320 West 115th Street

The exterior keeps the prewar townhouse elevation of the two original houses and adds a fifth floor above, set into the existing masonry rhythm rather than expressed as a contemporary addition. The result reads as a widened, restored row building rather than as new construction — the reason the DOB application describes a five-story building where PLUTO reports seven.

Internally the plan is the simplest one a building this size can have: one residence per floor, running the full 33-foot width and the full depth, with the elevator opening directly into each apartment. Listing records at launch described three- and four-bedroom layouts of roughly 1,905 to 1,999 square feet with fireplaces, a landscaped roof deck with a grilling station, a fitness room, a virtual doorman package system, and resident and bicycle storage in the cellar. A single-stack, six-unit building has no interior corridors, no shared landings and effectively no common circulation beyond the elevator — which is the practical reason a full-floor plan of this size is possible on a 33-foot lot at all.

Because there is one unit per floor, floor height is the only meaningful internal variable: light and outlook improve going up, and the top floor carries the roof access. There is no rear-versus-front distinction to underwrite.

Six units is a very small denominator. There is no staff beyond building services and a virtual doorman system, and the common charges have to carry an elevator, a roof deck, a fitness room and a cellar amenity program across six households. That ratio is the single most important operating fact about the building and it deserves a look at the actual budget rather than at the amenity list.

Ask the managing agent for the reserve position at the most recent year-end, whether any assessment has been levied since the final certificate of occupancy was issued, and whether any sponsor obligations or construction-defect claims arising from the conversion remain open. Given the litigation history described above, the last of those questions is not a formality.

The property is two late nineteenth-century houses — 318 and 320 West 115th Street — that had been operating as single-room-occupancy rooming houses. In April 2013 the sponsor filed an Alteration Type 1 application to combine and enlarge them: four stories to five, 6,932 zoning square feet to 13,426, eight dwelling units down to six, with a rear addition and a new reinforced-concrete retaining wall to support it. CTA Architects carried the filings, with George Cutsogeorge as applicant of record. Two condominium subdivision applications followed in 2016, creating six condominium tax lots, and the declaration recorded in May of that year.

The construction did not run to schedule. In October 2018 the trade press reported that the sponsor had sued its construction lender in New York State Supreme Court over more than a million dollars in default-interest penalties on the construction loan, and that the sponsor had separately sued its construction manager for roughly five million dollars, alleging defective work and roughly ten months of delay. The reported sequence is consistent with what the recorded record shows: a $700,000 first mortgage in January 2014, replaced by a larger construction facility in November 2014, and closings on five residences finally recorded in December 2017.

The certificate-of-occupancy history tells the same story from the other side. The building's first residents closed in December 2017 under a temporary certificate of occupancy, and seven more temporary certificates followed through February 2020, with a renewal in December 2023. The final certificate of occupancy was not issued until July 10, 2025 — seven and a half years after the first closing. That is a long TCO tail, and it is the kind of fact that shows up in a title report and surprises a buyer who has not been told about it. It is also now resolved, which is worth saying just as plainly: as of July 2025 the building holds a final CO.

Before the conversion, both 318–320 and the adjacent house at 316 West 115th Street were owned by James Watson, who worked and was known publicly as Raven Chanticleer — the sculptor, designer and founder of the African-American Wax and History Museum of Harlem, which he ran from 1989 until his death in 2002 and whose papers are held by the New York Public Library. ACRIS records his acquisition of 316 West 115th Street in 1984 and of 318–320 in 1988, and records the conveyance of 318–320 out of his estate in January 2011 for $775,000. Published accounts place the museum itself in the house at 316, next door; the property on this page was his separate holding. The building changed hands again in 2012 and then to the sponsor in January 2014 for $3.9 million.

The block is a row of late nineteenth-century walk-ups between Manhattan Avenue and Frederick Douglass Boulevard, most of them still rental or small co-op buildings, with a mix of 421-a and J-51 benefits on neighboring lots that do not extend to this one. Morningside Park is a block west, the B and C at 116th Street a short walk east, and the Frederick Douglass Boulevard restaurant corridor two blocks over.

This is a condominium, with the board holding a right of first refusal rather than an approval right. Pets, pied-à-terre use, subletting and purchases by LLCs and trusts are governed by the declaration, by-laws and house rules. No flip tax or transfer fee is documented in the records reviewed. Confirm all of it against the house rules and the by-laws at offer stage.

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 (2025) cleared a median $1,067/sf (recorded) across 3 sales. Median listing discount 2.7% 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 1-01848-7506; 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 abatement. Underwrite full taxes from day one. No 421-a, no 485-x, no J-51. Do not import a burn-off schedule from a comparable building.

Confirm the address on every document. DOB files this property as 318 West 115th Street; DOF and the condominium use 320. Title, insurance and violation searches should be run on the BBL and BIN, not the house number.

Ask when the final CO was issued and read the TCO history. It is July 10, 2025 — after eight temporary certificates. That history is resolved, but it should be understood rather than discovered.

Ask what remains open from the conversion. The sponsor's disputes with its lender and its construction manager were reported in trade press in 2018. Ask the board and the managing agent whether any construction-defect claim, sponsor obligation or related reserve remains.

PLUTO and the DOB record disagree. PLUTO reports seven floors and 11,882 square feet; the DOB alteration record shows five stories and 13,426 zoning square feet. Neither figure by itself establishes the legal zoning floor area.

Sell the plan, not the neighborhood. A 1,900-square-foot floor-through with private elevator entry is scarce on this block and scarce in South Harlem generally. That is the headline.

Put the tax posture forward, framed correctly. "No abatement, no step-up" is a better story than letting a buyer's attorney discover the absence of a 421-a late. Buyers who have been burned by abatement cliffs elsewhere respond well to it.

Lead with the final certificate of occupancy. It arrived in July 2025 and it removes the single largest legacy question about the building.

Comparable selection matters more than usual. With six units and only a handful of resales, the honest comparable set is other full-floor Harlem conversions, not the building's own thin history.

If you're considering 320 West 115th Street, also evaluate:

• The Parkmor (308–312 West 113th Street) — three blocks south; comparable small-building Harlem condominium ownership
• 309 West 118th Street — a different block and a different tax posture; useful for testing the abatement question directly
• 301 West 118th Street — the larger, amenitized alternative a few blocks north
• 100 West 119th Street — boutique Harlem condominium at a similar scale
• 88 Morningside Avenue — the Morningside Park frontage; the same buyer at a different exposure
• 285 West 110th Street — Circa Central Park; the full-service comparison at the park's north edge
• 600 West 115th Street — farther west on West 115th Street in Morningside Heights; a useful check on how far west the buyer pool travels