269 West 87th Street (West End and Eighty Seven)

The site was assembled from two garages — one seven stories, one three — demolished in 2015. FXFOWLE, now FXCollaborative, designed the replacement, and the building is a restrained masonry-and-glass composition rather than a curtain wall, sitting comfortably against the prewar West End Avenue fabric a few doors west. Alexandra Champalimaud designed the interiors per published records.

The apartment plan is unusually generous for new Upper West Side construction and it is the building's strongest argument. There are three lines above the townhouse levels: the A line at roughly 2,743 square feet as a four-bedroom, four-and-a-half bath; the B line at roughly 2,193 square feet as a three-bedroom, three-and-a-half bath; and the C line at roughly 1,681 square feet as a three-bedroom, two-and-a-half bath. Above them sit three penthouses between roughly 3,882 and 4,192 square feet, each with terraces, one carrying over 1,000 square feet of outdoor space. Two townhouse residences occupy the base, one a duplex of roughly 3,749 square feet with an 800-square-foot terrace. There is no 13th floor, and the full 12th floor has been combined into a single residence — the plan's operating budget carries a hallway license fee attributable to that floor, which is what happens when one shareholder takes an entire landing.

Ceiling heights per the plan run from approximately 7 feet 6 inches at dropped-ceiling areas to approximately 10 feet, with a minimum of 8 feet in habitable rooms. Terraces are limited common areas, not part of the apartment. Storage lockers were sold as licenses rather than as property, with a continuing monthly fee the board may adjust.

The amenity program is substantial for a building of this size: an attended lobby with 24-hour coverage, a library with a fireplace, a fitness center, a landscaped courtyard and garden, a roof deck, a children's playroom, a multipurpose recreation room, laundry, bicycle storage, and private storage.

The staffing model behind it is leaner than the amenity list suggests, and it is worth reading in the plan's own numbers. The budget provides for rotating lobby attendants covering 24 hours a day, seven days a week; one full-time and one part-time porter; and a non-resident superintendent whose duties are described as checking the daily operation of common mechanical equipment and supervising the porter. There is no live-in superintendent and no resident manager. For a building at this price point, buyers coming from prewar cooperatives should calibrate expectations about after-hours response.

The building was new in 2018, so there is no capital history to underwrite in the usual sense — the envelope, roof, elevators, and mechanicals are all first-generation. What replaces capital history as the diligence subject is the ground lease, the Ground Rent Fund balance, the reserve position, and the current status of any sponsor-held inventory.

On the sellout. This is a matter of record and buyers should understand it. The sponsor's sellout ran long. The offering plan's 2020 Schedule A still listed 26 unsold apartments, and by the sixteenth amendment the sponsor had financed its remaining inventory with a loan secured by a pledge of the unsold shares, carrying monthly payments in the mid-six figures and a stated maturity in November 2022. Compare dated resale closings with the relevant sponsor offering prices, adjusting for apartment characteristics and sale terms. Ground rent and subsidy expiry affect carrying costs, but their effect on price cannot be isolated from this history alone.

Start here, because almost everything written about this building gets it wrong.

A condop, properly used, describes a cooperative corporation whose shares sit inside a condominium regime — typically a residential co-op unit within a two-unit condominium whose other unit is commercial. The condominium declaration is what makes it a condop. In loose brokerage usage the word has drifted to mean something entirely different: any cooperative that operates under condominium-style transfer rules — no board interview, no approval, liberal subletting, LLC and trust ownership permitted. The two meanings are not related, and buildings get labeled with the first when only the second applies.

Here is what the record shows for 269 West 87th Street.

There is no condominium. We reviewed every instrument recorded against Manhattan Block 1235, Lot 7. There is no declaration of condominium. There are no condominium unit lots. The Department of Finance assigns the parcel no condominium number, and PLUTO classifies the building D4 — elevator cooperative. On that record the building is not a condop in the technical sense, and no part of it is governed by a condominium board or a condominium declaration.

It is a cooperative, and apartments transfer as shares. Every apartment transfer recorded against this lot appears in ACRIS as property type SP — single residential cooperative unit, filed on a real property transfer tax return. Not one deed has been recorded for an apartment here. That is the fingerprint of share ownership: the shares and the proprietary lease change hands outside the recording system, and only the tax return reaches the public record. You are buying stock in 269 West 87th Street Apartment Corp. and a proprietary lease, not real property.

The cooperative itself is a tenant. This is the fact that matters most and the one the condop label obscures entirely. The offering plan is titled a Leasehold Cooperative Ownership Offering Plan. The land under the building is owned by Riverview Operating Co., LLC, which leased it to the developer under a ground lease dated February 27, 2015 — a memorandum of that lease is recorded in ACRIS. When the building was completed, the developer assigned the leasehold to the cooperative, and ACRIS records that assignment of lease in April 2019. So the ownership chain runs: land owner, to cooperative corporation as ground tenant, to shareholder under a proprietary lease. Two leases deep, with no fee interest anywhere in the shareholder's chain.

What is true about the condop framing is the part about how the building operates. The transfer rules here are condominium-style: published records describe purchasing, financing, subletting, and reselling without traditional cooperative board approval, and the transfer record bears that out — limited liability companies and trusts appear as purchasers of record. That flexibility is real and it is the building's principal selling point. It is also a set of house rules, not a form of ownership, and it can be amended by the board in a way a condominium declaration cannot.

