471 Washington Street

The building is a contemporary masonry-and-glass structure of nine stories above grade over a cellar, designed by Ben Hansen Architect LLC. It is a purpose-built residential building, so the floor plates are laid out for apartments rather than adapted from manufacturing bays — a real difference from the converted lofts to either side, where column grids, light shafts and egress stairs were inherited rather than designed.

The nine residences divide into three groups. Units 1A, 1B and 1C are duplexes at the base; 1C carries contiguous cellar storage reachable directly from the residence, restricted by the plan to the storage of personal effects and expressly barred from use as living space. The middle of the stack is full-floor. The penthouse sits at the top with the roof deck and bulkhead-level pool as limited common elements for its exclusive use, together with the elevator vestibule and elevator landing on its floor.

Ten separate storage spaces in the cellar were offered under license, priced individually in the plan's Schedule A, and may be owned only by owners of residences and used only for personal effects — they may not be rented to anyone who does not live in the building. Terraces and balconies elsewhere are limited common elements appurtenant to their residences.

One discrepancy is worth recording. Department of Buildings applications filed in 2011 and 2012 carry a dwelling-unit count of twelve for this building. Every filing since 2017 carries nine, the new-building application proposed nine, the recorded declaration created nine unit lots, and the FY2027 assessment roll carries nine. Nine is correct; the twelve appears to be a filing-era artifact. Similarly, PLUTO and the assessment roll carry ten stories where the offering plan and the new-building application both say nine above grade.

The building is staffed rather than amenitized. There is an attended lobby around the clock, an automatic elevator in service 24 hours a day and seven days a week, intercom and internal telephone service to each residence, cellar storage, and a superintendent and porter engaged as independent contractors rather than as employees — an arrangement the plan discloses, and one that changes the shape of the labor line in the budget.

With nine residences, common charges per square foot are driven almost entirely by staffing and by the fixed cost of running a small building's systems. There is no doorman-plus-concierge program, no fitness room and no shared roof amenity — the roof belongs to the penthouse. Buyers should read the current budget and reserve position rather than reason from an amenity list, and should ask specifically about façade and roof condition, since a nine-unit building absorbs Local Law 11 cycles across a very small denominator.

The residences were built under Section 421-a of the Real Property Tax Law as a ten-year exemption. The offering plan sets out the standard schedule: two years of full exemption on the improvement value, then two years at 80 percent, two at 60 percent, two at 40 percent, two at 20 percent, and nothing thereafter. The plan projected the first benefit year as fiscal 2010–2011, granted retroactively once HPD issued the preliminary certificate of eligibility.

Department of Finance exemption records for the nine unit lots carry exemption code 5110 — "421-a, ten years, no cap" — with a benefit start recorded in 2013 rather than the plan's projected 2010–2011. Whichever start date governed, the benefit has run out. Every one of the nine residential unit lots shows a zero exemption in the FY2027 assessment roll. There is no 421-a, no J-51 and no 485-x on this building, and no J-51 record appears for the lot in the Department of Finance's J-51 history.

This is the single most important underwriting fact here. Any analysis built on an abated tax bill, or on a listing history that includes abated years, will understate the monthly carrying cost materially. Run the True Monthly Carrying Cost analysis against the current bill for the specific unit.

One legacy consequence of the 421-a is worth confirming in diligence: while the exemption was in force, residences that were rented were subject to rent stabilization under the program's rules. With the benefit expired, that condition should have lapsed, but any residence with a sitting tenant should be checked before contract.

Three separate condominiums stand within a few hundred feet of one another on the same tax block, and they are routinely conflated.

465 Washington Street is tax lot 7510 — NYC condominium no. 3132, declared in 2021, nine full-floor residences plus a commercial unit in a turn-of-the-century loft that was raised from five stories to ten in a 2010 alteration, and legalized in part under the Loft Law.

481 Washington Street is tax lot 7507 — NYC condominium no. 2342, the Spice Warehouse, thirteen residences plus two sponsor-retained commercial units in a c. 1895 warehouse conversion.

471 Washington Street is tax lot 7505 — NYC condominium no. 2277, nine residences, ground-up construction, its own declaration and its own board. ACRIS confirms three distinct declarations, three distinct unit-lot ranges and three distinct sets of deeds. The three share a tax block and a streetscape and nothing else. They also differ in the ways that matter most to a buyer: 471 is the only one of the three that was new construction, the only one with a private rooftop pool attached to a single residence, and the only one that carried — and has now lost — a 421-a exemption.

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 $1,706/sf across 1 sale. Median listing discount 1.9% 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 1-00595-7505) 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.

Underwrite full taxes. The 421-a is entirely burned off. Every unit lot shows a zero exemption in FY2027. This is the number most likely to differ from a buyer's expectation.

Test the operating budget against nine units. A 24-hour attended lobby, a superintendent and a porter spread across nine residences is a high fixed cost per unit. Ask for the budget, the reserve, and the most recent façade and roof reports.

The roof is not common space. The roof deck and the bulkhead-level pool belong exclusively to the penthouse, and that owner alone carries the pool's operating cost. Do not price a residence lower in the stack as though it has roof access.

Confirm the unit and story counts from the recorded documents. City data carries ten stories where the plan and the new-building application say nine, and older DOB filings carry twelve dwelling units where the declaration created nine.

Check the flood position. The lot is flagged in both the 2007 effective and 2015 preliminary FEMA maps. Ask about flood insurance, cellar systems and any flood-proofing work.

Know which building you are buying. 465, 471 and 481 Washington are three separate condominiums with three separate boards. Verify the tax lot on the contract.

Lead with new construction. On a block of conversions, this is the building that was designed as housing. Purpose-built floor plates, modern systems and no inherited column grid are the argument, and no neighboring building can make it.

Address the tax posture up front. A sophisticated buyer will find the expired 421-a. Presenting the current unabated bill alongside a carrying-cost analysis produces a cleaner deal than letting it surface late.

With nine units, there are no building averages. Price line by line: duplex versus full floor, floor level, outdoor space. One prior sale in the building is a data point, not a benchmark.

Separate the building from its neighbors in the marketing. Buyers searching this block will surface 465 and 481. Make the distinction — separate condominium, separate board, ground-up construction — explicitly.

If you're considering 471 Washington Street, also evaluate:

• 465 Washington Street — nine full-floor residences next door; a loft conversion with a five-story vertical enlargement, and the closest peer by unit count
• 481 Washington Street (Spice Warehouse) — thirteen residences in a c. 1895 warehouse conversion on the same block; the larger boutique alternative
• 466 Washington Street — across the street; the small-building alternative in the same micro-market
• 450 Washington Street — larger full-service condominium at the river edge of the same neighborhood
• 330 Spring Street — full-service Hudson Square condominium on the same tax block; the amenitized alternative
• 290 West Street — thirteen-residence condominium on the same block facing the Hudson River waterfront
• 145 Hudson Street (Sky Lofts) — full-floor Tribeca loft condominium; the classic conversion comparison
• 161 Hudson Street — Tribeca loft condominium a few blocks south; similar scale, different fabric
• 25 North Moore Street — Tribeca boutique condominium; the smaller-unit-count alternative in the historic district