328 Grand Street

Twenty-five feet of frontage, roughly 68 feet deep, six storeys over a cellar, in brick. There is no corner and no protected exposure; the building's light comes off Grand Street to the south and the rear yard to the north. A 2012 application sought Bureau of Standards and Appeals relief to take the building to nine storeys and twenty-four units and to reduce the required distance between windows and the lot line; that application was disapproved, and the building stands as built at six storeys and five residences.

The residential program is one apartment per floor on floors two through six — full-floor plates on a narrow lot, which is the layout the geometry produces. Each residence carries its own washer-dryer combination, vented to the roof, which for a building with no staff and no central laundry is not a luxury but a necessity. The two commercial units are the ground floor and the cellar; the plan contemplated retail, restaurant or office use, and notes that they may be put to any use the certificate of occupancy permits. Both traded together to one owner in February 2026, so the retail base is under single control rather than fragmented.

Two disclosures in the plan bear directly on a buyer's expectations. The first is that the usable area of a unit is significantly less than the area shown in Schedule A — a standard condominium measuring convention, but one that matters more on a narrow full-floor plate than it does in a large building. Measure the apartment. The second is that the sponsor provided no manufacturer's warranty for the new roof, which the plan itself flags as an indication that the membrane installation may not have been inspected to the manufacturer's specification. On a five-unit building, a roof is not a rounding error.

There is no staff. The plan's projected first-year budget totals roughly $35,000 for the entire condominium, with no payroll line and no management fee — the largest items are electricity and gas, water and sewer, legal and audit, insurance, elevator maintenance and a reserve contribution. Water and sewer are a common expense rather than a unit charge.

That budget structure is the defining operational fact here. Common charges at 328 Grand Street are low because there is almost nothing to fund: no doorman, no superintendent, no amenity space, no commercial staff. The trade is that five owners carry every capital event between them, and there is no professional layer between the board of managers and the building. An elevator modernisation, a roof, a boiler or a façade cycle on a five-unit condominium is a five-way special assessment, and the building's reserve at plan-budget scale will not absorb it. Ask for the current budget, the actual reserve balance, the minutes and the assessment history before contract, and ask specifically whether the condominium is self-managed or has since retained a managing agent.

The board of managers is elected by common interest. The sponsor's control period under the plan ran until the earlier of two years after the first unit closing or the point at which unsold units fell below half the common interest, with a residual veto over certain expenditures running until five years after the first closing or below a quarter of the common interest. Given that the first residential closing recorded in February 2025, a buyer should confirm where the building sits in that sequence and whether an independent board has been seated.

There is no abatement, there never was, and there is no application pending. The plan says so; the Department of Finance's records confirm it. Each residential unit is a separate tax lot with its own assessment and its own bill — the residential lots carry Department of Finance class R1 and tax class 2C, and the two commercial lots carry class R8. Because the units are separately assessed, do not extrapolate one apartment's tax bill from another's; pull the specific lot. Run the actual bill through the True Monthly Carrying Cost Calculator rather than a projection, and note that the tax figures in the offering plan are a decade old and were computed against a 2015/2016 assessed valuation.

Recent sales

Recent closings at this building, curated by The Roebling Team research desk. 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 $1,107/sf across 1 sale. Median listing discount 1.4% 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 1-00408-7503) 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; square footage from recorded condo declarations and offering plans.

Ignore the 1900 year built. The building above the second floor was constructed between 2007 and 2017. Ask for the alteration file, the final certificate of occupancy dated March 17, 2017, and the sign-off documentation. The systems are a decade old, not a century.

Underwrite full taxes. No 421-a, no J-51, no exemption of any kind, and the sponsor disclosed at the outset that it would not apply for any. This is the single largest difference between this building's monthly number and that of abated Lower East Side inventory.

Five owners is the risk and the appeal. Low common charges because there is no staff; concentrated exposure because there is no one else to share a capital assessment with. Read the budget, the reserve balance and the minutes, and ask whether a managing agent has been retained.

Ask about the roof. The offering plan discloses that no manufacturer's warranty was provided and flags the inspection implication itself. Have it looked at.

Measure the apartment. The plan warns that usable area is significantly less than the Schedule A figure. On a twenty-five-foot lot that gap is felt.

Understand the retail below you. Both commercial units — ground floor and cellar — transferred together to a single entity in February 2026. Find out the intended use, the hours, and how the commercial common interest votes.

Sell the construction date, not the tax-roll date. A buyer's first impression from public data will be "1900 tenement." The certificate of occupancy says 2017. Lead with the document.

Full-floor living on a five-unit building is the product. One apartment per floor, private landing, laundry in the unit, elevator, no shared corridors. Say it plainly.

Get ahead of the tax question. Present the unabated number with a carrying-cost analysis rather than letting it emerge in diligence.

Assemble the building file early. With five units and a young board, the documents a buyer's attorney wants — budget, reserves, minutes, insurance, the certificate of occupancy — are not always sitting in a managing agent's portal. Collect them before you list.

If you're considering 328 Grand Street, also evaluate:

• 147 Ludlow Street — eight residences plus a commercial unit in a six-storey 2016 building around the corner; the closest structural analogue in the neighbourhood
• 18 Orchard Street — four full-floor residences plus a commercial unit in an early-twentieth-century building; the same one-per-floor product at even smaller scale
• 42 Allen Street — eight residences over three commercial units, completed 2017; a comparably small mixed condominium
• 161 Grand Street — 1911 building converted to condominium around 2000; the older conversion alternative on the same street
• 21 Ludlow Street — 1901 loft converted to condominium; larger, with more owners to share capital cost
• 133 Essex Street — mid-2000s condominium at sixteen residences; the next size band up
• 66 Clinton Street — twelve-residence 2025 new construction; the ground-up alternative at similar boutique scale
• 208 Delancey Street — eighty-five-unit new-construction condominium; the full-service, full-amenity alternative with an entirely different cost base
• 196 Orchard — ninety-four-residence 2018 condominium; the large new-development comparison