277 Washington Avenue (Francine Towers)

The building is a six-story brick apartment house of the 1920s elevator generation, which the LPC's district database classes as Romanesque. It sits within an R6B contextual district on a lot of about 13,200 square feet, with roughly 56,800 square feet of floor area, all residential. The LPC's records list two building identification numbers on the lot under the 277–281 Washington Avenue designation, consistent with an apartment house that reads as more than one section along the avenue frontage.

Apartment designations in the ACRIS record run A through K on each floor, which means roughly ten or eleven apartments per floor over six floors. This is a building of studios, one-bedrooms and two-bedrooms, with a handful of larger combined residences. The Department of Buildings file documents one of those combinations directly: a filing signed off in 2000 legalized the merger of apartments 2D, 3D and 3E into a single duplex with a convenience stair and one kitchen removed. That three-to-one combination does not by itself reconcile the one-unit difference between PLUTO's 66 units and the 65 in listing records; compare the dates and apartment schedules before attributing the gap to that filing.

Line and floor matter here in the ordinary prewar way. Washington Avenue exposures face the district's streetscape, rear lines face the interior of the block toward Hall Street, and upper floors take more light over the surrounding row-house roofline. Share allocations and line-by-line layouts are not documented in sources we can verify; request the schedule from the managing agent.

Capital history, per Department of Buildings filings. The file for BIN 3055090 records a run of capital filings, which show work filed rather than current condition: domestic water-supply piping replaced throughout the building (filed 2004); sprinkler heads added in a common space (2008); parapet and façade repairs (2009); a boiler replacement with a dual-fuel gas/oil burner and a new hot-water heater, signed off after a 2018 filing, plus a new chimney liner the same year; minor roof repairs (2018); and a larger façade-repair and roof-replacement job filed in 2019. Sidewalk sheds and scaffolding were permitted in 2010 and 2017 in connection with remedial work. Ask whether the 2019 façade and roof job has been closed out, and confirm whether DOB requires a FISP filing. The profile describes six stories; FISP applies to buildings higher than six stories, so façade permits alone do not establish program coverage.

J-51 history and burn-off, per Department of Finance records. The historical J-51 file for this lot shows several separate abatement grants, each for 90 percent of certified reasonable cost, spread over the permitted term:

• Grants beginning in the 1987 and 1988 tax years, drawn down fully by the 1998–1999 tax years
• A grant beginning in 1991, drawn down fully in the 2002 tax year
• A grant beginning in 2009, with its remaining balance exhausted in the 2019 tax year by the file's own arithmetic
• A grant beginning in 2012, which still had a balance at the last year the historical file covers (2018). At its annual draw that balance ran out in the 2022–2023 tax years

The current exemption file, covering the 2025/26 and 2026/27 tax years, carries no J-51 line for the corporation. Because abatements apply at the bill level, check the corporation's current tax bill, and confirm with the managing agent that nothing further is pending.

Underlying mortgage. ACRIS shows a consolidated underlying mortgage of $3.9 million recorded in 2018, succeeding earlier consolidations in 2003 and 2011. The maturity date, rate and any credit line were not established in the records reviewed. Ask for the current audited financial statements, the mortgage terms and maturity, the reserve balance and any assessment history.

Management. The building is professionally managed. The managing agent’s identity and current on-site service levels were not established in the reviewed materials. Confirm door coverage and whether the superintendent resides on site with management.

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. $/sf is measured on the latest sales with reliable square footage (2025): a median $1,289/sf (floor-adjusted) across 2 sales. The building has traded as recently as 2026. Median listing discount 0.0% from the last ask.

Sales sourced from NYC Department of Finance recorded transfers (BBL 3-01918-0013). 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.

Get the policy stack in writing before you price. Board package requirements, the interview, the financing ceiling and minimum down payment, the sublet policy, any flip tax, and the board's position on pied-à-terre use, gifting, co-purchasing and purchases through a trust or LLC are all undocumented in the public record. Each one changes what a given buyer can pay.

Ask how many apartments the holder of unsold shares still owns. Park Place LLC sold shares as recently as February 2026. Ask for the count, whether those apartments are occupied by non-purchasing tenants and under what regulatory status, whether the holder is current on maintenance, and what the offering plan allows it to do with them. In a 65-unit building a sponsor-side block of even a few apartments matters to lenders.

Underwrite unabated maintenance. No J-51 benefit remains. Read the budget for a recent or planned maintenance increase, and read the capital plan for anything left open from the 2019 façade and roof filing.

Confirm the unit count for your apartment. PLUTO says 66, listing records say 65, and the described 2000 three-to-one combination does not by itself reconcile that one-unit difference. Your share allocation, not the headline count, sets your maintenance.

Expect post-closing liquidity to be good but board-dependent. The resale record is deep. How easily you can sell later depends on the same board policies — financing, sublet and flip tax — that you should be collecting now.

Lead with elevator, landmark district and transit together. Very few Clinton Hill co-ops offer all three, and buyers comparing walk-ups on the side streets will not find them there.

Show the capital record. Repiping, the 2018 boiler and burner replacement, and the façade and roof work are the answers to the first questions a buyer's attorney will ask. Have the documentation ready.

Price against the building's own tiers. A combined or larger apartment is a different product from the building's one-bedroom inventory, and recent transfers show buyers pricing them that way.

If you're considering Francine Towers, also evaluate:

• 360 Clinton Avenue — a 1928 elevator co-op of 96 apartments in the same historic district; the closest prewar peer at larger scale
• Clinton Mews (372 DeKalb Avenue) — a 1930 building converted to co-op ownership in the late 1980s, a short walk east on the Pratt block
• 325 Clinton Avenue (Clinton Hill Apts. Owners Corp.) — the Clinton Hill cooperative campus; larger apartments in a garden-complex format
• 185 Hall Street (Willoughby Walk) — the 1958 postwar co-op tower nearby on Hall Street; more apartments, a different era
• 195 Willoughby Avenue (Willoughby Walk) — the sibling Willoughby Walk tower, a short walk away
• 147 South Oxford Street — a Fort Greene elevator co-op of 21 apartments; the small-building alternative
• 159 Lafayette Avenue — a Fort Greene Historic District co-op; the landmark-district contrast at boutique scale
• 122 Ashland Place (University Towers) — the large Fort Greene co-op tower; scale and service contrast