325 Clinton Avenue (Clinton Hill Apts. Owners Corp.)
325 Clinton Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11205
Clinton Hill, Brooklyn
BBL 3019300001 · BIN 3055311
- Year built
- 1945
- Type
- Cooperative
- Units
- 112
- Floors
- 14
- Landmark
- Designated
- Flip tax
- 5% of purchase price, paid by seller
- Financing
- up to 90% financing permitted; no purchaser capital/reserve contribution at closing
- Subletting
- board resolution or written consent/vote of holders of at least 66 2/3% of shares; only resident shareholder-directors vote; separate written sublet policy maintained by management
- Pied-à-terre
- permitted; parents may purchase for a child and may co-purchase
- Washer / dryer
- prohibited in apartments
- Pets
- house rules (as amended Aug 16, 2018) require board's express written permission, revocable, dogs carried or leashed, no relief on cooperative property; management's Oct 2020 sheet answers 'no restrictions/no fees' - conflict, confirm at offer stage
Compiled by The Roebling Research Desk from the building’s offering plan, amendments, and related building documents (primary source dated 2020-10-27). Reported and subject to confirmation. Board policies can change by amendment — confirm at the offer stage.
325 Clinton Avenue is the odd building out in a twelve-building cooperative, and that is the whole case for it. Every other Clinton Hill Co-ops building shares a block and a courtyard with its neighbors — six around the North Campus court between Myrtle and Willoughby, four around the South Campus court between Lafayette and Greene. This one stands by itself on its own tax block at the northeast corner of Clinton and Lafayette Avenues, separated from the rest of the South Campus by a street. It is a South Campus building administratively and a solitary one physically, and the difference shows up in daylight, in noise, in the walk to the front door, and in the fact that a shareholder here lives on the mansion row rather than inside a superblock.
The Landmarks Preservation Commission's 1981 designation report is the best account of what this building is. It describes the Clinton Hill Houses as ten buildings — four on the block bounded by Clinton, Waverly, Lafayette and Greene Avenues, "a single building at 325–333 Clinton Avenue at the northeast corner of Lafayette Avenue," and five north of Willoughby Avenue that fall outside the district. It records that the project was designed by Harrison, Fouilhoux & Abramovitz. And it records something that appears in none of the plan documents: the north complex housed enlisted men, while the south complex was primarily for officers. That is the origin of the room counts and the finishes that distinguish the southern buildings, and it is a piece of provenance a seller here can use.
The Commission was candid about how the complex arrived. Two entire blocks of Clinton Avenue houses and parts of two others came down in the 1940s for Navy Yard housing, taking with them Herbert Pratt's house, the Bedford houses, and work by George B. Post, Grosvenor Atterbury and Montrose Morris. The report calls it "a major blow to the character of Clinton Avenue." It then designated the southern buildings anyway, and described them without condescension as "representative of the many twentieth-century housing complexes that follow Le Corbusier's idea of the apartment house set within a park" — massed with setbacks to break the monotony, given interest by large multi-paned casement windows, each entrance "enlivened by a mosaic transom with a naval symbol such as a dolphin or a winged insignia with anchors."
Next door is the answer to what was lost and what survived. 321–323 Clinton Avenue is the Lounsbery House, designed in 1875 by Ebenezer L. Roberts — the architect of Charles Pratt's own mansion at 232 Clinton — for Pratt's business associate James H. Lounsbery. 325 Clinton Avenue replaced the two masonry mansions immediately to its south. A buyer standing at this corner sees both halves of Clinton Hill's story in one view, which is not true anywhere else in the complex.
For buyers, the appeal is a landmarked corner address on the mansion row, at a subway entrance, with the operating economics and the staffing of a 1,213-apartment cooperative behind it and financing terms that are among the friendliest in the large-co-op tier. For sellers, the case is the corner, the officers'-quarters provenance, and the fact that this building does not read like a superblock.
Architecture and unit composition
The building occupies Block 1930, a lot of roughly 103 by 180 feet, with a building footprint about 63 by 157 feet and approximately 138,474 square feet of residential floor area over 112 apartments. That works out to a much larger average apartment than the tax-lot arithmetic at the four-building South Campus block, and it is consistent with the designation report's note that the southern buildings were primarily officers' housing.
The construction is the complex standard: Type I fireproof reinforced-concrete flat-plate frame, face brick, painted steel casements on slate slip sills, floor-to-floor heights of roughly 8 feet 10 inches. Apartments run off a central corridor served by two passenger elevators and a scissor-stair pair, with a compactor chute — originally an incinerator — between the elevators. Interiors were delivered with wood parquet floors, plaster walls and ceilings, wood cabinetry, gas ranges and tiled bathrooms; lobbies and first-floor corridors are terrazzo with stenciled plaster. The share schedule concentrates in 2½-, 3½- and 4½-room apartments, with larger lines dispersed through the upper floors; a representative apartment here carries 109 shares.
Two physical facts about this address deserve attention in diligence. The first is the floor count: Department of Finance records and management both say fourteen stories, while the LPC's designation report says eleven. The second is the windows. Management's October 2020 building information sheet records that new windows were then being installed and had already been paid for out of reserves, with shareholders responsible for subsequent repairs. Because this building sits inside the historic district, any further window or exterior work goes through Landmarks — the opposite of the position at the North Campus.
