481 Washington Street (Spice Warehouse)

The building stands on a rectangular 6,800-square-foot lot, 85 feet on Washington Street by 80 feet deep, and carries roughly 46,006 gross square feet across seven stories — about 36,784 square feet residential and 9,222 square feet in the commercial units at the base and cellar. Recorded gross floor area works out to 6.77 times the lot area against a residential FAR of 6.02 in the C6-2A district; that simple comparison does not establish legal zoning floor area or what future work is permitted.

The exterior was restored rather than replaced. The arched window openings and the cornice are original, and a façade and roof repair was filed in 2011 alongside the residential alteration; the filing does not confirm completion or current condition. The conversion also carried an enlargement — the standpipe filing describes the work as a residential conversion and enlargement — which is where the roof-level residences come from.

Inside, the residences are lofts in the literal sense: large full-floor and half-floor plates, high ceilings, deep spans, with the top of the stack given over to penthouse units. Thirteen residences across seven floors means most floors carry one or two homes, and the offering plan's per-unit pricing spread reflects a wide range of sizes rather than a repeated line. Because the floor count is low and the plates are large, exposure varies sharply by residence: the offering plan discloses lot-line windows as a special risk, meaning some glass in this building sits on a property line and could be lost if an adjoining owner builds. Which windows in a specific residence are lot-line windows is a question to resolve on the floor plan before contract, not a detail to discover later.

This is a small, tightly run building rather than a full-service one. The staffing model is a resident manager rather than a doorman roster, and the shared program is practical: a fitness room, a bike room, storage, two secured package rooms, a service hall on each floor, and a common roof where the condominium filed for gas piping to support outdoor grilling in 2013.

The dated finances on file show a narrow budgeted surplus; that result is specific to these records, rather than an inevitable consequence of thirteen residences, an elevator and a resident manager. The approved 2021 budget carries total income of $289,014 against total expenses of $288,880 — a projected surplus of $134 — with a $26,000 transfer to reserve built into the expense side. The heaviest lines are payroll at about $90,000, insurance at $60,000, elevator maintenance and inspection at $22,000, and management at $24,000. Audited statements for the year ended December 31, 2019 show total revenues of $280,152 and a reserve fund of $130,603, up from $28,863 a year earlier — an increase in the reported balance. Those dated figures alone do not establish current reserve adequacy for the masonry exterior, elevator or other capital needs. The auditor also noted that management had omitted the required supplementary disclosure on future major repairs and replacements, so the statements give no estimate of future repair costs; ask whether a separate reserve study exists.

Capital work may be funded through reserves, common charges, assessments or borrowing; the current funding plan must be established from the building's records, and a buyer should ask the managing agent three things directly: the current reserve balance, whether any assessment is live or contemplated, and the status of the façade under the periodic inspection cycle.

Ownership form: Condominium, with two sponsor-retained commercial units inside the same declaration. Residential transfers proceed by a 30-day right of first refusal, exercised by the board after a complete purchase package has been submitted and reviewed through the managing agent.

Purchase process: Fuller than a typical condominium. The management-sourced package on file requires a notice of intention to sell, the executed contract, a completed financial statement with supporting documentation, two years of federal returns with W-2s, two personal and two professional references, employment verification or a CPA letter, a mortgage commitment letter if financing, an acknowledgement of the house rules, a homeowner's insurance certificate, photo identification, and a completed credit authorization.

Subletting: Permitted. The lease application on file requires the sublease, an executed application, personal, professional and landlord references, two years of returns and three months of bank statements, photo identification and a credit authorization, with a $350 processing fee.

Fees per management-sourced records on file: purchase processing $500; move-in fee $500; move-out fee $500; move-in deposit $1,000, refundable, or $2,500 for a self-move. Moves are scheduled a week in advance, weekdays only, between 8:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m.

Pets, pied-à-terre and financing minimums: Not documented in the records reviewed beyond the standard condominium framework. Confirm the house rules and any financing floor with the managing agent.

