259 Elizabeth Street (Empire Condominium)
259 Elizabeth Street, New York, NY 10012
Nolita
BBL 1005087501 · BIN 1075966
- Year built
- 1987
- Type
- Condominium
- Units
- 26
- Landmark
- No
Own an apartment here? See what it would sell for.
A Private Pricing Opinion — what your apartment at 259 Elizabeth Street (Empire Condominium) 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.
259 Elizabeth Street is a 1980s new-construction condominium in Nolita, built on a lot that had been vacant for at least three years before work began in 1986. It predates the neighborhood's later boutique condominiums by well over a decade, and it offers small residences with condominium ownership and no co-op board.
The structure is the first thing a buyer should understand. The Empire Condominium is a mixed regime. Alongside the 26 residences are four professional units that, under the offering plan, may be used for any lawful purpose, are not subject to the right of first refusal, and have their own seat on the board of managers (five residential managers and one professional manager). The professional units held about 12 percent of the common interest at the offering. There are now also two commercial lots on the ground floor. The residential owners have no approval right over how the professional units are used.
The tax story is simple, and settled. The residences were offered with a ten-year 421-a exemption that phased down in 20-percent steps every two years. That benefit burned off in the late 1990s, so today's carrying costs are fully taxed. Unlike the post-2000 condominiums nearby, a buyer here faces no phase-out still to come.
Architecture and unit composition
The building is a seven-story elevator building on a lot of about 4,200 square feet, with Elizabeth Street frontage of about 48 feet. The plan describes the residences as studios, one-bedrooms and convertible one-bedrooms. Its price schedule marks some apartments with a greenhouse, terrace, roof garden, duplex or sleeping-loft designation, and those units are the building's distinctive product. The recorded residential lines run A through D on floors two through seven, with two residences on the ground floor (1B and 1C).
A note on the unit count. The plan offered 28 residences. The current DOF roll shows 26 residential lots and two ground-floor commercial lots (COMM-A and COMM-D), and HPD registers 26 legal apartments. That points to the two ground-floor units at the A and D positions having been reclassified as commercial after the offering. The amendment that did this was not located among the documents reviewed.
Building operations
The plan set up a lean operation: a superintendent serving both the residential and professional sections, a single elevator under a service contract, and a laundry room run by concession. The professional units are separately metered for water and carry their own limited common elements, whose upkeep falls on the professional owners alone. The board, current staffing, managing agent and reserve position are not documented in the public record. Buyers should get the current budget, the latest audited financial statements and board minutes during diligence.
Policy framework
- Right of first refusal: An owner who sells or leases a residence must give the board of managers notice with the signed contract or lease. The board has 20 days to match; if it declines, the owner has 60 days to close on the stated terms.
- Professional units: Any lawful use, no right of first refusal, and a guaranteed professional manager on the board.
- Sponsor-held units: Unsold units may be leased by the sponsor free of the right of first refusal. The sponsor's name remains on at least two residential lots on the current DOF roll.
- Pets, minimum lease term, pied-à-terre use, in-unit laundry: Not documented in the material on file. Confirm with the managing agent and the current bylaws and house rules.
Recent sales
259 Elizabeth trades as a small-unit Nolita condominium priced per square foot, and ownership is spread across individual buyers and single-purpose LLCs, per the DOF roll and ACRIS. Resales come through a few times a year. Pricing within the building depends mostly on private outdoor space, the duplex and loft layouts, and floor; the plain studios and one-bedrooms on the middle floors form the base of the range. Against Nolita's newer boutique condominiums, the building offers the location and condominium flexibility at a lower entry price, with 1980s construction and small layouts as the trade-off. Market statements here are indexed to 2025, the last complete year.
Unit-level transaction history is maintained in The Roebling Research Library and shared with clients during diligence.
The retrade record
Lines that have traded more than once in the public record — the building’s appreciation arc, apartment by apartment.
Recent closings at this building, sourced from NYC Department of Finance records. Apartment-level detail (line, condition, asking-price context) verified upon consultation request.
| Date | Unit | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Jul 3, 2025 | 5D | $1,080,000 |
| Sep 12, 2024 | 5A | $1,090,000 |
| Nov 19, 2021 | 6C | $1,020,000 |
| Sep 14, 2021 | 3B | $920,000 |
| Mar 14, 2019 | 2C | $950,000 |
| Sep 19, 2018 | 1B | $1,510,000 |
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 1-00508-7501) 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.
Buying here? Condo closing costs with a mortgage typically run 3 to 6% of the price. See NYC co-op and condo closing costs, line by line.
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What to know if you’re buying
Understand the professional units. Four units with unrestricted use and their own board seat are a real part of the regime. Ask what they are used for today, whether any use has drawn complaints or violations, and how shared costs are split between the sections.
Taxes are already at full value. The 421-a ran out decades ago. The current tax bill is the real figure.
Confirm the apartment's legal description. Greenhouse, terrace, roof-garden and sleeping-loft designations come from the plan. Make sure the outdoor space and loft in your unit match the declaration and the certificate of occupancy.
The mansion tax may apply. Many resales here are priced around the $1 million threshold. Run the numbers with the Mansion Tax Calculator below.
What to know if you’re selling
Lead with condominium flexibility on a Nolita block. No board interview, only a 20-day right-of-first-refusal window, makes for a quicker sale than a co-op. Present them against the co-op inventory nearby.
Have the regime paperwork ready. Buyers' attorneys will ask about the professional and commercial units. Current budgets, the declaration and bylaws, and a note on present uses shorten diligence.
Comparable buildings
- 211 Elizabeth Street — Roman and Williams's red-brick boutique condominium at the corner of Prince Street, a short walk south
- Eleven Prince (11 Prince Street) — prewar Nolita condominium between the Bowery and Elizabeth Street
- 8 Prince Street — prewar doorman condominium in the center of Nolita
- 34 Prince Street — seven-residence landmark conversion of the former orphan asylum and convent
- 306 Mott Street — boutique loft-style condominium at the Nolita / NoHo border
- 199 Mott Street — eleven-residence Nolita new-development condominium
- 195 Bowery — 2004 full-floor loft condominium on the Bowery nearby
More Greenwich Village buildings
- 211 Thompson Street — 1887 co-op
- 250 Bowery — 2013 condominium by Morris Adjmi Architects
- Mercer Square (250 Mercer Street / 14 West 4th Street) — 1908
- 290 Sixth Avenue — 1940 co-op by H.I. Feldman
- 295 West 11th Street — 1920 co-op
- Snug Harbor (303 Mercer Street) — 1900 co-op
The neighborhood
For the full corridor — architecture, transit, and pricing across Greenwich Village — read The Roebling Team Guide to Greenwich Village.
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. Where this page compares one building or neighborhood to another, that is our analysis of the recorded record — it names the measure, the period and the sample it rests on, and it is an observation about medians rather than a prediction about any particular apartment.
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