301 East 80th Street (Beckford Tower)
301 East 80th Street, New York, NY 10075
BBL 1015437503 · BIN 1090305
- Year built
- 2019
- Type
- Condominium
- Units
- 72
- Floors
- 30
- Landmark
- No
- Pets
- Permitted under condominium rules — confirm current house rules with the managing agent
- Pied-à-terre
- Allowed
Beckford Tower is the most ambitious ground-up condominium built in Yorkville in the last decade, and its argument is a contrarian one. The prevailing new-development posture on the Upper East Side through the 2010s was glass — The Charles at 1355 First Avenue in 2014, and the broader First and Second Avenue tower cohort that followed the Second Avenue Subway. Beckford Tower went the other direction. Hand-carved Indiana limestone at the base, custom grey brick above, ironwork detailing, and a floor plan discipline that reads as prewar rather than contemporary: the building is an argument that Yorkville buyers would pay new-construction prices for a traditional exterior and a modern mechanical plant behind it.
It is not the only building making that argument. Robert A.M. Stern's 200 East 83rd Street (2021) and his 20 East End Avenue (2016) run the same play on the Upper East Side, as does Beyer Blinder Belle's 1010 Park Avenue (2018) and DDG's 180 East 88th Street. What separates Beckford Tower from that cohort is scale of amenity relative to unit count. Seventy-two residences share a swimming pool, whirlpool, steam room, full fitness center, half-court basketball court, children's playroom, game room and party lounge. Even accounting for the licensed House residents, that ratio is unusual on the Upper East Side, where trophy prewar cooperatives typically offer a gym and a bike room and nothing else. The basketball court in particular is close to unique in the tier and is a genuine draw for family buyers.
The site history matters to the building's economics. The sponsor took fee title on October 31, 2016, and the offering plan records that the property had previously been in residential use — meaning this was an assemblage and clearance, not a vacant lot. That is expensive land, and the resulting cost basis is visible in the pricing the building launched at.
The third structural fact is tax. There is no 421-a here, and the plan's own projection put stabilized residential taxes across the building at roughly $3.79 million annually. Every unit carries its unabated share. For buyers coming from abated new-development inventory elsewhere in the city, the monthly carry at Beckford Tower is a step change, and it is the single number most likely to be misread from a marketing sheet.
Architecture and unit composition
The 72 residences occupy floors 3 through 12, 14 through 19, and 21 through PH-31 — a numbering scheme that omits the 13th and 20th floors, which is why the building is variously described as 30 and 31 stories. City records and the offering plan both describe a 30-story structure.
Density falls as the building rises. The lower residential floors carry the highest unit count per floor; above roughly the sixth floor, the plan holds to no more than three residences per landing, and the upper tier runs to full-floor and near-full-floor configurations. Layouts range from one-bedroom through six-bedroom, with the largest configurations at the top of the tower. Residential area across the building is approximately 187,700 square feet per PLUTO, against 72 residential units — an average well above 2,500 square feet, which places Beckford Tower squarely in the family-primary-residence tier rather than the pied-à-terre tier.
The interior design vocabulary follows the exterior: traditional proportion, formal entry galleries on the larger plans, separation of entertaining and sleeping wings, and millwork detailing that references prewar Upper East Side apartments rather than contemporary new construction. Each residence is served by the building's central mechanical plant, and the offering plan discloses an emergency generator serving units in the event of a power outage — a specification worth confirming for any buyer who has lived through a Manhattan outage above the twentieth floor.
Forty-seven storage lockers were offered under license alongside the residences. There are fewer lockers than units; a buyer for whom storage is material should confirm whether a locker license runs with the specific unit before contract.
Building operations
The building is staffed to a full-service standard. The offering plan's schedule provides for a resident manager supervising a staff of concierge, doormen, porters and a handyman. Unit 3C was designated the resident manager's unit; the plan obligated the condominium board to acquire it from the sponsor within two years of the first closing, funded by a per-unit contribution collected at each residential closing and aggregating approximately $2,582,100, with a sponsor-held note available if collections fell short. Any buyer should confirm with the managing agent that this acquisition has closed and that the note, if one was executed, has been satisfied — it is the kind of legacy sponsor obligation that quietly sits on a young condominium's balance sheet.
The other operating questions at a building of this vintage are the standard new-development set: whether the transition from sponsor board control has completed, whether sponsor punch-list and common-element obligations have been discharged, what the reserve balance was at the most recent year-end, and whether any construction-defect claims are open. Request the most recent audited financial statement and the last two years of board minutes; on a 2021-delivery condominium those two documents carry more diligence value than anything else available.
The commercial unit at the base is a separate condominium unit under separate ownership. Its use is governed by the declaration, and the offering plan carries the standard disclosure that commercial use may generate noise, traffic and odors outside the residential board's control. It also carries a schedule of prohibited commercial uses. Confirm the current tenancy before contract if the base retail matters to you.
