loft alternative at the same vintage of conversion
- 210 West 19th Street — directly across the street; a different scale and price tier on the same blockfront
- 130 West 19th Street (Chelsea House) — larger full-service Chelsea condominium; the amenity alternative
- 142 West 19th Street — boutique condominium on the same street; comparable density, different plan type
- 121 West 19th Street — Chelsea condominium of similar vintage a block east
- 503 West 24th Street (The Getty Residences) — five full-floor residences above gallery and foundation space; the West Chelsea expression of the same art-institution-plus-residences model, at a much higher price tier
- 555 West 23rd Street — large West Chelsea condominium; the high-density comparison for buyers weighing amenities against floor size
The neighborhood
For the full corridor — architecture, schools, transit, and pricing across Chelsea — read The Roebling Team Guide to Chelsea.
How to read the facts on this page. Items attributed to an offering plan describe the building as it was offered at that filing — unit mix, square footage, the amenity program as planned. They are not a statement about how the building operates today. Tax and compliance figures are sourced separately to current City records and carry their own dates. House rules, staffing and fee policy can change by board resolution without any public filing: treat every policy line here as a starting point for diligence and confirm it with the managing agent.
Considering a move at The Dance Building?
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 The Dance Building 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.