302 East 96th Street (Vitre)

The lot is 50 feet wide and roughly 101 feet deep — 5,036 square feet — carrying 53,585 square feet of building at a built floor-area ratio of 10.64. That is a tall, narrow building on an interior site, and the design is shaped accordingly: two entrances on East 96th Street, one to the residential lobby and one to the ground-floor parking; residences on floors two through twenty-one; stair and elevator bulkheads and a boiler room above.

The plan's disclosure of lot-line windows deserves attention. Where a residence carries a lot-line window, the owner can be obliged to seal it at their own expense if the adjacent lot is developed. On a 50-foot interior site flanked by low-rise buildings that are themselves developable, this is not a theoretical risk. Any buyer should identify which windows in a specific unit are lot-line windows and what the neighboring zoning envelope permits.

Residences are one- to three-bedroom layouts. Every residence has washer/dryer hook-ups, and each carries its own electric meter — there are fifty meters in the building, forty-eight residential and two for the common elements — so heating, cooling and lighting are billed directly to the owner rather than through common charges. Terraces are limited common elements of a small number of units: 201, PH1, PH5 and PH6. Two ground-floor storage spaces belong to PH5 and PH6.

On the unit count, the records disagree and the disagreement is documented rather than mysterious. The offering plan and the recorded declaration both describe forty-eight residential units; the reserve study commissioned in March 2021 also describes forty-eight; the tax map carried forty-eight residential unit lots through FY2026. The final certificate of occupancy, issued November 16, 2022, certifies forty-six dwelling units, and PLUTO follows the certificate. Two residences were combined. The FY2027 roll now carries fifty-four unit lots rather than fifty-six, which is consistent with that. Forty-six is the correct number of residences today; forty-eight is the correct number of units as declared.

Vitre is a full-service building by staffing rather than by amenity square footage. The plan budgets a resident superintendent, a part-time porter and four full-time door staff covering 168 hours a week — continuous attended-lobby coverage — against a first-year operating budget of roughly $702,000. Amenity space is deliberately light for a new-construction condominium: a 395-square-foot recreation room on the second floor, common roof terraces, and twenty-four bicycle racks. There is no pool, no fitness center of consequence, and no children's playroom.

That is a defensible trade in a 46-residence building. Vitre’s disclosed budget concentrates spending on staff. Unit count and amenity area alone do not establish a common-charge ranking; compare current charges, taxes, reserve funding and assessments for the specific apartment and alternatives.

The condominium engaged a third-party consultant in March 2021 to perform a reserve study establishing remaining useful lives and replacement costs for the building's components, and the amended budget adopted a $49,000 annual reserve contribution on the strength of it. The study and budgeted contribution do not establish actual funding or superior governance; ask the managing agent for current balances and contributions against the study’s schedule. The roof systems carry a twenty-year warranty that began in 2019.

Ownership form: Condominium. Purchases clear through a right of first refusal rather than a board approval; 30 to 45 days is a typical closing timeline.

Pied-à-terre, subletting, LLC, trust and foreign ownership: Permitted under the standard condominium framework. Minimum lease terms should be confirmed with the managing agent.

In-unit washer/dryer: Hook-ups are provided in every residence.

Parking: Eight deeded parking units, purchasable only by residential unit owners, sold first-come first-served, separately taxed and separately mortgageable. A parking unit may be rented out by its owner when not in use. Parking Unit P06 is designated for handicapped use and its deed carries a covenant permitting a later handicapped owner to compel a trade at fair market value, with arbitration if the parties cannot agree.

Working capital and closing costs: The sponsor transferred the statutory New York City and New York State transfer-tax obligation to purchasers on sponsor sales, plus a $1,000 plan-preparation reimbursement — relevant to anyone still buying from remaining sponsor inventory, and not applicable on a resale between private parties.

Financing: The plan's preferred lender required at least 35 percent of residences in contract and 50 percent owner-occupied. Those thresholds no longer bind, but the owner-occupancy ratio remains a live question for any buyer financing a purchase here, and a lender will ask for it.

Pets and flip tax: Not documented in the plan sections on file. Confirm both with the managing agent.

Real estate taxes: No 421-a or J-51 exemption, and no exemption of any kind, on any unit lot in any roll from FY2023 forward. Abatements are applied on the bill, so underwrite from the specific unit's current tax bill.

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 to date) cleared a median $1,337/sf (recorded) across 5 sales. Median listing discount 3.6% 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 1-01558-7501; 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.

There is no 421-a. There never was. The offering plan says so in writing and the assessment rolls confirm it across five years. This is the fact most likely to change your monthly number relative to abated new construction.

Reconcile the unit count before you rely on any city data. Forty-eight units declared, forty-six certified on the final CO, fifty-six unit lots on the tax map through FY2026 and fifty-four from FY2027. All four numbers are correct about different things.

Ask who holds the remaining sponsor units. Control of the sponsor inventory changed in December 2020 through a UCC foreclosure on the mezzanine loan. The current holder's intentions — sell, rent, hold — affect resale supply and lender owner-occupancy tests.

Identify the lot-line windows. A 50-foot interior lot flanked by developable low-rise buildings. Know which windows could be lost and what the neighbor could build.

If parking matters, ask early. There are eight spaces for forty-six homes, they can only be bought by residents, and they trade with the residences that hold them.

Confirm owner-occupancy for financing. Lenders will want the ratio, and a building with a concentrated sponsor or investor block can complicate an otherwise straightforward loan.

Lead with the subway and the parking. The 96th Street Second Avenue station half a block away and eight deeded parking units are the two things no competing building on this stretch can match.

Be direct about the tax posture, and reframe it. Buyers will find it. The honest framing is that there is no abatement phase-out — abated comparables will step up on a published schedule and this one will not, though its taxes and common charges still change with assessments and rates.

Point to the reserve study. The March 2021 study and the amended budget’s $49,000 annual contribution document a planning decision. Supply the current study, actual contributions and reserve balance before claiming the reserve is adequately funded.

Price against new construction. The prewar walk-ups and postwar rentals on this block are not the comparable set.

If you're considering Vitre, also evaluate:

• The Kent (200 East 95th Street) — the contemporary full-amenity condominium one block south; the closest peer by vintage, with a much larger amenity program and a different cost structure
• 1838 Second Avenue — the nearest Second Avenue condominium alternative, a block south of Vitre
• 166 East 96th Street (The Abbey) — the 96th Street corridor alternative closer to Lexington Avenue
• Carnegie Park (200 East 94th Street) — the large full-service Yorkville condominium two blocks south; the scale and amenity alternative
• Astor Terrace (245 East 93rd Street) — 1980s Yorkville condominium with a full amenity package
• 212 East 95th Street (East Hill) — boutique Yorkville condominium at a smaller scale
• 333 East 91st Street (Azure) — contemporary Yorkville condominium tower; the newer-construction alternative further south and east
• The Hayworth (1289 Lexington Avenue) — 2019 new construction on Lexington Avenue in Carnegie Hill; the higher-priced new-development alternative
• 126 East 86th Street (ARLOPARC) — 2024 Carnegie Hill new construction that, like Vitre, carries no abatement; the closest comparison on tax posture
• 180 East 88th Street — Carnegie Hill new-construction tower at a substantially higher price tier