301 East 80th Street (Beckford Tower)

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.

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.

Before anything else, the distinction that trips up nearly every buyer who encounters this project.

Beckford Tower is 301 East 80th Street: 30 stories, 72 residential units, and the location of the amenity club. Beckford House is 301 East 81st Street: a lower building on the block to the north, roughly 19 stories, with about 32 residences. They were developed by the same sponsor group, designed by the same team, and sold under a single brand. They are nevertheless two separate condominiums, filed under two separate offering plans, each with its own declaration, by-laws, budget and board. A purchaser at one does not become a unit owner at the other, and the financial statements do not consolidate.

The relationship between them is contractual and specific, and the offering plan on file states it plainly: the amenities sit inside the Tower, and residents of 301 East 81st Street access them under a license agreement with the Tower's condominium, on the same terms and conditions as Tower unit owners and their permitted tenants. The plan discloses that the amenity spaces were sized to accommodate both buildings' populations.

For a buyer, that structure cuts two ways and both are worth understanding. Owning in the Tower means owning the asset — the pool, the basketball court, the club floors sit in your common elements, and the license income from the House flows into your building's economics. It also means your building carries the capital cost and the operating expense of a large amenity program serving more than its own residents. Anyone underwriting at either address should read the license terms and the current allocation of amenity operating expense before signing.

Pets: Permitted under condominium rules; specific limits are set by house rules, which should be requested from the managing agent.

Pied-à-terre: Permitted. The condominium form, rather than the cooperative form, is a substantive part of what the building sells on the Upper East Side.

Subletting: Permitted under the declaration, with the board exercising a right of first refusal rather than a purchaser-approval right. Minimum lease terms are set by house rules.

LLC, trust and foreign purchase: Permitted, as at any standard NYC condominium.

Sponsor rights: The offering plan reserved to the sponsor the unconditional right to rent rather than sell unsold residential units, to make bulk sales, and to control the condominium board through a defined sponsor-control period. Whether any of these positions remain live is a question for the managing agent and the current financial statements, not for a listing sheet.

Real estate taxes: No abatement. Buyers should model the full unabated bill on the specific unit and treat the tax line as the dominant variable in the monthly carry.

Closing contributions: In addition to standard new-development closing costs, the plan provided for a purchaser contribution toward the acquisition of the resident manager's unit and a future real estate tax payment collected at closing. Ask the managing agent which of these still apply on a resale.

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 (2026) cleared a median $2,230/sf (floor-adjusted) across 1 sale. Floor-adjusted means each sale is restated to a constant mix of floors, so the figure can differ from the plain median of the sales listed above. Median listing discount 9.8% 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 1-01543-7503). 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 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.

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.

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