50 Sutton Place South

The building is red brick with white trim and limestone, stepping back from a nineteen-story maximum height, with a balconied elevation along Sutton Place South. The 1956 survey in the offering plan describes it as a sixteen-to-nineteen-story building with basement and penthouse — the range reflecting the setbacks rather than any inconsistency, though it does not reconcile cleanly with the twenty-first-floor unit designations that appear in ACRIS or with the twenty-two stories cited in some listing records. There is no thirteenth floor.

Apartment plans are postwar rather than pre-war: defined foyers, real closets, straightforward room shapes, and — on a substantial share of the inventory — private terraces or balconies, which is rare in the corridor's pre-war stock. Listing records describe an inventory running from large studios through four-bedroom configurations, with many of the largest homes produced by combination rather than by original design. DOB records on this BIN show a long run of apartment-combination filings across the 2000s and 2010s, which likely explains why PLUTO's unit count and the audited statements' figure of 193 apartments do not agree.

Because the building sits on the west side of the street, the premium is directional. East-facing lines above the neighboring roofline take the river outlook; west-facing lines look back into the block. Line and floor matter more here than they do in a small pre-war house where every apartment is a full or half floor.

Full service, and institutionally run. The corporation employs a unionized staff under the Local 32BJ agreement, maintains a live-in resident manager, runs a fitness center and a central laundry, offers resident storage, and leases its 20,000-square-foot garage to a commercial operator on a long-term lease that generates roughly $290,000 a year in base rent plus a real estate tax escalation. There is one professional office unit in the building, owned by the corporation.

The audited financial statements on file describe a corporation that runs close to break-even on operations and has been closing the gap with assessments rather than with maintenance increases alone. Operating assessments were levied in each of the two most recent years covered by the statements on file, at roughly $3.92 and $4.11 per share. The corporation's stated practice is to refund the New York City cooperative shareholder real estate tax abatement to shareholders at approximately the same time the assessment is charged — a mechanic worth understanding, because it means the abatement credit and the assessment charge tend to appear on the same statement and partially offset one another.

Two other things belong in a buyer's file. First, the corporation's governing documents do not require the accumulation of reserves, no reserve study has been commissioned, and the auditors noted the omission of the required supplementary information on future major repairs. The reserve fund nonetheless stood above $2.4 million at the most recent year-end on file, with an undrawn $1.5 million credit line behind it. Second, the corporation recorded professional fees in a recent year in connection with its opposition to a New York City Economic Development Corporation bridge project on the waterfront — a reminder that this stretch of the East River shoreline has an active public-works agenda.

Ownership form: Cooperative. Purchase is by assignment of shares and proprietary lease, with a full board package and an in-person board interview. The board's approval is discretionary and it does not have to give reasons.

Financing: 65 percent maximum, 35 percent minimum down, per management-sourced records. Confirm it first, because it sets the size of the deal you can actually do.

Post-closing liquidity: Not published. Large postwar Sutton Place cooperatives typically want to see meaningful liquid reserves after closing, expressed either as a dollar figure or as a multiple of annual maintenance plus debt service. Ask the managing agent for the current standard before you write an offer, and run the Co-op Board Qualification Calculator against it.

Flip tax / transfer fee: 2 percent of gross sales price. The audited statements on file describe the fee as charged to the transferring shareholder; some listing records describe it as buyer-paid. That is a real dollar difference on a seven-figure trade and it should be settled in writing before contract, not at closing.

Subletting: Obtain the current written policy and reconcile it with the operative proprietary lease and amendments. Confirm any seasoning requirement, term cap and approval process before underwriting rental use; no unverified limit is assumed here.

Pied-à-terre: Not published. Some listing records describe pied-à-terre purchases as considered here; that is not the same as a stated policy, and a large converted cooperative that has been shareholder-controlled since 1978 will have a settled practice one way or the other. Ask.

Trusts, LLCs, co-purchase, guarantors and gifting: Not published. If your purchase structure is anything other than an individual buying in their own name, resolve it with the managing agent before you spend money on a board package.

Pets: Permitted with board approval per management-sourced records.

Recent sales

Recent transfers 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. $/sf is measured on the latest sales with reliable square footage (2025): a median $755/sf (floor-adjusted) across 8 sales. The building has traded as recently as 2026. Median listing discount 5.5% 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 1-01366-0025). 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 on co-ops is not officially recorded, figures shown are approximate.

Underwrite the 2029 refinancing. A $12.9 million interest-only loan at 3.5 percent matures September 1, 2029. The replacement terms are not known. Model the maintenance under more than one debt-service scenario, including a materially higher one, before you decide what the apartment is worth to you, and use the True Monthly Carrying Cost Calculator to see the whole number.

Read the assessment and abatement mechanic together. The corporation assesses and then refunds the city's cooperative shareholder tax abatement at roughly the same time. Looked at separately, either line will mislead you.

Taxes are the budget. Real estate tax runs above half of total operating expense here. That is structural for a large Manhattan cooperative on a high-value lot, and it means the building's costs are substantially outside the board's control.

Confirm who pays the 2 percent. The audited statements and the listing records disagree. Settle it in writing.

Get the policy stack from the managing agent, not from a listing. Obtain the current financing ceiling, post-closing liquidity requirements, sublet terms and rules for pied-à-terre, trust and LLC ownership. Have counsel reconcile management's answers with the operative 1978 plan, proprietary lease, bylaws and amendments before preparing the board package; the age of a document does not by itself remove its legal effect.

Line and floor decide the price. Balconies, east exposure and combined layouts drive the spread. Walk the specific apartment at the hour you would actually be home.

Sell the building's liquidity. Two hundred-plus recorded transfers on this lot is a real argument. Buyers worried about a thin resale market in a small Sutton Place house should be shown what turnover looks like here.

Get ahead of the mortgage question. Sophisticated buyers and their attorneys will find the 2029 maturity in the financials. Present it, with the reserve position and the credit line, rather than letting it surface as a surprise in diligence.

Present the outdoor space properly. Terraces and balconies are the inventory's clearest differentiator against the corridor's pre-war stock, and they photograph as an amenity rather than as a floor plan feature.

Price the renovation math honestly. Postwar plans reward renovation and punish deferred maintenance. Estate-condition apartments clear when they are priced against what the buyer will spend — run the Renovation Cost Calculator before setting an ask.

If you're considering 50 Sutton Place South, also evaluate:

• 45 Sutton Place South (Cannon Point South) — Paul Resnick's 1958 river-facing cooperative; the closest peer by vintage, scale and postwar plan vocabulary
• 60 Sutton Place South — the immediate cooperative neighbor one block south; same corridor, different plan tradition
• 25 Sutton Place South — Sutton Place cooperative; compare the specific plans and current policies
• 20 Sutton Place South — cooperative on the same street; smaller house, tighter board culture
• 14 Sutton Place South — pre-war Sutton Place cooperative at the southern end of the enclave
• 415 East 54th Street — the condominium on the same tax block; the condo alternative for buyers who need permissive financing, sublet and ownership-structure rules
• 1 Sutton Place South — the corridor's riverfront pre-war trophy cooperative; the prestige benchmark
• 2 Sutton Place South — Emery Roth & Sons cooperative on the river
• Plaza 400 (400 East 56th Street) — the corridor's other large postwar full-service cooperative with a garage; the closest analogue by scale and operating model
• 447 East 57th Street — small pre-war cooperative nearby; the opposite end of the corridor's size spectrum
• River House (435 East 52nd Street) — Bottomley, Wagner & White's 1931 landmark cooperative; the corridor's defining pre-war house