223 West 80th Street

The building replaced a low masonry structure demolished under a 2003 Buildings application, and it fills the lot to a 7.99 floor-area ratio against a 10.0 residential maximum — a full but not maximized envelope on a twenty-five-foot midblock lot. The street elevation reads as contemporary infill working in a traditional idiom: a masonry wall, punched double-paned windows, a cornice line that keeps the building in conversation with its prewar neighbors, and an angled glass marquee over the entrance that was filed as its own alteration application in October 2005.

Inside, the plan is straightforward and unusually generous for the neighborhood. Twelve apartments over roughly eleven floors on an 1,800-square-foot floor plate means essentially one residence per level, with the elevator opening into the unit. The garden-level residence and the penthouse are the outliers: both carry noticeably higher assessed values on the Department of Finance roll than the stack between them, which is the roll's way of recording the private outdoor space and the additional volume attached to each. The remaining apartments assess at nearly identical values floor to floor, which tells you the stack is uniform — the differences between them are floor height, light and condition, not layout.

Attendance is part-time. Listing records describe a doorman on weekday daytime hours backed by video intercom, and the audited statements corroborate the scale of that commitment at roughly $62,000 a year. There is a resident-accessible roof terrace, an elevator carrying about $5,400 a year of maintenance, and janitorial service at roughly $10,400. Management fees run $18,000 annually. Real estate taxes do not appear anywhere in the operating statement, which is correct and worth stating for buyers cross-shopping cooperatives: in a condominium each owner is billed directly by the city, so the common charge covers building operations only and is not comparable, dollar for dollar, to a co-op maintenance figure that has taxes and debt service buried inside it.

Leasing is permitted and the board keeps its distance from it. The materials on file are explicit that the unit owner, not the condominium, is the landlord — responsible for vetting tenants, running credit, signing the lease, and complying with window-guard, smoke-detector and bedbug-disclosure obligations. The board's role is limited to waiving its right of first refusal, which it has done on every rental it has reviewed. The economics are a one-year minimum term and a $300 monthly surcharge that disappears if the owner engages the building's management company to handle the lease and remit common charges directly.

The soft cap on rentals is the policy a buyer should actually price. The board has stated it would move to discourage leasing if the number of rented units approached six of twelve. That is not arbitrary: mortgage underwriting for condominium purchases tightens sharply when owner-occupancy falls below fifty percent, and in a twelve-unit building the margin between comfortable and problematic is two apartments. With roughly four units leased at recent sublet-fee levels, the building sits inside the safe band — but it does not sit far inside it. Any buyer intending to finance should have their lender confirm the current owner-occupancy ratio during diligence rather than assume it.

Purchases clear through a right of first refusal, not a board interview. The condominium has thirty days from receipt of a complete application to waive. The application package is nonetheless substantial — financial statement, reference letters, tax returns, contract of sale, loan commitment — so the timeline is real even though the standard is not discretionary approval.

Alterations are governed and priced. A $1,000 processing fee, a $5,000 refundable damage deposit and a $750 architectural review deposit, with the review fee explicitly permitted to run higher, plus a mandatory pre-construction meeting with the superintendent and the manager. For a building where most apartments are full floors and therefore attractive renovation candidates, this is the fee stack to budget before signing a contract.

Ownership structures are unrestricted in practice. Recorded deeds include limited liability companies, a corporation, and multiple revocable trusts as purchasers. For buyers whose planning requires holding title in an entity or a trust, that flexibility is the structural reason to look at a building like this one rather than at the cooperative stock that dominates the surrounding blocks.

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.

Market read. Most recent trades (2025) cleared a median $1,338/sf across 1 sale. Median listing discount 3.7% from the last ask — a recurring negotiation gap worth pricing into any offer or listing strategy.

Sales sourced from NYC Department of Finance recorded transfers (BBL 1-01228-7503) 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.

The tax question is already answered — check the reserve question instead. With 421-a fully expired since 2016/17, there is no benefit burn-off risk here. The open item is capital: no reserve study, roughly half a year of operating expenses in cash, and an auditor's note stating that future major repairs would be funded by borrowing, assessing, or deferring. Ask for the last three years of statements and the most recent board minutes, and ask specifically about façade cycle status and elevator and boiler age.

Confirm the owner-occupancy ratio with your lender before you go to contract. The board manages toward keeping rentals at or below roughly a third of the building, but the number moves. If you are financing, this is a five-minute question that can otherwise surface late.

Underwrite a common-charge increase. Income was flat across 2021 and 2022 while expenses rose about nineteen percent, producing a 2022 operating deficit. In a twelve-unit building with no reserve study, that gap closes through common charges or an assessment, not through absorption.

Price the renovation before you bid. Full-floor apartments in a 2005 building are prime candidates for reconfiguration, and the alteration fee stack — $1,000 processing, $5,000 deposit, $750-plus architectural review — is knowable in advance. Run the Renovation Cost Calculator against your offer, not after it.

Understand what you are and are not buying in services. Weekday daytime attendance and a video intercom is not a 24-hour doorman. For many buyers on this block that trade is exactly right — it is why the common charges are what they are — but it should be a decision, not a discovery.

Lead with the floor plate. Near-full-floor, keyed-elevator entry at roughly 1,700 square feet is the scarce thing on this stretch of the Upper West Side. Most competing inventory is a portion of a prewar floor.

Say the tax status out loud. Buyers looking at 2005-vintage condominiums assume a 421-a phase-out is lurking. Here there isn't one, and it has been that way for a decade. That converts an objection into an advantage — but only if it is stated, because the assumption runs the other way.

Frame the carry honestly and completely. Full taxes, no underlying mortgage, modest common charge. Buyers comparing against co-op maintenance will misread the numbers unless the structure is explained. Run the True Monthly Carrying Cost Calculator and put the result in front of them.

Have the financials ready. Small condominiums draw close attorney scrutiny precisely because there are so few owners. The 2022 deficit and the absence of a reserve study will come up; better to hand over the statements and the context than to have them found.

Remember the buyer pool includes investors and entity purchasers. Leasing is permitted, LLCs and trusts have taken title here before, and there is no board interview. That widens the audience meaningfully compared with the cooperatives on the same block, and it should be part of how the apartment is positioned.

If you're considering 223 West 80th Street, also evaluate:

• 250 West 81st Street — the newer condominium on this same tax block; the direct trade-up in services and finish
• 219 West 81st Street — the immediate small-building neighbor a block north
• 200 West 78th Street — boutique condominium two blocks south; the closest peer by scale and product type
• 207 West 79th Street — Upper West Side condominium one block south on the same midblock pattern
• 210 West 78th Street — small-building alternative on the adjacent block
• 230 West 78th Street — comparable boutique scale, different vintage
• 2250 Broadway — the Broadway-frontage condominium alternative a block east
• 225 West 83rd Street (The Bromley) — the full-service, amenity-rich condominium comparison at larger scale
• 200 Amsterdam Avenue — the top-tier new-development alternative in the corridor at a much higher price point
• 100 West 81st Street — cooperative conversion nearby; the co-op alternative with board approval and financing limits