251 1st Street

Ten thousand square feet of lot, a hundred feet on 1st Street and a hundred on Fourth Avenue, and 63,431 gross square feet of building at a built floor-area ratio of 6.34 — above the 6.02 the lot alone would carry, which the 2014 zoning-lot document on file with ACRIS accounts for.

The massing is the design. Six residences fit on the third, fourth and fifth floors; five on the sixth; four on the seventh; and above that the building steps back hard enough that floors eight through eleven produce eleven homes among them, every one designated a penthouse. The result is a terrace on most upper floors and a silhouette that steps rather than rises. Below all of it, the ground floor carries one garden residence alongside a commercial unit and a community facility unit, with accessory cellar storage beneath both the apartment and the retail space; a 2020 alteration on file subdivided the ground-floor commercial space into two retail tenancies.

Storage deserves a specific note, because it is a common source of confusion here. The plan offered forty-four storage units as licenses, not as deeded condominium units — they carry no tax lot, and as of the August 2021 statements the sponsor still held twenty-four of them. Compare that with buildings a few blocks south where storage and parking are separately deeded real property. A licensed storage space is a contractual right, and it should be diligenced and valued as one.

This is a staffed building, and the budget shows it. Six employees appeared on the fiscal-2020 payroll, with labor and related costs of roughly $294,000 against a total budget of $772,000 — about thirty-eight percent, which is a full-service posture for a forty-four-unit building. There is a separate contracted security line, an elevator maintenance contract, landscaping, window cleaning, and a security and intercom system carried on the balance sheet. The plan amendments record a doorman covering seventeen hours a day.

The capital posture is where a buyer should slow down, and the documents on file are candid enough that it can be read directly.

The condominium has never conducted a reserve study. The August 2021 statements say so in as many words: no study has been made of the remaining useful lives of common property or of the cost of major repairs and replacements. The independent auditor flagged the corresponding omission in both the 2019 and the 2021 statements.

The 2021 audit carries a disclaimer of opinion. The auditor was unable to obtain sufficient evidence about terrace fees and income because the property manager could not produce the supporting documents, and consequently expressed no opinion on the financial statements. The statement is dated January 10, 2024 — issued more than two years after the fiscal year it covers.

Reserve funding stopped. In fiscal 2019 the condominium funded $47,655 into the reserve from common charges; in fiscal 2018, $41,751. In fiscal 2021, nothing was funded. The reserve fund stood at $55,228 at that year-end, alongside a working capital fund of $94,024 and total unit owners' equity of $389,268, against cash and restricted cash of $411,736.

Operations ran at a deficit that year. Revenues of $831,158 against expenses of $862,182, turned positive only by $49,115 of forgiven federal pandemic-era payroll loan. Repairs and maintenance had more than doubled since 2019, and insurance had risen from roughly $27,000 to roughly $69,000 in two years. The sponsor funded approximately $26,000 that year to cover shortfalls on units it still owned.

A lawsuit against the condominium settled in November 2021 for $55,000, of which insurance covered $42,500. No party is identified in the documents we hold and the matter is closed.

All of that is five years old. It is the most recent audited picture in The Roebling Research Library, not the current one, and it is exactly the reason to ask the managing agent for the last two completed audits, the current budget, the reserve balance, any assessment history since 2021, and whether a reserve study has since been performed. A forty-four-unit building with six employees and no reserve study has a real fixed cost base and no map of its future capital calls.

Finally, on certificates: the Department of Buildings certificate-of-occupancy record for this building runs through a temporary certificate issued May 31, 2018, and no final certificate appears in the department's published certificate data. That may be a records artifact rather than a live condition — but confirm the current certificate with the managing agent rather than assuming it.

What the lot itself carries. E-designation E-113, effective April 30, 2003, applies to this lot and to two others on the block, including the parcel next door at 269 Fourth Avenue. It is a hazardous-materials designation only — the register records no air-quality and no noise component — and its stated subject is underground gasoline storage tanks and a testing protocol. An E-designation obliges an applicant to satisfy the city's environmental remediation office before a building permit issues, ordinarily through investigation, a remedial action plan where warranted, and a notice of satisfaction. That process would have run in the 2013–2016 permitting window. The specific investigation reports and closure documents for this site are not in The Roebling Research Library, and a buyer who wants the detail should request them from the managing agent or the city's environmental remediation office rather than infer it.

What the neighborhood carries, separately. The Gowanus Canal is a federal Superfund site — the Environmental Protection Agency added it to the National Priorities List on March 2, 2010 — and dredging and capping work under that program has been an ongoing construction condition in the area for years. The head of the canal sits roughly four-tenths of a mile west of this corner. That is a neighborhood fact, not a site condition, and it is unrelated to E-113, which predates the Superfund listing by seven years and concerns gasoline tanks on Fourth Avenue rather than canal sediment.

Zoning came after the building. The lot is C4-4D inside the Special Gowanus Mixed Use District today, but that district was created by the Gowanus Neighborhood Rezoning adopted in November 2021 — four years after the building was occupied. What actually governed the design was the 2003 Fourth Avenue rezoning, the same action that imposed E-113. The practical consequence for an owner is about the neighbors, not the building: the 82-block rezoning area around the canal is entitled for substantially more construction than it has yet built, and light, air and view lines on the avenue should be underwritten with that in mind.

Ownership form: Condominium, fee ownership. No ground lease or leasehold appears in the documents on file.