Flip tax: Not documented. The approved 2021 budget carries a flip-tax income line with no amount budgeted. Confirm before pricing a sale.

Real estate taxes — no exemption on record. No exemption of any kind appears on the residential unit lots (1601 through 1615) in the Department of Finance exemption records for fiscal years 2021 through 2027. There is no 421-a, no J-51 and no 485-x. The J-51 record for this block covers three other lots, all initiated in 1982 and expired by 1993; this property has never carried one. Underwrite the actual current bill on the specific unit, which is where any abatement would appear.

A note on 465 Washington Street. The building at 465 Washington Street stands on the same block and is a separate and unaffiliated condominium — its own declaration, recorded as NYC condominium no. 3132, a ten-story structure with nine residential units on tax lot 7510. It shares no common elements, no board and no financial statements with the Spice Warehouse. City records and search results that group the two by street name should be disregarded.

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 $1,579/sf (floor-adjusted) across 3 sales. 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 2.8% 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 1-00595-7507; 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.

The two commercial units are not yours. They sit inside the same condominium declaration, were never offered under the plan, and carry their own signage and subdivision rights. Read the plan's commercial-unit section and ask who owns them today and how they vote.

Resolve the lot-line windows on the floor plan. The offering plan discloses them as a special risk. Find out which openings in the specific residence are lot-line windows and what the adjoining owner could build.

Price the flood exposure into your insurance. The lot is flagged on both the 2007 effective and 2015 preliminary FEMA maps and the building filed flood-proofing work in 2017. Get a quote before you are in contract, not after.

The reserve is thin, and the statements omit the future-repairs disclosure. Ask whether a reserve study exists. Ask for the current balance, the assessment history, and the façade inspection status.

There is no abatement and no landmark constraint. Taxes are full freight from day one. Exterior alterations run through the Department of Buildings without a Certificate of Appropriateness, which makes capital work faster and cheaper here than in a designated district.

Confirm the pet and house rules before you fall in love. They are not in the material reviewed for this page. The managing agent has them.

Sell the plate, not the amenity list. A full-floor warehouse loft with original arched openings is the product. A thirteen-unit building will never win on services.

Be direct about the tax posture up front. The records show no exemption and no J-51 history. Buyers will find it; presenting it with a carrying-cost analysis produces better outcomes than letting it surface in diligence.

Have the flood and lot-line answers ready. Both are disclosed in the offering plan and both will come up. A seller who has already sourced an insurance quote and a marked-up floor plan controls the conversation.

Select comparable transactions by date and layout. Thirteen residences of varying size do not establish sale frequency or the availability of useful internal precedents. Compare actual dated sales here and in Hudson Square and western SoHo loft conversions of similar vintage, adjusting for the specific floor and plan.

If you're considering the Spice Warehouse, also evaluate:

• 330 Spring Street — the nearest Hudson Square condominium, one block away; the closest peer by micro-location
• 570 Broome Street — Hudson Square condominium a few blocks north; the newer, larger, full-amenity alternative
• 565 Broome Street — Hudson Square tower condominium; the opposite end of the same submarket
• 505 Greenwich Street — Hudson Square condominium on Greenwich Street; comparable position, different product
• 443 Greenwich Street — the benchmark Tribeca warehouse conversion; the ceiling of the loft-conversion comparable set
• 92 Laight Street — Tribeca loft building; similar bones at a different scale
• 195 Hudson Street — converted Tribeca warehouse condominium; a close structural analogue
• 145 Hudson Street — Tribeca loft conversion with large plates; useful for per-foot calibration
• 40 Mercer Street — SoHo condominium; the new-construction alternative in the adjoining submarket
• 105 Wooster Street — small SoHo loft condominium; the boutique cast-iron alternative
• 27 Wooster Street — SoHo loft condominium at comparable unit count and staffing level