2628 Broadway (Ariel East)

The building presents to Broadway as a reflective glass slab with a series of setbacks carved into the Broadway elevation as it rises, which is what produces the terraces on certain floors. Terraces, balconies and roof gardens are residential limited common elements appurtenant to specific units; the plan also designates them as platforms for window-washing equipment, and the projected first-year budget carried no line for window washing at all.

Exposures divide cleanly. West and north face the Hudson, Riverside Park and, on the upper floors, the George Washington Bridge; east and south face Central Park and the midtown skyline over the low-rise blocks toward Amsterdam. Above roughly the 28th floor, the full-floor residences hold all four.

Interior specification is the 2006 Extell standard: floor-to-ceiling glazing, pre-engineered wood floors that the plan notes can be sanded three times before replacement, and a kitchen package that includes a wine cooler and a stackable washer/dryer. Every residence has laundry because the building has none — a deliberate choice recorded in the plan.

Two points on square footage. First, the areas shown on Schedule A of the offering plan include each unit's allocable share of elevator vestibules and stairwells, while the floor plans in the plan do not. The two sets of numbers will not agree, and the Schedule A figure is the larger one. Second, Department of Finance records put the residential range at roughly 1,245 to 3,378 square feet. Verify the specific unit against the plan and the plan's amendments rather than against a marketing figure.

Ariel East is a mixed-use condominium with a residential section and a commercial section on portions of the ground floor. The commercial unit was retained by the sponsor at the original offering and has traded separately since; the commercial section carries its own board and its own pro rata share of general common expenses. Residential owners deal with the Residential Board on house rules, alterations and amenity use. Confirm which body decides what before relying on a policy answer.

Staffing is a 24-hour doorman and concierge service, with uniformed staff plus a resident manager living in Unit 2C, which the Residential Board purchased from the sponsor under the plan. The residential common elements include the lobby, the mail room, the storage bins and the cellar amenity floor.

Two elevators serve 64 residences, and both double as service elevators — there is no dedicated service car. For a 38-story tower that is a thin vertical transportation package, and it is worth experiencing at 8:30 on a weekday morning rather than at a midday showing. It also means move-ins, deliveries and contractor traffic share the cars residents use.

The forward-looking cost question for a 2006 glass tower on upper Broadway is energy compliance. Ask the managing agent for the building's current Local Law 97 position, the reserve balance, any live or recently concluded assessment, and whether retrofit work has been scoped or financed. None of that is answerable from the original offering plan, and all of it moves common charges over the next decade.

The two towers are constantly conflated, including in listing data and automated valuation output. They are not the same building and they are not the same investment.

They are separate condominiums. Ariel East at 2628 Broadway is BBL 1018717502, condominium no. 1786. Ariel West at 245 West 99th Street is BBL 1018717501, condominium no. 1753. Separate declarations, separate tax lots, separate by-laws, separate boards, separate financial statements. A purchaser at 2628 Broadway is buying into Ariel East, and West-tower financials, rules and minutes are no substitute for Ariel East's own. The exception is the shared arrangement: the Easement and Operating Agreement, and West records on the health club, pool, shared access, cost allocation, maintenance and any proposed changes, bear directly on an East purchase.

They share a tax block but sit on opposite sides of Broadway. Both lots fall inside Manhattan Block 1871, because Broadway's diagonal cuts through the block between 99th and 100th Streets. Ariel East sits on the east side toward Amsterdam; Ariel West on the west side toward West End Avenue. A third, unrelated condominium at 814 Amsterdam Avenue occupies the same block.

They differ materially in scale and in product. Ariel East is 38 stories with 64 residences in roughly 111,500 residential square feet. Ariel West is 31 stories with 68 residences in roughly 152,400 residential square feet. The West tower carries more apartments on fewer floors. Its gross residential-area ratio exceeds 2,200 square feet per residence against roughly 1,740 here, but those ratios do not establish individual apartment size or layout. Ariel East is the taller, more slender tower; compare individual floor plans across the two buildings.

The amenity split runs both ways. The offering plan puts the health club, the pool and the locker rooms in Ariel West, and the pet grooming salon, playroom, lounge and screening room in Ariel East. Residents of each tower use the other's facilities by easement. The plan also gave Ariel East purchasers rights to one of 15 storage bins here or one of 40 in the West building, licensed rather than owned, assignable only to other unit owners and allocated first-come, first-served. There are fewer bins than there are apartments across the two towers.

Ask which building governs which answer. House rules, alteration agreements, board minutes, reserve positions and assessments are tower-specific. When a policy question comes back from a listing or a portal, confirm which condominium it describes.

