230 Ashland Place (The Forte)

FXFowle drew the building as a triangle with one of its long sides broken into two sections, so the massing reads as a wedge from the south and as a slab from Ashland Place. The façade uses masonry piers and horizontal banding in a vocabulary that recalls the streamlined Deco of 1930s midtown office buildings, with a marquee over the entrance and a plaza with paired lamp standards. The rooftop mechanical penthouse is set back but not clad to the same standard as the shaft, a common economy in towers of this vintage.

The 108 apartments range from studios to three-bedrooms. The prize lines are at the south end, where the prow lets living rooms curve through nearly 180 degrees of glass. Brokerage records describe a typical prow two-bedroom as a long entry foyer opening onto a curved living room of about 24 feet with an open kitchen. Standard lines along the long sides are more conventional, with angled bedrooms where the geometry turns. Upper floors look over the BAM campus and toward the Manhattan and harbor skyline. Lower floors face Ashland Place and the Rockwell Place block. The offering plan's square-foot figures are gross and include shafts and column enclosures, as is standard. Measure before you compare.

The condominium is professionally managed with a staff of eight in the 2026 budget: a resident manager, a handyman and six doorman/porter positions. The resident manager lives in an apartment the condominium owns.

Capital posture (audited statements for 2024, issued September 2025). Cash of roughly $990,000 at year-end 2024, up from about $630,000 a year earlier. No delinquent common charges at either year-end. No underlying debt. The condominium ran an operating surplus in 2024. In 2023 it billed a special assessment of about $86,000 and spent roughly $145,000 on HVAC repairs and a space-heating retrofit. In 2024 it renovated the exercise room.

What the statements do not show. The auditors note that the condominium has never conducted a reserve study, that the governing documents do not require reserves, and that the board may vote an assessment above $100,000 in a calendar year without a unit-owner vote. That is common in New York condominiums, but it means capital needs are met as they arise. Buyers should assume future assessments are possible. The 2026 budget does budget a reserve contribution of about $214,000 and roughly $124,000 of building improvements.

2026 common charges. The board raised residential common charges 5.5 percent effective February 2026, to about $2.1 million a year across the building. That works out to an average of about $1,600 a month per apartment on our arithmetic; actual charges vary with each unit's common interest. The largest increases in the budget are for heating, cooking gas and insurance.

Recent sales

Sales sourced from NYC Department of Finance recorded transfers (BBL 3-02095-7502) 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.

Price on full taxes. The 421-a exemption ended with the 2022/23 tax year. A carrying-cost figure from before mid-2023 understates the bill. Pull the unit's current DOF statement.

Ask about the next capital item. There is no reserve study and the board can assess without an owner vote. Request the last two years of minutes, the Local Law 11 façade cycle status, and any plans for the PTAC and heating systems, which have already absorbed retrofit money.

Check the PTAC units. Each apartment's through-wall units belong to the owner, who pays to run and maintain them. Their age and condition belong in the inspection.

Confirm pets and leasing in writing. Neither is documented in the records we reviewed. Get the current house rules and the board's leasing procedure before you commit.

Sell the shape. The prow living rooms and the triangular plan are the building's differentiator. Photograph the curve, and put the floor plan first.

Put the numbers up front. A no-debt condominium with nearly $1 million in cash, no delinquencies and full-time staff is a strong story. Disclose the 2026 common-charge increase and current taxes so they do not surface in diligence.

Price against the right set. The nearest comparables are other lines here, then the 2005–2010 Downtown Brooklyn tower cohort, not the abated towers of the 2020s.

If you're considering The Forte, also evaluate:

• 1 Hanson Place — the Williamsburgh Savings Bank Tower, a block south on Ashland Place; landmark conversion condominium
• 388 Bridge Street — the 2014 Downtown Brooklyn tower with condominiums above a rental block; 421-a still phasing out
• 100 Jay Street (J Condominium) — DUMBO's 2007 condominium tower; same vintage and crash-era sales history
• 1 Grand Army Plaza — Richard Meier's 2008 glass condominium; the other signature-architect Brooklyn tower of the cycle
• 556 State Street (Boerum Heights) — a 2006 Boerum Hill condominium of the same generation
• 319 Schermerhorn Street (The Nevins) — a 2015 Downtown Brooklyn condominium with a 421-a position to compare
• 10 Nevins Street (The Brooklyn Grove) — a 184-unit 2019 condominium nearby, also without an abatement
• 122 Ashland Place — the University Towers co-op on the same street; the cooperative alternative at a lower price point
• 550 Vanderbilt Avenue — Pacific Park's condominium, east across Flatbush Avenue