455 West 19th Street (ABI Chelsea)

The building occupies a 50-by-92-foot interior lot with no corner and no protected exposure on either flank. Eleven stories carry ten residences across roughly 19,863 square feet of residential area — an average well above 1,900 square feet per home before accounting for the duplex layouts described in the offering plan. This is a full-floor and near-full-floor building by arithmetic, not by claim.

The remaining 5,341 square feet is the commercial unit at the base, a separate condominium unit that has operated as an art gallery. Buyers should understand that this is a genuinely separate owner with its own unit lot, its own tax bill and its own common-interest allocation. The offering plan budget on file allocates certain expenses between the residential units and the commercial unit by common interest and carves out others so that the commercial unit does not bear residential-only costs — a structure worth reading in the plan rather than assuming.

An easement recorded in November 2019 runs between the sponsor and the cooperative corporation at 452 West 20th Street, the property to the rear. A zoning lot declaration was recorded in June 2015. Both are ordinary instruments for a mid-block infill project, and both are worth pulling in diligence because they define what the rear of the lot can and cannot do.

The offering plan on file provides for a doorman present twenty-four hours a day, a swimming pool that is separately metered for gas and water, and ten licensed storage rooms lettered A through J at fixed monthly license fees. Storage here is licensed, not deeded — it does not transfer automatically with an apartment, and a buyer who wants it should confirm availability and assignment before contract rather than after.

A ten-unit building carrying a heated pool, a fitness area and full-time door staff has a thin denominator against a real fixed cost base. Common charges should be read against the current operating budget and the specific unit's common interest, not inferred from the building's size. The plan's projected first-year budget was built on ten residences, and any buyer should ask for the current budget and reserve position to see how the actual operating history compares.

Ownership form: Condominium. Transfers close through a board right of first refusal rather than a cooperative approval process, which produces shorter and more predictable timelines.

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

Storage: Available under license agreements at monthly fees, per the offering plan on file. Not deeded.

Flip tax or resale contribution: Not established in the documents reviewed. Confirm any resale capital contribution with the managing agent before pricing a sale.

Real estate taxes: No exemption of any kind appears on the residential unit lots in the current assessment rolls. Underwrite full unabated taxes on the specific unit.

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 (2022) cleared a median $2,450/sf across 1 sale.

Sales sourced from NYC Department of Finance recorded transfers (BBL 1-00717-7505) 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 build year. The residential building was created by a vertical enlargement filed in 2014 and subdivided into condominium lots in January 2020. Any analysis that prices this as a prewar loft conversion is wrong on both construction and systems.

It is not in the Special West Chelsea District. If a proximity-to-the-High-Line argument is being made to you, test it. The lot is straight R8A between Ninth and Tenth Avenues, with no special district and no recorded High Line easement or air-rights transfer.

Underwrite full taxes. There is no 421-a, no J-51 and no 485-x on these unit lots, and nothing is phasing out.

Read the residential-versus-commercial expense split. The ground-floor gallery is a separate condominium unit with its own common interest. The offering plan sets out how expenses are apportioned; that allocation is the thing to verify, not the amenity list.

Confirm storage in writing. The ten storage rooms are licensed, not deeded. A license does not travel with the apartment by operation of law.

Test the exposures. This is an interior lot with no corner and adjacent buildings on both flanks. Establish which windows in a specific unit are lot-line windows.

Correct the record before it costs you. Buyers and their attorneys will pull city data showing 1900. Lead with the DOB alteration record and the January 2020 condominium subdivision so the building is understood as what it is.

Sell the arithmetic. Ten residences across roughly 19,900 square feet of residential area is a scale argument no listing photograph makes on its own.

Be direct about the tax posture. Presenting the full unabated number with a True Monthly Carrying Cost analysis up front produces better outcomes than letting it surface in diligence.

Price against small West Chelsea condominiums. The nearest prewar co-ops and the large High Line towers are both the wrong comparable set for different reasons.

If you're considering 455 West 19th Street, also evaluate:

• 435 West 19th Street — small condominium on the same block; the closest same-street alternative
• 445 West 19th Street — larger condominium immediately adjacent; different scale and policy footing on the same frontage
• 452 West 19th Street — the south side of the same block; small-building alternative
• 456 West 19th Street — small West Chelsea building across the street
• 505 West 19th Street — new construction west of Tenth Avenue and inside the Special West Chelsea District; the direct contrast in zoning posture
• 520 West 19th Street — High Line-adjacent condominium; the air-rights-driven alternative
• 500 West 21st Street — boutique West Chelsea condominium of comparable unit count
• 200 Eleventh Avenue — small, highly specified West Chelsea condominium; the closest peer on scarcity of units
• London Terrace — the large prewar alternative two blocks north, with entirely different economics and approval mechanics