Transfers and leasing — a right of first refusal that reaches both. The by-laws provide that any lease or sale of a residential unit is subject to the Board's right of first refusal, with carve-outs for the declarant and its successors, transfers to an immediate family member, and transfers from an ownership entity to an affiliate. The right does not apply to the non-residential units. If the board does not act within the stated window, the owner is free to close within sixty days. This is more restrictive than a plain no-approval condominium: it means a landlord's tenant selection, not only a seller's buyer, passes through the board.

Lease term: Minimum one year. No transient occupancy, no letting of part of a unit, no dormitory use.

Pets: Permitted, but the house rules make the permission revocable at any time in the board's or managing agent's sole discretion. Pets must be carried or leashed in the common elements. A buyer whose purchase depends on a pet should get the current position in writing.

Flip tax: None documented in the plan, amendments or by-laws on file.

Working capital: A one-time contribution equal to two months of common charges at closing, held in a working capital fund used for capital improvements, closing adjustments and unbudgeted expenses.

Real estate taxes — an active 15-year 421-a. Department of Finance exemption detail carries code 5118, the 15-year 421-a, on all 44 residential unit lots, with a benefit start of 2019 and a base year of 2014, current through the 2026/27 assessment roll. On that schedule the benefit runs into the mid-2030s, with a step-down in its final years. Two things follow. First, the exemption's share of the bill is already shrinking: on a representative unit lot the exempt value rose from about $98,000 in 2022/23 to about $111,000 in 2026/27 while the taxable portion rose considerably faster, so the effective abatement has fallen from roughly two-thirds of assessed value to about half in four years. Second, the two non-residential lots carry no exemption at all and are assessed as commercial property. Underwrite the actual current bill on the specific unit, ask the managing agent for the recorded phase-out schedule, and model the post-benefit number rather than the present one.

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 (2026) cleared a median $1,403/sf across 3 sales. Median listing discount 0.0% from the last ask.

Sales sourced from NYC Department of Finance recorded transfers (BBL 3-00964-7505) 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.

Expect to see 275 4th Avenue everywhere. The tax bill, PLUTO, the assessment roll and the condominium's own audited statements all use it. The unit lots, the building permits and the certificates use 251 1st Street. Same building.

Read the financials, then ask for newer ones. The most recent audited statement in The Roebling Research Library is for fiscal 2021, it carries a disclaimer of opinion, it records no reserve funding that year, and it states that no reserve study has ever been done. Ask for the two most recent completed audits, the current budget, the reserve balance and any assessment history.

Model the taxes twice. Once at today's abated bill and once at the unabated bill. The 15-year benefit started in 2019 and its share of the assessment has already been shrinking each year.

The board can pre-empt your tenant, not only your buyer. The right of first refusal applies to leases. Build the extra step into any rental plan, and confirm the current board's practice on timing.

Storage is licensed, not owned. Forty-four licenses, no tax lots, and the sponsor still held twenty-four of them as of 2021. Confirm what is actually available and on what terms.

Ask about the certificate of occupancy. The department's published record ends at a temporary certificate from May 2018.

Ask about E-113 by name. It is a documented hazardous-materials designation on the lot from the 2003 Fourth Avenue rezoning, concerning former underground gasoline tanks. Request the investigation and closure file rather than accepting a general reassurance — and do not let it be conflated with the Gowanus Canal, which is a separate matter half a mile away.

Lead with the terrace. This is a terraced building in a neighborhood of flat ones, and a quarter of its homes are penthouses. That is the argument, and it is visible from the street.

Get in front of the address, the E-designation and the canal. All three will surface in a buyer's search and all three have clean, documented explanations. Supplying them beats defending them.

Bring the tax schedule, not the tax bill. A sophisticated buyer will ask what happens when the 421-a steps down. Having the answer ready converts a concern into a known quantity.

Have a current financial package. A five-year-old audit with a disclaimer of opinion is the single most likely thing to slow a deal here. A recent audit, a funded reserve line and — best of all — a completed reserve study would change the conversation entirely.

Explain the right of first refusal in the setup. It is narrower than a co-op board and broader than most condominiums. Buyers who understand it early do not treat it as a surprise late.

If you're considering 251 1st Street, also evaluate:

• 243 4th Avenue (Parlour) — ground-up condominium on the same avenue; the closest peer by street and product type
• 343 4th Avenue (Novo) — earlier Fourth Avenue condominium; useful for how the avenue's first generation prices against its second
• 500 4 Avenue — Fourth Avenue condominium further south; a comparable mid-rise alternative
• 575 Fourth Avenue — larger Fourth Avenue building; the full-amenity comparison
• 350 Butler Street — Passive House condominium three blocks north on the Gowanus side; the newer, unabated alternative
• 228 13th Street — 2025 condominium at the Green-Wood end of the Slope with deeded parking; the low-rise, unabated alternative
• 229 9th Street (Luna) — ground-up condominium on the same E-designated 2003 rezoning corridor
• Sackett Union (291 Union Street) — Gowanus-edge new construction at similar scale
• Timber House (670 Union Street) — the neighborhood's most architecturally ambitious recent building; the design-led alternative
• 445 5th Avenue (The Slope on Fifth) — Fifth Avenue condominium one block east; the retail-corridor alternative
• 205 12th Street — South Slope condominium; a smaller, quieter comparison