So: a leasehold cooperative that trades under condominium-style rules. Say that, and every subsequent question — financing, resale, taxes, carrying cost — lines up correctly.

Ownership form: Leasehold cooperative. Shares in 269 West 87th Street Apartment Corp. plus a proprietary lease; the corporation holds a ground leasehold, not fee title.

Transfer approval: Described in published records as condominium-style — purchase, financing, sublet, and resale without traditional co-op board approval. Confirm the current mechanism, in writing, from the proprietary lease and house rules. If the building instead operates a right of first refusal, know the notice period.

LLC and trust ownership: Both appear in the transfer record of this building. Confirm current policy with the managing agent; do not assume it because a prior purchaser did it.

Subletting: Described in published records as permitted without traditional board approval. Establish the seasoning period, term limits, sublet fee, and any cap on the number of simultaneously sublet apartments before you buy — these are the terms that determine whether the flexibility is real.

Pied-à-terre: Consistent with the building's condominium-style framework, but not documented in a source we can attribute. Confirm with the managing agent.

Financing: The building's flexibility on financing is part of its marketed proposition, but lender appetite is the real constraint here, not board policy. Many co-op lenders will not lend, or will lend only on shortened amortization, where the ground lease term remaining is less than a threshold they set — commonly 10 to 30 years beyond the loan term. Get a lender's written position on this specific building before you go to contract, and again before you plan a resale.

Flip tax / transfer fee: Not documented in a source we can attribute. Confirm with the managing agent.

Post-closing liquidity: Not documented. Confirm with the managing agent.

Storage: Licensed rather than owned, with a monthly fee the board may regulate and may assess against.

Recent sales

Recent transfers 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 (2025) cleared a median $785/sf (recorded) across 1 sale. Median listing discount 6.0% 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 1-01235-0007). 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 on co-ops is not officially recorded, figures shown are approximate.

Read the ground lease. Then read it again with your attorney. Term remaining, escalation formula, every reset date and the benchmark each reset uses, renewal rights, and what happens at expiration. Nothing else on this page matters as much. The offering plan's summary of the ground lease is the starting point, not the endpoint.

Get the Ground Rent Fund balance in writing. The sponsor deposited $6,622,978 at conversion to hold the cooperative's ground-rent burden at $3.1 million a year. Ask the board what remains, what the current annual draw is, and when the fund is projected to run out. When it does, maintenance can step up; ask how the board plans to cover the difference.

Confirm whether the maintenance you were quoted is a subsidized number. The sponsor's five-year subsidy program ran through May 31, 2025. Any historical maintenance figure from before then may not be the real number.

Secure a lender's written position before contract. Ground-lease cooperatives are a specialty product for co-op lenders, and the constraint tightens as the term shortens. Confirm not only that you can finance the purchase, but that a future buyer will be able to.

Have your accountant model the tax deduction. Per counsel's opinion in the plan, only the share of assessment attributable to the building is deductible, not the land. The headline tax number and the deductible number are very different here.

Do not rely on the word "condop." It appears in nearly every description of this building and it is not accurate. Ask for the proprietary lease and the house rules and read the transfer provisions yourself. What is flexible here is flexible because the house rules say so, and house rules can change.

Ask about the reserve, and about the service model. The sponsor's budget funded no capital reserve, on the basis that everything was new; the building is now eight years old. And 24-hour lobby coverage with a non-resident superintendent is a different service model from the live-in resident manager most buyers at this price expect.

Sell the apartment and be straight about the structure. These are genuinely large, well-designed, well-finished new-construction homes on a quiet Upper West Side block — a scarce product. Lead with that, then address the ground lease directly rather than letting a buyer's attorney raise it in week three. Describe the ownership structure accurately and provide the documents needed to evaluate it.

Come to market with the document package assembled. The ground lease, the current Ground Rent Fund balance and projected exhaustion, the current audited financials, the reserve position, and the maintenance history with any subsidy identified. Providing these documents early lets buyers evaluate the current costs before negotiating; it does not guarantee a sale price.

Pre-qualify the financing question. Identify lenders who will actually lend on this building at the current remaining term and have that list ready. Financing surprises kill land-lease deals late, and late is expensive.

Price against land-lease comparables. Unadjusted per-square-foot comparisons to fee-owned buildings in the neighborhood invite an offer built on a misunderstanding, and the deal falls apart when the buyer's attorney corrects it.

If you're considering 269 West 87th Street, also evaluate:

• 320 West 87th Street — prewar cooperative on the same street west of West End Avenue; the fee-owned alternative
• 176 West 87th Street — the closest peer on the block toward Amsterdam
• 160 West 87th Street and 150 West 87th Street — neighboring West 87th Street buildings at different scales
• 101 West 87th Street — the Columbus Avenue end of the same street
• 545 West End Avenue — the prewar cooperative at the West End Avenue corner; the classic-avenue alternative
• 565 West End Avenue — West End Avenue prewar co-op a block north
• 200 West 88th Street — the closest new-construction alternative in the immediate area
• 215 West 88th Street — cooperative one block north; a very different economic structure
• 2380 Broadway — the Broadway-frontage alternative around the corner
• 267 West 89th Street — comparable mid-block Upper West Side scale two blocks north