Recent sales
Beckford Tower launched with a projected sellout in the range of half a billion dollars across 72 residences — an average that places it in the upper tier of Upper East Side new development, above the Yorkville glass-tower cohort and below the Park and Fifth Avenue trophy tier. Sponsor closings ran from 2021 into the following years.
Two dynamics define how the building trades. First, the dispersion between the lower-floor multi-unit landings and the upper full-floor residences is very wide — wider than at most buildings, because the plan changes character as it rises. A per-square-foot figure drawn from a fifth-floor two-bedroom has no bearing on a twenty-eighth-floor full-floor, and vice versa. Comparables must be drawn from the same tier of the building.
Second, the unabated tax position is a live negotiating factor on every resale. Buyers arriving from abated inventory routinely underwrite the monthly carry incorrectly on first pass and re-trade when they get it right. Sellers who put the accurate tax figure in front of buyers early transact more cleanly than those who let it surface at contract.
Indexed to the last complete year, the Upper East Side new-development condominium market has favored buildings with genuine amenity depth and family-scale floor plans over compact investor-grade inventory. Beckford Tower is on the right side of that preference. Its constraint is supply: with 72 units and a family-primary owner base, resale inventory is thin and comparables are correspondingly scarce.
Unit-level transaction history is maintained in The Roebling Research Library and shared with clients during diligence.
The retrade record
Lines that have traded more than once in the public record — the building’s appreciation arc, apartment by apartment.
Recent closings at this building, sourced from NYC Department of Finance records. Apartment-level detail (line, condition, asking-price context) verified upon consultation request.
| Date | Unit | Price |
|---|---|---|
| May 18, 2026 | 7B | $4,200,000 |
| Nov 24, 2025 | 25B | $12,000,000 |
| Jun 23, 2025 | 14C | $2,513,687.5 |
| May 23, 2025 | 12C | $5,525,000 |
| May 21, 2025 | 10B | $3,800,000 |
| Jan 27, 2025 | 6B | $4,875,000 |
Full closing history with price-per-square-foot over time, the complete retrade record, and every line that has traded.
Sales sourced from NYC Department of Finance recorded transfers (BBL 1-01543-7503) 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.
What to know if you’re buying
Read the amenity license. The pool, the court and the club floors sit in this building's common elements, and residents of 301 East 81st Street use them under a license agreement. Understand the current allocation of amenity operating expense between the two buildings before you underwrite the common charge.
The tax line is the whole carrying-cost story. No abatement applies. Pull the current Department of Finance bill on the specific unit and run it through the True Monthly Carrying Cost Calculator before you price the apartment.
Confirm the resident manager's unit and the sponsor transition. The plan obligated the board to buy Unit 3C within two years of the first closing, with a sponsor note as backstop. Confirm the acquisition closed, the note is satisfied, and board control has transitioned.
Buy the tier, not the address. A lower-floor residence and an upper full-floor residence at Beckford Tower are different products with different buyer pools. Comparables should come from the same part of the building.
Storage is finite. Forty-seven lockers against 72 units. Confirm whether one runs with the unit.
What to know if you’re selling
Lead with the amenity program. A swimming pool, a half-court basketball court and a full children's and game-room package is not something the surrounding prewar cooperative tier can answer, and it is the reason family buyers choose this building.
Put the tax figure forward early. The unabated position is the most common source of late re-trades here. Transparent disclosure at first showing produces cleaner contracts than a correction at the attorney stage.
Distinguish the building in the marketing. Buyers searching "Beckford" will surface both addresses. Make clear, in writing, which condominium the apartment is in — and that the amenities are in this one.
Closings are condominium-fast. Thirty to forty-five days from contract, subject to the board's right of first refusal.
Comparable buildings
If you're considering Beckford Tower, also evaluate:
- Beckford House (301 East 81st Street) — the sibling condominium one block north; lower, smaller, separate plan and board, amenity access by license
- 200 East 83rd Street — Robert A.M. Stern 2021; the closest architectural peer on the Upper East Side and the most direct competitor
- 20 East End Avenue — RAMSA 2016; traditional-vocabulary new construction, smaller and more exclusive, further east
- 180 East 88th Street — DDG's Carnegie Hill tower with SLCE Architects as executive architect; a different material argument at similar altitude
- 1010 Park Avenue — Beyer Blinder Belle 2018; boutique Park Avenue new construction, far fewer units
- The Charles (1355 First Avenue) — 2014 glass tower built around full-floor residences; the contemporary counterpoint
- 389 East 89th Street — 2002 construction converted and launched as a condominium in 2016; a more accessible Yorkville alternative
- 201 East 80th Street (The Richmond) — the converted warehouse condominium directly across Second Avenue; entirely different product, same corner
- East Winds (345 East 80th Street) — 1973 building converted to condominium in 1990; the block's postwar full-service option
The neighborhood
For the full corridor — architecture, schools, transit, and pricing across Upper East Side — read The Roebling Team Guide to Upper East Side.
Considering a move at Beckford Tower?
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