388 West Broadway

Five stories over a cellar, roughly 16,400 square feet of building on a 50-by-69-foot irregular lot. The ground floor and part of the cellar are commercial — approximately 3,100 square feet of retail plus about 1,400 square feet of storage — and the four floors above are residential, at roughly 11,900 square feet total.

That produces full-floor residences averaging close to 2,970 square feet each, with the structural signature of a cast-iron loft intact: exposed columns, wide column-free spans between them, ceiling heights around eleven feet, and deeply inset windows on the West Broadway elevation. The elevator is keyed and lands inside the apartment, so there is no public corridor on the residential floors. Each residence has an appurtenant storage or roof unit recorded as a separate tax lot, which is worth confirming unit by unit — the appurtenances do not map uniformly across the four apartments.

The commercial unit at lot 1101 is a genuinely separate asset. It has traded five times since 2003, independently of the residences and on its own price cycle, most recently in 2025. A residential buyer here is buying into a condominium whose largest single unit by value is a retail box under third-party ownership, and the identity of the retail tenant is a live variable on this stretch of West Broadway.

Recent building-level work is modest and consistent with a small, well-kept building: an exterior guard-rail repair in 2022, replacement of the existing ADA lift in 2024, and a new chimney filing in 2026. There is no open Local Law 11 façade program and no sidewalk shed on the record.

The conversion did not create ordinary apartments. The Alteration Type 1 filing states its purpose as converting a commercial and manufacturing building into joint living-work quarters for artists under Article 7-B, retaining commercial and accessory uses on the first floor and cellar, and obtaining a new certificate of occupancy on that basis. That was the standard route to legal residence in an M1-5A district in 2001, and it carried a condition: occupancy was restricted to households containing a person certified as an artist by the city.

Two things have changed since, and one has not.

What changed first is the zoning. The Special SoHo–NoHo Mixed Use District was adopted on 15 December 2021 and rezoned this lot from M1-5A to M1-5/R7X. Among other provisions, the action treats permanent occupants who have lived in a JLWQA unit since at least that adoption date as artists whether or not they were ever certified, and it creates a voluntary path for owners to convert an existing JLWQA certificate of occupancy to ordinary residential use.

What changed second is enforcement practice, which had long since stopped tracking certification in any meaningful way.

What has not changed is this building's certificate of occupancy. No filing converting these units from JLWQA to residential use appears in the Department of Buildings record for BIN 1007335. As a matter of the paper, these remain joint living-work quarters for artists. In practice that is a common condition across SoHo, and it has not impeded the units from trading — the four residences have changed hands repeatedly since 2003, in arm's-length sales to unrelated buyers, including to trusts and limited liability companies. But it is a certificate-of-occupancy fact, and certificate-of-occupancy facts surface in lender diligence, in title, and occasionally in an appraisal. Any buyer should have counsel pull the current certificate of occupancy, confirm whether the condominium has filed or intends to file for conversion to residential use, and understand what the answer means for their lender before going to contract.

Ownership form: Condominium. Purchases close through the board's right of first refusal rather than a cooperative approval.

Certificate of occupancy: Joint living-work quarters for artists. Confirm current status with counsel and with your lender before contract.

Pets, subletting, pied-à-terre, LLC and trust ownership, flip tax: Not documented. The offering plan is on file in The Roebling Research Library but exists as a scan with no recoverable text, so we cannot state these terms from the document. The recorded chain of title shows residences held by corporations, limited liability companies and estates at various points, which is consistent with the ordinary condominium framework, but it is evidence rather than authority. Obtain the house rules and the by-laws from the managing agent.

Real estate taxes: No abatement of any kind on the base lot or any unit lot. Underwrite full unabated taxes against the current bill and run True Monthly Carrying Cost analysis.

Exterior alterations: The lot is inside the SoHo–Cast Iron Historic District Extension. Window replacement, storefront work, rooftop equipment and anything else visible from a public thoroughfare requires Landmarks Preservation Commission approval. Budget the process, not just the work.

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 (2025) cleared a median $1,781/sf across 2 sales. Median listing discount 4.7% 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 1-00488-7502) 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.

Resolve the JLWQA question first. Pull the current certificate of occupancy. Ask the managing agent whether the condominium has filed, or intends to file, for conversion to residential use under the Special SoHo–NoHo Mixed Use District provisions. Ask your lender how it underwrites a JLWQA certificate before you are in contract, not after.

Four units is an extremely small denominator. Every fixed cost, every capital project and every insurance renewal is divided four ways. Read the budget, the reserve and the insurance certificate. A façade cycle in a landmarked cast-iron building is a large number, and here a quarter of it is yours.

The retail unit is a co-owner, not an amenity. It is separately owned, has traded five times since 2003, and its tenant sits directly below the residences. Understand the lease, the hours, and the commercial unit's obligations under the condominium documents.

Landmark rules now apply to work that predated them. The Extension was designated in 2010, seven years after the conversion. Anything you want to change on the exterior — windows included — goes through the Landmarks Preservation Commission.

Underwrite full taxes. No J-51, no exemption, on the base lot or any unit lot.

Confirm what comes with the apartment. Each residence has appurtenant storage or roof units recorded as separate tax lots, and they are not distributed uniformly. Check the deed and the unit-lot schedule, not the floor plan.

If you're considering 388 West Broadway, also evaluate:

• 426 West Broadway (Broadway House) — the loft condominium two blocks north on the same street
• 465 West Broadway — the cooperative alternative on West Broadway; different tenure, same corridor and typology
• 102 Wooster Street — small-format SoHo loft condominium one block east
• 105 Wooster Street — full-floor loft condominium; the closest peer on unit size and building scale
• 27 Wooster Street — boutique cast-iron conversion in the same historic district
• 107 Greene Street — cast-iron loft condominium in the original SoHo–Cast Iron Historic District
• 70 Greene Street — full-floor loft condominium; useful counterpoint on landmark district and price
• 22 Mercer Street — small SoHo loft condominium with comparable unit counts
• 93 Mercer Street — the cooperative loft alternative for buyers weighing tenure