295 Lafayette Street (The Puck Building)

The building is a Romanesque Revival store-and-loft block in red brick over a granite and brownstone base, with ironwork, deep round-arched window bays and a heavy cornice. LPC records two rounds of nineteenth-century alteration. The 1892–1893 work was Albert Wagner's own. The 1897–1899 work was forced: the extension of Lafayette Street through the block took two bays of the Houston Street elevation and the building's entire west wall, and the new Lafayette Street front was designed to match the original.

The certificate of occupancy describes the building the way it actually operates. The cellar holds storage and a superintendent's office. The first floor is a catering establishment — the ballroom and event floor the building is known for. Floors two through seven are offices. Floors eight through eleven are residential, arranged as a mix of full-floor apartments and duplexes: two apartments and the lower half of a duplex on one level, two apartments and the upper half on the next, with additional half-duplex configurations above.

The six residences run 4,895 to 7,241 approximate square feet with 20 bedrooms and 34.5 baths in aggregate. Unit measurement in the plan is from the exterior face of exterior walls to the centerline of demising partitions, without deduction for columns, shafts or chases — a customary New York method that produces figures larger than usable floor area, and one worth remembering when comparing this building's per-foot pricing to product measured more conservatively.

Mechanical equipment — elevator machine rooms, boiler room, fans, pumps, cooling towers, air handlers — sits at the tenth-floor roof level and the eighth-floor level. The plan discloses that residences in close proximity may be affected by noise and vibration. The by-laws also require every residential window treatment to carry a white backing so that the building reads uniformly from the street.

The residential section runs as a small, private operation inside a large commercial building. It has its own entrance at 293 Lafayette Street, its own elevator — the plan notes that the PH1-through-PH6 designations are the ones used in the residential elevator — and its own share of common elements, including residential vault space in the cellar. The certificate of occupancy carries a superintendent's office in the cellar.

Six residences is a very small denominator for a building of this size, and the operating question follows from the common-interest split rather than from an amenity list. Budget items are shared between the residential and commercial sections on a special allocation basis reflecting actual use and control, and that allocation cannot be changed without the commercial owner's consent. Any buyer should ask for the current budget, the reserve position, the current allocation schedule, and the status of the permanent certificate of occupancy, which the sponsor was obligated to obtain and which was still outstanding when the amendments on file were written.

The condominium is the whole building. The residential offering was six units and nothing else.

Commercial Unit 1 was never part of the offering and was not owned by the sponsor of the residential plan. The plan states plainly that no representation is made about who will own the commercial unit or what it may be used for, and it lists the permitted uses expansively: retail stores, banks, restaurants, theaters, bars, spas, health clubs, parking garages, offices — and additional residential units. The commercial owner may subdivide the unit into two or more condominium units without notice to residential owners and without amending the plan. Approximately 450 square feet of the commercial unit on the second floor is restricted in perpetuity to community-facility use.

The commercial unit also carries a set of easements that reach the exterior of the building. Its owner may erect and maintain signage and lighting in its storefronts and windows and on the exterior façade adjacent to those spaces — everywhere except the façade immediately outside the residential lobby or a residence. It may use the adjacent sidewalks for permitted commercial purposes, including outdoor seating, except directly in front of the residential entrance. The Landmarks sidewalk elements around the base of the building are for its exclusive use, except the portion leading into the residential lobby.

Two further items are worth reading twice. First, the floor-area development rights for the zoning lot are excluded from the residential property and retained by the owner of Commercial Unit 1, which may merge them into a zoning lot development agreement and sell them at its discretion. The commercial owner's commitment not to build on top of the building was tied only to the period during which the sponsor's mortgagee held a lien on unsold residential units. Second, the commercial unit's cooling-tower pipes run beneath the north portion of the PH terrace, and the commercial owner holds a permanent access easement across that terrace; the owner of PH may not block it.

At the time of the offering, portions of the commercial unit were leased to New York University, and the plan restricts the condominium board and unit owners from taking any action inconsistent with that lease.

This is the part of the Puck Building most often misread, and the offering plan is unusually direct about it.

The condominium board consists of three members. Two are designated at all times by the owner of Commercial Unit 1. The third was designated by the sponsor during an initial control period that runs until the later of the closing of all residential units offered or the issuance of a permanent certificate of occupancy reflecting residential use — a period the plan itself acknowledges "may never end." After that period, the plan states, the owner of Commercial Unit 1 "will have the ability to control the Condominium Board indefinitely."

There is a genuine counterweight, and it matters. No decision that affects in any way the residential units, the residential common elements, the residential limited common elements or the general common elements may be made without the consent of the member elected by the residential unit owners. That is a veto, not a majority, but on the matters that touch the residences it is the operative protection. A buyer's diligence question is therefore narrow and specific: who currently designates the third board seat, and has the initial control period ended.

The plan also carried the standard sponsor-consent restrictions during the sellout — no additions or alterations to the common elements, no reserve or contingency assessments, no change in staffing, no borrowing, and no exercise of a right of first refusal without the sponsor's written consent, for so long as the sponsor held at least 25 percent of the residential units and in no event more than five years after the first closing. That window closed years ago.