Building operations
Heat and gas are included in maintenance; electricity is separately metered and billed as a line on the monthly maintenance statement, so an incoming shareholder does not open utility accounts. The corporation runs a professional operation across both campuses — live-in superintendent and porter, perimeter video security, on-site laundry, two rentable community rooms, and waitlisted parking and bicycle rooms priced at $241 monthly and $240 annually respectively. Private storage is contracted to an outside vendor and billed directly.
The financial picture management disclosed in October 2020 is a strong one for a building of this vintage. The reserve fund stood at $6,091,503. Owner-occupancy was 79.85 percent — 975 apartments. The sponsor group held 199 apartments, 16.30 percent, all rent-stabilized, and no single entity owned more than 10 percent of the shares. Maintenance had increased 2 percent in June 2020, and management noted an annual cooperative assessment that normally falls in June. The last Local Law 11 inspection was recorded as first-quarter 2020. Maintenance ran at approximately $8.417 per share per month as of February 1, 2020 per the plan's twenty-fourth amendment.
The mortgage is the live question, and the documents do not agree. The offering plan records a GMAC first mortgage closing March 31, 1997 with a $4,336,600 repair escrow for asbestos abatement, paving, repointing and masonry, boiler repairs, roof work, elevator renovation and replacement, Local Law 10 work and electrical wiring and metering, and the audited statements for the year ending March 31, 1999 record that mortgage maturing April 1, 2027. Management's October 2020 building information sheet instead describes a blanket mortgage at 4.71 percent fixed, expiring March 2021, with payments of $127,213.56, and records the proprietary lease running to September 30, 2084. Those two descriptions cannot both be current, which means the corporation refinanced at least once between 1999 and 2020 and has almost certainly done so again since. A 2026 buyer should not rely on either figure: ask management for the current mortgage balance, rate, maturity and refinancing plan in writing, and run it through carrying-cost analysis before signing.
Management also recorded a J-51 abatement running to 2022, in an amount set annually by the Department of Finance rather than fixed, alongside STAR and the co-op/condo real-estate-tax abatement. On that timetable the J-51 is now exhausted, and the current tax line — not the historical one — is what belongs in a buyer's underwriting.
Recent sales
The retrade record
Lines that have traded more than once in the public record — the building’s appreciation arc, apartment by apartment.
Recent transfers 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Jun 22, 2026 | 2B | $900,000 |
| Oct 3, 2025 | 6F | $989,500 |
| Dec 16, 2024 | 8A | $795,000 |
| Oct 9, 2025 | 7G | $800,000 |
| Apr 18, 2024 | 11C | $900,000 |
| Sep 13, 2023 | 6D | $810,000 |
Sales sourced from NYC Department of Finance recorded transfers (BBL 3-01930-0001) 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
You can finance 90 percent here. Management's building information sheet records a 90 percent maximum and no capital contribution at closing. For a large prewar-vintage cooperative that is unusually accommodating, and it materially changes what you can buy.
Get the current mortgage in writing. The plan documents record a 1997 GMAC first mortgage maturing April 1, 2027; management's 2020 sheet describes a blanket mortgage at 4.71 percent expiring March 2021. Those descriptions do not reconcile. Ask for the current balance, rate and maturity, and for the board's refinancing plan.
You are inside the historic district. Designated November 10, 1981, the Clinton Hill Historic District takes in this building. Window replacement and exterior alteration go through Landmarks — a scheduling and budget fact, not a formality.
The rulebook still has teeth in places. Washers and dryers are prohibited, apartments sold today are smoke-free, and sublet consent requires a board resolution or a two-thirds shareholder vote. Pied-à-terre use, by contrast, is permitted.
Ask about the tax line. Management recorded a J-51 running to 2022. That runway is behind us; underwrite the current bill, not the abated one.
What to know if you’re selling
Sell the corner. This is the only Clinton Hill Co-ops building standing alone on its own block. Two exposed elevations, mansion-row frontage and a subway entrance at the corner are things the superblock buildings cannot claim.
Lead with the officers' quarters. The LPC designation report states plainly that the north complex housed enlisted men and the south complex was primarily for officers. It explains the room counts, and it is a line no competing listing in the complex is using.
Model the flip tax first. Five percent of the purchase price comes out of your side. Price and negotiate with that in the sheet from day one.
Name the architects and the district. Harrison, Fouilhoux & Abramovitz, inside a historic district designated in 1981, on the Clinton Avenue mansion row — three credentials most large Brooklyn co-op listings cannot write.
Market the financing. Ninety percent financing and no closing capital contribution widen your buyer pool. Say so in the first paragraph.
Comparable buildings
If you're considering 325 Clinton Avenue, also evaluate:
- 345 Clinton Avenue (Clinton Hill Co-ops, South Campus) — the same cooperative, across Lafayette Avenue, and the building that carries the South Campus plant
- 185 Clinton Avenue (Clinton Hill Co-ops, North Campus) — the same cooperative north of the district line, where no Landmarks review applies
- 360 Clinton Avenue — the 1920s neo-Colonial through-block co-op a block south, also inside the district
- 185 Hall Street (Willoughby Walk) — the 1950s urban-renewal co-op tower at the Pratt campus, with balconies and a different rulebook
- 195 Willoughby Avenue (Willoughby Walk) — Willoughby Walk's second tower
- 372 DeKalb Avenue (Clinton Mews) — the Pratt-block loft conversion, for buyers who want in-unit laundry and a smaller corporation
- 122 Ashland Place — large Fort Greene cooperative at the Cultural District edge
- 191 Willoughby Street — Fort Greene co-op at comparable scale
- 135 Eastern Parkway (Turner Towers) — prewar Prospect Heights cooperative peer
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