501 Hicks Street (Cobble Hill School Condominium)

The building occupies a 21,388-square-foot through-block lot with 121 feet of Hicks Street frontage and entrances on both Hicks Street and Cheever Place, and carries roughly 36,339 square feet of residential building area across five stories over a basement. Both stairwells run the full height of the building and connect to the roof and to both street exits; the north stairwell also reaches the basement and the street-level recycling area.

Unit numbering follows the school's corridor logic — 101 through 107 on the first level, then by floor above — and the plates are deep. What that produces in practice is apartments with substantial original window openings and ceiling heights that a 1980s conversion had every reason to preserve, since the tax-credit structure rewarded retaining the building's character. Floor, exposure and which side of the through-block plate a unit sits on are the variables that matter: the Hicks Street elevation and the Cheever Place elevation face two very different streets, one a through street and one of the district's quietest.

Because the building is inside the Cobble Hill Historic District, every element of the exterior — windows above all, in a building whose defining feature is its window openings — runs through the Landmarks Preservation Commission. That is a cost and a schedule item for any capital project and, for an individual owner, a hard constraint on unit-level exterior changes. It is also the reason the block around the building still looks the way the 1969 report describes it.

This is a self-contained small condominium with a real service base. A resident superintendent works standard weekday hours and a building manager handles administration; a camera and intercom system covers the south Hicks Street entrance and feeds to residents' televisions, while the Cheever Place side has no equivalent — which is why the building's own policies direct all deliveries through the Hicks Street entrance. The laundry room in the basement carries three washers and four dryers on a coin system with a bill changer. Some units are assigned basement storage bins; Fire Department rules bar furniture and flammable materials from the storage rooms, and nothing may be stored in open common areas.

The capital agenda in a 1922 masonry building converted forty years ago is legible. Confirm whether DOB classifies this five-story building as subject to Local Law 11/FISP; exterior work also requires the applicable Landmarks review. The elevator is a single cab serving 34 apartments. The roof carries both the boiler and the cooling tower, which means the roof assembly and the mechanical plant have coupled replacement schedules. The parking lot surface, the gate and the gate door are their own maintenance line. Ask for the last three years of audited statements, the current assessment schedule, any applicable FISP filing history and the board minutes — and ask specifically when the boiler and tower were last replaced.

Management is publicly documented in the condominium's own resale package as Adventure Properties, Inc., of 70 Clark Street, Brooklyn; confirm the current agent directly. Management history and unit-level records are maintained in The Roebling Research Library and confirmed with clients during diligence.

Purchaser review: No board approval, but the board runs a structured resale process that a buyer should not mistake for a formality. The seller must deliver a package in five copies to the board president at least two weeks before the closing date, containing a letter of intent from the purchaser (stating price, closing date, whether the purchaser intends to reside or to lease, and any renovation intent), a residential purchase information sheet, a copy of the contract, the move-in and move-out fees, a signed confirmation form, and executed window-guard and smoke-detector/carbon-monoxide letters. Only after review, and only once all common charges and assessments on the unit are current, does the board issue the executed waiver of its right of first refusal. Build that two-week window into the contract timeline.

Move-in and move-out fees: $150 each, payable to the condominium and submitted with the resale package. Moves must occur during the superintendent's working hours of 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday; a move outside those hours carries a $75 policy-violation fee.

Alterations: Board approval is required before work commences, under the condominium's Policy on Unit Alterations, Renovations, or Additions and its Unit Alteration Agreement. Exterior work additionally requires Landmarks approval.

Parking: Administered by the board through a Parking Space Registration Form and published lot guidelines, filed after closing. Unauthorized vehicles are towed; bicycles and scooters may not be left in the lot or at the building entrance landing.

Subletting: Permitted; the purchaser's letter of intent asks the question at the outset. Confirm current registration requirements and any minimum term with management.

Flip tax: None documented.

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 (2015) cleared a median $801/sf (recorded) across 1 sale. Median listing discount 0.0% from the last ask.

Sales sourced from NYC Department of Finance recorded transfers (BBL 3-00321-7501; 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.

Confirm the parking in writing. Roughly 29 spaces against 34 apartments, administered by board registration rather than by deed. Availability, cost and the registration process should be confirmed with management before you assign the space any value — and in this district, it carries real value.

Understand the seasonal changeover. A roof-mounted boiler and cooling tower feed in-unit fan-coil radiators, and the building switches between heating and cooling in spring and fall. You control temperature; you do not control the mode.

Budget the resale process. Five copies, a two-week board review, move-in and move-out fees, and a right-of-first-refusal waiver that issues only when the unit's charges are current. It is not a co-op interview, but it is not instantaneous either.

Price the Landmarks constraint. Every exterior element, windows first among them, runs through the Commission. In a converted school whose best feature is its window openings, that is a live capital item.

Ask about the boiler and the tower. They sit on the roof together, which couples their replacement schedules to the roof's. In a 1922 building converted in the mid-1980s, that is the question to lead with.

Lead with the shared facilities. Elevator, superintendent, laundry, storage, bike room and gated off-street parking, on a landmarked Cobble Hill block.

Photograph the windows and the ceiling height. The school geometry is the product. Buyers comparing against brownstone floor-throughs need to see the difference immediately.

Document the parking space. If the unit carries one, put the registration and the guidelines in the package. If it does not, be clear about that too — buyers discount ambiguity harder than absence.

Prepare the board package early. The two-week review window and the five-copy requirement are real scheduling constraints. Assemble the letter of intent, the information sheet, the fees and the executed letters before you are under contract.

Anchor to the same elevation. Hicks Street and Cheever Place are two different streets. Comparables should match the side of the building, the floor and the parking status.

If you're considering 501 Hicks Street, also evaluate:

• 200 Congress Street — the largest cooperative in Cobble Hill, with a cellar garage; the closest parallel on scale plus parking
• 58 Strong Place (The Landmark at Strong) — the other institutional-to-residential conversion in the same corner of the district, one block east
• 439 Hicks Street (Cobble Hill Towers) — Alfred Tredway White's model-housing complex a few blocks north on the same street
• 417 Hicks Street — the Tower Buildings group of the Cobble Hill Towers condominium; landmark model housing at the accessible end of the market
• 401 Hicks Street (The Arches at Cobble Hill) — nearby condominium; confirm its original construction and conversion history, on the same corridor
• 174 Pacific Street — the district's other converted school, at its northern edge, in cooperative form
• 450 Clinton Street — 36-unit Carroll Gardens cooperative just south of the district line
• 214 Clinton Street — small Cobble Hill cooperative; the walk-up alternative inside the same district
• 344 Degraw Street — boutique condominium on the same cross street, just outside the district