291 Seventh Avenue

The building is a ten-story-plus-penthouse loft of 1907, with a two-story stone base beneath a beige brick shaft that has been patched over the decades, a heavy bandcourse above the eighth floor and a lighter one above the second. It is a working loft elevation rather than a designed apartment-house facade, and the sidewalk-shed and parapet repair history in the Department of Buildings file — remedial work in 2000, 2007 and 2008, steel repairs to the water-tank dunnage in 2009, penthouse roof work in 2015 — is the maintenance record of a masonry loft carrying its second century.

Residences are full floors. Roughly 28,300 recorded residential square feet across eight units gives a gross-area ratio approaching 3,500 square feet per residence, not an interior measurement. Verify each unit’s area, two-exposure layout and any fireplace from its plans and inspection. The penthouse duplex occupies the top of the stack; the offering plan provided for a roof deck built out to the maximum area permitted, maintained by the penthouse owner. The lower floors and the cellar hold the four commercial units, which include retail on Seventh Avenue and storage below.

The commercial component is not incidental. Four of twelve unit lots and roughly 8,100 square feet of the building's 36,400 are commercial. Buyers should understand that this is a mixed-use condominium in which commercial owners hold real voting weight and real common-charge obligation, and that lenders assess commercial-area ratios when they underwrite a mortgage in a building like this.

There is no resident staff. The offering plan provided for a visiting superintendent with an office and bathroom in the cellar, and garbage chutes accessed from within each residential unit — a design choice that follows directly from having one apartment per floor. Common charges reflect that: the condominium's audited statements show a small operating budget carried by twelve units, with no doorman payroll and no resident-manager payroll in those statements; confirm current staffing and costs.

Capital posture in a building this size is assessment-driven. The condominium's audited financial statements on file record a $100,000 special assessment imposed in October 2015 to fund a new boiler system, billed from December 2015 through April 2016 and then maintained through 2016 in lieu of a common-charge increase. The auditors noted that the condominium has not commissioned a study of the remaining useful lives of the common property and has no funding plan for future major repairs, and that when funds are required the board expects to levy special assessments. That is normal for a twelve-unit building and it is exactly why a buyer here should ask for the most recent financial statements and the minutes rather than relying on the common charge alone. The statements on file with us are several years old; obtain current ones.

Ownership form: Condominium. No co-op board approval or interview — but the condominium board holds a right of first refusal on any sale or lease, and can match a bona fide offer. In an eight-residence building, that provision has teeth and should be understood before a contract is signed.

Pied-à-terre, subletting, LLC, trust and foreign ownership: Not documented; confirm in the declaration, bylaws and house rules; leases are subject to the right of first refusal.

Pets: Not documented in the records available to us. Confirm with the managing agent.

Flip tax: None documented. The working capital contribution at the initial closings was $1,500 per purchaser; confirm what, if anything, applies on resale.

Real estate taxes: The profile reports that the J-51 benefit beginning in 2004 has expired. Reconcile its exemption and abatement components and any other current benefits with the specific unit’s tax bill; an older tax figure may describe a different benefit period.

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 (2024) cleared a median $816/sf (recorded) across 1 sale. Median listing discount 6.8% 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 1-00802-7502; 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.

Read the right of first refusal clause. It applies to leases as well as sales. If your plan involves renting the apartment, resolve the mechanics and the notice period with the managing agent and your attorney before contract.

This is a mixed-use condominium with four commercial units. Ask for the common-interest schedule, the commercial owners' arrears history, and how the board is constituted. Some lenders apply commercial-area limits that can complicate financing.

Underwrite assessments, not common charges. A twelve-unit building with no reserve study funds capital work by assessment. Ask what has been assessed in the last five years and what the board expects next — the facade and the roof are the obvious candidates in a 1907 masonry loft.

Confirm the full-floor access arrangement. Review the actual elevator landing, corridor and delivery arrangements for the apartment. One apartment per floor does not by itself establish direct elevator entry or the absence of common facilities or staff.

The tax abatement is gone. Model the full unabated number, not a historical bill. Run the True Monthly Carrying Cost Calculator against the current statement.

Sell the floor plate. Market the verified interior area and the full-floor loft layout with its actual exposures; the building’s gross-area ratio does not establish a 3,500-square-foot interior. Comparables should be drawn from Chelsea and Flatiron loft conversions of similar format, not from the smaller-unit condominium inventory on the avenue.

Get ahead of the diligence questions. The commercial units, the right of first refusal and the absence of a reserve study will all come up. Answering them with the condominium's own documents up front removes the friction; letting a buyer's attorney find them creates it.

Condominium transfer is your advantage. There is no co-op board admission or interview; purchases run through the right of first refusal. Say so plainly in the marketing, after confirming financing rules in the declaration and bylaws.

If you're considering 291 Seventh Avenue, also evaluate:

• 144 West 27th Street — loft condominium on the same tax block; the closest comparable by vintage and format
• 146 West 26th Street — Chelsea loft conversion one block south; similar plate, different policy stack
• 128 West 26th Street — prewar loft building on the same corridor
• 250 West 27th Street — larger Chelsea loft building; more units, more staff, different economics
• 233 West 26th Street — Chelsea conversion at smaller scale
• 245 Seventh Avenue — condominium on the same avenue to the south
• 252 Seventh Avenue — full-service Chelsea condominium; the amenity alternative
• 315 Seventh Avenue — Seventh Avenue conversion to the north
• 121 West 19th Street — Chelsea loft condominium further south; larger building, comparable product