Two related facts round out the picture. The plan established no reserve fund for capital replacements; the condominium board may create one by special assessment or by raising common charges. And certain budget items are allocated between the residential units and the commercial unit on a special basis that the board may not modify without the commercial owner's consent.

The Puck Building is an individually designated New York City landmark, LP-01226, designated April 12, 1983, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It is not in a historic district; the individual designation stands on its own and is the stronger of the two conditions.

In practice that means any exterior alteration requires a Landmarks permit — a Certificate of Appropriateness where the work is discretionary, a lesser permit where it is not. The offering plan goes further and states that Landmarks approval is required for the alteration of any portion of the interior or exterior of the building, whether by a unit owner or by the condominium board, and specifically identifies two categories of protected fabric: the Landmarks Sidewalk Elements around the perimeter of the first floor, and the Landmarks Building Elements, defined as the unused fire escapes and a decommissioned water tank on the roof. LPC's designation record for this lot is an exterior individual-landmark designation, so a buyer planning interior work should confirm scope directly with the Commission rather than assume either the plan's broader language or the narrower default.

The practical consequences are ordinary but real: windows, terrace structures, railings, rooftop equipment, awnings and signage all involve Landmarks review, review takes time, and it should be built into any renovation schedule and budget before contract rather than after.

Ownership form: Condominium. Purchases close without board approval — the plan states expressly that the condominium board has no right to approve or disapprove purchasers of residential units, and no right of first refusal on residential units appears in the plan. Closings are correspondingly fast for a property of this size.

Pied-à-terre, subletting, LLC, trust and foreign ownership: Permitted under the condominium framework. The plan anticipated that a substantial share of residences would be non-owner-occupied.

Foreign-government purchasers: Required to waive sovereign immunity and to deposit two years' common charges at closing in addition to the working capital contribution.

Working capital contribution: Two months' common charges, non-refundable, at closing and at each resale closing. This is the recurring transfer cost at this building; price it into a sale.

Window treatments: By-laws require white backing on all residential window treatments.

Alterations: Landmarks review applies, and the sponsor's consent regime for unit alterations during the sellout period has expired. Confirm the current alteration agreement and Landmarks protocol with the managing agent.

Real estate taxes: No abatement of any kind. Underwrite full unabated taxes on the specific unit.

Recent sales

Sales sourced from NYC Department of Finance recorded transfers (BBL 1-00510-7502) 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.

Read the common-interest split before anything else. Residential owners hold 16.3642 percent of the condominium. The commercial unit holds 83.6358 percent and designates two of the three board seats. The protection is the residential member's consent right over anything affecting the residences and the common elements — confirm who holds that seat and whether the initial control period has ended.

Understand what can happen below and beside you. The commercial unit may be subdivided without notice, may be used for restaurants, bars, theaters, clubs and event space, and carries signage and sidewalk easements on the building's exterior. The event business on the first floor is a permitted, long-established use.

The development rights are not yours. They are retained by the commercial owner and may be merged and sold. Ask what, if anything, currently restricts building above.

There is no board approval and no right of first refusal. That is an advantage on both sides of a trade and it shortens closing timelines materially.

Budget for Landmarks. Individual designation, National Register listing, protected sidewalk elements and protected rooftop elements all mean review and time.

Underwrite full taxes and check the reserve. No abatement, and no reserve fund was established at the plan.

Lead with scale and provenance, not with the amenity list. There is no amenity list to speak of, and there does not need to be. Five to seven thousand square feet inside an individually designated 1886 landmark, with original brick vaulting and cast-iron structure, is the product.

Handle the governance question first. A sophisticated buyer's counsel will find the 83.6358 percent figure in the first hour. Presenting it alongside the residential consent right, rather than letting it surface as a surprise, is the difference between a clean deal and a re-trade.

Be precise about square footage. The plan's measurement method is stated in the plan; use it consistently and explain it.

Price against the small comparable set. Fewer than a dozen downtown buildings offer residences of this size inside protected industrial fabric. Building averages are meaningless with six units; this is a line-by-line, terrace-by-terrace analysis.

If you're considering the Puck Penthouses, also evaluate:

• 285 Lafayette Street — the Hawley & Hoops chocolate-factory conversion on the same tax block, 30 full-floor lofts; the nearest peer in fabric and address
• 225 Lafayette Street — NoLIta loft condominium a few blocks south; the smaller-format alternative on the same corridor
• 210 Lafayette Street — boutique Lafayette Street condominium; different scale, same neighborhood buyer pool
• 1 Bond Street (Robbins & Appleton Building) — cast-iron NoHo landmark converted to residences; the closest comparison on landmark constraint
• 25 Bond Street — large-format NoHo condominium residences with contemporary construction inside a historic block
• 22 Bond Street — small NoHo condominium; the boutique alternative
• 199 Bowery — Bowery condominium at the eastern edge of the same market
• 30 Crosby Street — SoHo cast-iron district loft condominium; the SoHo-side alternative
• 200 Mercer Street — large NoHo loft condominium; comparable floor plates in a very different building