475 Broadway

The Broadway elevation is three bays of limestone with cast-iron ornament rising eight stories, designed to read continuously with 473 next door. The Mercer elevation is brick and four bays wide, with a cast-iron storefront — the working back of a nineteenth-century Broadway store, and today the front door for half the building's residences.

The residential plates run floors two through eight, two homes to a floor. The east residences address Broadway; the west residences address 48 Mercer Street. Listing and management-sourced records describe the lofts at approximately 2,500 square feet with ceiling heights reported to about thirteen feet in some homes, east, west and north exposures, and gas fireplaces in some residences. PLUTO's 28,757 square feet of residential area across fourteen homes implies a smaller average than the listing figure — gross-area records of this kind are approximations for converted lofts, and the specific unit should be measured. The elevator is key-locked and opens directly into the residence.

The top-floor east home is carried in the recorded unit schedule as the penthouse, and a 2013 alteration added an interior partition and a new window on a secondary façade there under Landmarks review. The rooftop addition approved in 1999 and amended in 2001 is part of the conversion's original scope.

Fourteen residences and one key-locked elevator; attended-lobby coverage and any resident amenity program are unconfirmed. Two street elevations across a 200-foot-deep lot is a large amount of envelope for fourteen owners to maintain, and the façade record shows it. Local Law 11 filings run: Safe in Cycle 6 (2008); Unsafe on the Cycle 7 initial filing in March 2012, amended to Safe With a Repair and Maintenance Program in March 2014; Unsafe again on the Cycle 8 initial filing in February 2017, amended to SWARMP in December 2018; and Unsafe on the Cycle 9 initial filing in February 2022, amended to Safe on January 30, 2024. The building is currently Safe, but it has been through three consecutive cycles of remediation to get there. Ask for the Cycle 9 amended report, the completed scope, what it cost, and how it was funded.

The lot sits inside the SoHo–Cast Iron Historic District, designated in 1973. LPC review covers exterior alterations, including non-visible work, and DOB-permitted interiors, subject to specified maintenance exemptions. Staff-level Certificates of No Effect or Permits for Minor Work are available for qualifying scope under LPC rules. Work outside the staff rules requires full Commission review at a public hearing for a Certificate of Appropriateness; visibility alone does not determine the permit type.

This building is an unusually clear illustration of why that matters. The Commission denied an application on this lot in 1990. The rooftop addition that made the residential conversion viable was not approved until 1999, and then only at the full Commission. A window application was withdrawn at staff level in 1998 and another in 2018. Everything routine has moved at staff level: Certificates of No Effect for interior alterations in 1999, 2000, 2002, 2014, 2017, 2025 and 2026; for windows in 2013 and 2014; for roof work in 2014 and 2016; and for Local Law 11 exterior repairs on both 473 and 475 in 2017. There is also a 2004 Permit for Minor Work for air conditioning louvers and a 2017 minor-work permit for window repair on the Mercer side.

The practical reading is to establish the proposed scope and applicable LPC rules for both elevations and any DOB-permitted interior work. The recorded staff approvals for windows, roof work and exterior repairs show why neither Broadway visibility nor an exterior location automatically requires full Commission review.

Department of Buildings records show temporary certificates of occupancy issued against the conversion job from July 2012 through January 15, 2021, and no final certificate on file. A building operating on an expired temporary certificate can complicate financing with some lenders and can complicate a resale if a buyer's counsel takes a hard line. How serious it is depends on what remains open. Ask the managing agent whether a final certificate has been obtained since the last data release, what is outstanding — work, violations, agency sign-offs — and whether any cost has been assessed to unit owners, and confirm with the lender for the specific purchase. Confirm the occupancy classification at the same time — conversions of this period in SoHo were frequently certified as Joint Live-Work Quarters for Artists under the pre-2021 manufacturing zoning.

Ownership form: Condominium. Purchases close through a board right of first refusal rather than a cooperative approval, which produces a faster and more predictable timetable — 30 to 45 days is typical.

Pied-à-terre, subletting, LLC, trust and foreign ownership: Not documented in the records we hold; confirm each, including minimum lease terms for subletting, in the current declaration, bylaws and house rules with the managing agent.

Pets: Not documented in public records. Confirm the house rules.

Flip tax: Not documented in public records. Confirm any resale capital contribution before pricing a sale.

Real estate taxes: No exemption of any kind appears on the residential unit lots. Underwrite full unabated taxes on the specific unit against the current bill, then apply the co-op/condo abatement only if the buyer will occupy the unit as a primary residence.

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 (2025) cleared a median $1,606/sf (floor-adjusted) across 1 sale. Floor-adjusted means each sale is restated to a constant mix of floors, so the figure can differ from the plain median of the sales listed above. Median listing discount 6.1% 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 1-00474-7505; 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 certificate of occupancy first. Temporary certificates through January 2021 and no final on file. Get the current status in writing before you go to contract, and have your lender confirm it is financeable.

Read the whole façade history, not the current status. Three consecutive Local Law 11 cycles opened Unsafe or SWARMP before closing Safe in January 2024. In a fourteen-unit building with two street elevations, envelope cost is the dominant capital variable.

Know which side of the floor you are buying. Broadway and Mercer are different streets with different light, different noise and different retail below. Walk both at the same hour.

Landmarks governs both elevations. The 1990 denial on this lot is a matter of record. Do not underwrite exterior changes as a formality.

Underwrite full taxes. No J-51, no 421-a, no other building exemption. The co-op/condo abatement is available only to primary-residence owners.

Lead with the through-block plate. Two exposures on every floor in a 26-foot-wide SoHo building is the argument, and very little competing inventory can make it.

Get the certificate of occupancy and façade file in order before listing. Both will surface in attorney review. Presenting them with the board's plan attached is a materially better outcome than being asked about them.

Correct the origin story. The building is not half of a split structure; it is one of a matched pair by Ralph S. Townsend, built in 1894–95 for separate owners with a common façade. The designation report supports it, and it is a better story than the one in circulation.

Price against converted lofts inside the district. New construction in SoHo is not the comparable set, and neither is doorman loft product.

If you're considering 475 Broadway, also evaluate:

• 30 Crosby Street (The Loft) — the rear half of a Broadway through-lot, converted in 2000–2001 by the same conversion architect; thirteen large residences with a doorman
• 107 Greene Street — fifteen lofts in a cast-iron-era structure, also converted by Joseph Pell Lombardi
• 93 Greene Street (Greene House) — Henry Fernbach's 1881 building, converted in 1985; the earlier-generation loft condominium
• 105 Wooster Street — fifteen full-floor residences in a loft building two blocks west
• 43 Wooster Street — ten half-floor lofts in an 1885 building; the closest peer by unit count and operating model
• 57 Greene Street — 1877 building converted in 2016; the recent, higher-specification alternative
• 129 Lafayette Street — prewar loft converted in the mid-2000s at larger scale
• 285 Lafayette Street — early-twentieth-century factory converted in 1999; the larger amenitized loft alternative
• 303 Mercer Street (Snug Harbor) — 1983 loft cooperative around a planted courtyard; the co-op alternative on the same street