47 Mercer Street

The building sits on a lot roughly 50 feet wide and 100 feet deep, with a building footprint about 50 by 85 feet. That produces floor plates of approximately 4,000 square feet — a genuine full-floor loft rather than a subdivided one. Ceiling heights run high in the manner of a 19th-century store building, and the original cast-iron front carries the street elevation.

The residential stack is simple. Floors two, three and four are single full-floor lofts. PH-A occupies the fifth floor with roughly 1,000 square feet of private roof terrace; PH-B occupies the sixth with roughly 2,500 square feet. Both terrace allocations are limited common elements under the declaration. The commercial unit takes the ground floor and cellar at roughly 7,500 square feet and has been separately owned since 2017.

Because the building is Class III non-fireproof construction and sits in a designated historic district, two categories of work behave differently here than in a modern condominium. Exterior alterations, including non-visible work, and DOB-permitted interiors require LPC review, subject to specified maintenance exemptions; staff approval or a Certificate of Appropriateness depends on scope and LPC rules. Anything touching structure or egress runs into the code posture of a 19th-century timber-and-masonry building. Confirm the proposed work, approvals and schedule with the project professionals.

47 Mercer Street operates as a small self-directed condominium with no attended lobby and no on-site staff. Department of Buildings records over the past two decades show the ordinary maintenance arc of a landmarked cast-iron building: cooling-tower replacement in 2010, masonry reconstruction in 2011, sidewalk shed and scaffolding filings in 2011 and 2014 tied to remedial façade work, and a steady run of unit-level interior alterations.

The building is six stories, which places it outside the Facade Inspection and Safety Program's coverage of buildings greater than six stories, and no FISP filings appear in city records. That does not mean the façade is unmonitored — the masonry and shed filings show otherwise — but it does mean the periodic reporting discipline that governs taller buildings does not apply here. In a landmarked cast-iron building, the exterior is the largest capital item on the horizon and it is not on a mandated clock.

Audited financial statements for the mid-2000s are on file in The Roebling Research Library. They are dated, and no substitute for the current year's audit, the current budget, and a direct conversation with the managing agent about reserves, any live or contemplated assessment, and the status of the exterior.

SoHo's residential population exists because of a zoning workaround. For decades the neighborhood's M1-5A and M1-5B manufacturing districts permitted residential occupancy only as Joint Live-Work Quarters for Artists — live-work space for occupants certified as artists under the Multiple Dwelling Law's Article 7-B framework. The apartments were legal; the occupancy was conditioned.

The offering plan for 47 Mercer Street, filed in the mid-1990s, is explicit: the five residential units were offered as "joint living-working quarters for artists," and occupancy of a residential unit was restricted to residential (living-working quarters for artists) or home-occupational use as permitted by law. Department of Buildings alteration applications filed in 2004 and 2005 for the second and third floors describe the work as "renovation of an existing JLWQ." The architect's report in the plan records the site as M1-5B. The designation is documented from three independent directions.

Two things have changed since. In December 2021 the city adopted the SoHo/NoHo rezoning, which replaced M1-5A and M1-5B with new districts — this lot is now M1-5/R7X inside the Special SoHo-NoHo Mixed Use District — and created a voluntary path to convert an existing conforming JLWQA use to unrestricted Use Group 2 residential use, coupled with a required contribution to an arts fund. That path was litigated. On January 13, 2026 the New York Court of Appeals reversed the Appellate Division in the challenge to the rezoning, clearing the way for JLWQA-to-residential conversions to proceed.

For a buyer at 47 Mercer Street the practical questions are narrow and answerable: what does the building's current Certificate of Occupancy say, has the condominium taken any step toward converting the residential units to unrestricted residential use, and what would the arts-fund contribution be if it did. None of that is resolvable from public records alone. Ask the managing agent and have counsel pull the C of O. Buyers who skip this step in SoHo are the ones who discover the constraint at the closing table.

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

Right of first refusal: The by-laws on file give the Board of Managers a right of first refusal with respect to the sale or lease of any unit other than a sponsor-owned unit. Extending the right to leases is broader than the market standard and matters to anyone buying with an eye to renting.

Occupancy: Subject to the JLWQA designation discussed above. Confirm the current Certificate of Occupancy before contract.

Pied-à-terre, LLC, trust and foreign ownership: Not documented in the records we hold; confirm each in the current declaration, bylaws and house rules, subject to the same occupancy question.

Working capital: Collected at closing at two months' common charges under the original plan.

Reserves: The offering plan stated that there was no reserve fund for major capital repairs or replacements. Whether the board has built one in the decades since is a question for the current audit.

Flip tax: Not documented in public records.

Real estate taxes: No J-51 or other exemption appears on the residential unit lots; check the unit's tax bill for any abatement.

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 (2024) cleared a median $2,875/sf (recorded) across 1 sale. Median listing discount 8.8% 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 1-00474-7503; 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.

Resolve the JLWQA question before you sign. Pull the Certificate of Occupancy, ask the managing agent what the building's designation is today, and ask whether the condominium has considered converting to unrestricted residential use under the 2021 rezoning framework now that the litigation has concluded.

Confirm the LPC permit route. Exterior alterations, including non-visible work, and DOB-permitted interiors require review, subject to specified maintenance exemptions; a Certificate of Appropriateness is not automatic. Budget time as well as money.

Five residences is the whole risk profile. The original plan disclosed no reserve fund, there is no mandated façade inspection cycle at this height, and no staff to spread costs across. A single exterior project is a large per-unit number. Read the reserve provisions in the declaration and bylaws, and the current audit, budget and capital plan.

The right of first refusal covers leases. If your plan includes renting the unit, understand that the board's right reaches that.

Neighboring buildings on this block are not this condominium. 473 Broadway and 475 Broadway sit on the same tax block (lots 7504 and 7505) and are entirely separate condominiums with their own boards, budgets and policies. ACRIS and the Landmarks building database confirm three distinct properties.

Lead with the floor plate and the direct elevator entry. Four thousand square feet on a single landmarked floor with a keyed lift is the argument, and very little inventory in SoHo answers it.

Have the C of O and the occupancy answer ready. A well-informed seller who addresses the JLWQA designation up front, with documentation, removes the single largest source of diligence friction in a SoHo loft sale.

Present the capital picture proactively. Small buildings invite questions about reserves and assessments. Answering them with the current audit in hand is a pricing advantage.

Choose comparables by actual plan and sale date. The five-residence count does not establish scarcity or make every average unusable; compare the penthouse floors and full floors below with adjustments for their actual layouts and outdoor rights.

If you're considering 47 Mercer Street, also evaluate:

• 475 Broadway — 14 residences plus a commercial unit in an 1894–95 store-and-loft building on the same tax block; a separate condominium, and the direct comparison for landmarked SoHo conversion at larger scale
• 77 Mercer Street — 10 residences in an 1875–76 cast-iron store building; the closest peer in vintage, material and format
• 30 Crosby Street — 13 residences in an 1878 building in the same district; boutique landmarked conversion
• 105 Wooster Street — 15 residences in a late-19th-century SoHo loft building; larger denominator, similar product
• 139 Wooster Street — 16 residences, 2006; the new-construction alternative inside the district
• 27 Wooster Street — 15 residences delivered in the mid-2010s; contemporary SoHo condominium with an amenity program
• 107 Greene Street — 15 lofts in a cast-iron-era building substantially rebuilt in the mid-2000s
• 22 Mercer Street — 16 residences, adaptive reuse of a 19th-century loft building with a penthouse addition
• 40 Mercer Street — 2007 ground-up condominium on the same street; the full-service alternative