Ownership form. Condominium. The Residential Board's remedy on a sale is a right of first refusal rather than a board approval, and the by-laws expressly give it no right to approve or disapprove purchasers, impose no owner-occupancy requirement and set no limit on the number of purchasers. Closings run on a condominium timetable, 30 to 45 days typical.

Subletting, pied-à-terre, LLC, trust and foreign purchase. Leasing by owners is permitted with conditions; pied-à-terre, LLC, trust and foreign ownership are not documented, so confirm them in the declaration, bylaws and house rules. The board holds the same right of first refusal on a lease as on a sale. Minimum lease terms should be confirmed with the managing agent.

In-unit washer/dryer. Original to every residence, and the building has no laundry room.

Storage. Licensed rather than owned, and scarce. Storage bin licenses may be assigned only to another unit owner or to a person simultaneously buying a unit, and may be leased to another unit owner only with board consent. If a listing represents storage, confirm the license is assignable and in good standing before contract.

Working capital. The original closings required a contribution equal to one month's common charges to the Residential Section working capital fund. No flip tax appears anywhere in the plan on file. Any resale capital contribution adopted since is a question for the managing agent.

Real estate taxes. No meaningful exemption appears on the residential unit lots in the current assessment roll. Pull the actual bill on the specific unit.

Recent sales

Recent closings at this building, from The Roebling Research Library. 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 to date) cleared a median $1,249/sf (floor-adjusted) across 1 sale. Floor-adjusted means each sale is restated to a constant mix of floors, so the figure can differ from the plain median of the sales listed above. Median listing discount 3.1% 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 1-01871-7502; each condominium apartment is its own tax lot). Apartment-level facts (line, condition, asking-price context) curated and cross-verified in The Roebling Research Library. 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.

Confirm which tower you are buying into. Ariel East and Ariel West are separate condominiums. Financials, house rules, minutes, reserves and assessments are Ariel East's alone.

Read the Easement and Operating Agreement. The health club, pool and locker rooms are in the other building. Ask the managing agent what Ariel East owns, what it licenses, how the shared costs are allocated, and what happens if the agreement is amended.

Underwrite full taxes. The 421-a benefit has effectively run off. This is the fact most likely to move your monthly number relative to an older comparable.

Test the elevators. Two cars, no dedicated service elevator, 38 floors, 64 apartments. Visit at rush hour.

Know your tier in the stack. Three-per-floor at the base, two-per-floor in the middle, full-floor above the 28th. Comparables from the wrong tier will mislead you in both directions.

Verify square footage and storage. Schedule A areas include an allocable share of vestibules and stairwells; floor-plan areas do not. Storage bins are licensed, finite and separately transferable — get the license, not the promise.

Lead with the tier, not the building. A full-floor residence above the 28th floor is a different listing from a C-line apartment on the 5th, and the comparable set should say so.

Lead with the tower's scale. The tower's recorded gross floor area is well above a simple comparison with current zoning density, which does not by itself establish legal zoning floor area. The 2007 rezoning constrained what can rise nearby, but views depend on floor and exposure, and no view is protected without a recorded instrument.

Distinguish the building from its sister deliberately. Buyers who searched "The Ariel" have seen both towers. Ariel East is the taller building with the more conventionally scaled apartments; that is a positioning statement, and leaving it unmade invites the wrong comparison.

Be forward about carrying cost and Local Law 97. Sophisticated buyers will pull the tax bill and ask about the energy position. Presenting both up front produces better outcomes than letting them surface in diligence.

If you're considering Ariel East, also evaluate:

• 245 West 99th Street (Ariel West) — the sister tower across Broadway; same development, separate condominium, shorter and larger-unit
• 275 West 96th Street (The Columbia) — full-service Upper West Side condominium tower a few blocks south; the closest peer on scale and service model
• 250 West 96th Street (96+Broadway) — ground-up Broadway-corridor condominium; the newer full-amenity alternative in the same submarket
• 2505 Broadway — 2022 new-construction Broadway condominium north of 93rd Street; the direct contemporary competitor
• 2461 Broadway (The Westly) — 2021 new-construction condominium on the same corridor at a higher specification tier
• 212 West 95th Street (Dahlia) — ground-up condominium a few blocks south; boutique scale, comparable finish level
• 100 Riverside Boulevard (The Avery) — 2007 Riverside South condominium; the closest peer by vintage, glass idiom and amenity depth
• 200 Riverside Boulevard — same corridor and service model; the larger-building alternative
• 255 West 98th Street — prewar cooperative one block south; compare its current maintenance, taxes and financing costs with the condominium’s charges
• 310 West 99th Street — prewar cooperative on the same street toward Riverside Drive; different economics and approval process entirely