515 Broadway (84 Mercer Street)

Six stories over a full-block-through lot of 23,200 square feet. The Broadway elevation and the Mercer elevation are both primary; there is no rear yard in the ordinary sense, and interior courts carry light into the middle of the plate. The facade combines stone, brick, terra cotta and iron in a Queen Anne composition, and it has been the subject of repeated repair campaigns: sidewalk sheds and pipe scaffold went up on both the Broadway and Mercer frontages in 2005 for facade work, storefronts were replaced under permit in 2010, and the front was repainted in 2019.

Residential floors run from the second through the sixth. Recorded share transfers show apartments lettered A through E on several floors alongside whole-floor lofts identified only by floor number, which is the signature of a building where lofts have been divided and recombined by successive shareholders. Ceiling heights, column spacing and window depth are what a commercial loft of this era and width provides; individual condition varies enormously, because the co-op has never imposed a uniform renovation standard and the apartments have been altered one at a time since the late 1970s.

The entire ground floor and cellar — 23,200 square feet — is commercial, held as separate units within the corporation and traded separately from the residential shares. In December 2018 the corporation itself sold shares appurtenant to roof space to a shareholder, a recorded transaction that is worth knowing about if you are underwriting the co-op's balance sheet or evaluating what roof rights remain unallocated.

This is a self-managed-feeling building run by an outside managing agent, not a full-service doorman house. There is a superintendent and key-locked elevator access from each of the five entrances; there is no lobby staff in the Upper East Side sense. The house rules on file are conventional prewar cooperative rules: at least 80 percent of each apartment's floor area must be carpeted, no disturbing noise between eleven at night and eight in the morning, and construction only on weekdays between 8:30 and 5:00.

The retail base is the operating story. More than 23,000 square feet of Broadway-front retail and cellar space sits underneath 19 to 28 apartments, and the income and the exposure from that space dominate this cooperative's economics in a way they do not in a residential-only building. Ask for the current commercial leases, the rent roll, and the corporation's exposure to vacancy in that space before you sign a contract.

Ownership form: Cooperative. You are buying shares of 515 Broadway Corp. and a proprietary lease, not real property, and the board's approval is a condition of closing.

Board package and interview: The purchase package on file requires eight copies of a completed application, two written business references, two written personal references, signed federal tax returns for the prior two years, a letter of employment stating position and salary, the contract of sale, the loan commitment letter, a signed credit-check authorization and a $600 non-refundable application fee. The interview is conducted by representatives of the board and by neighbors from the building — an unusual structure, and a signal about how the house sees itself. The package on file states plainly that this is not a party building.

Financing: No maximum financing percentage appears in the documents on file. That silence is not permission. Establish the current ceiling with the managing agent before you write an offer, and run the Co-op Board Qualification Calculator against a conservative assumption.

Post-closing liquidity: Not published. Cooperatives of this size and price point in SoHo routinely expect one to two years of maintenance and debt service in reserve after closing; the board's actual standard is unwritten and should be probed through the managing agent.

Subletting: Permitted, and comparatively workable by cooperative standards. The shareholder submits a sublease package with seven copies and a $400 non-refundable fee; two directors interview the proposed subtenant with the shareholder not present; the subtenant signs the house rules; renter's insurance of at least $500,000 naming the corporation as additional insured is required; and the shareholder posts a $1,500 security deposit with the corporation. Renewals require board approval. Sub-subleasing is prohibited. Subletting without following the procedure carries a $1,000 per month fine.

Sublet fee: One month's maintenance for a whole loft, divided into twelve and billed monthly, or half a month's maintenance for a half loft.

Flip tax: 2 percent of the selling price, payable at closing, per the purchase and sale procedure on file.

Pied-à-terre: Not documented in the materials on file. Confirm with the managing agent.

Trusts and LLCs: ACRIS shows a meaningful number of share transfers here taking title in the name of an LLC or a trust — more than is typical for a Manhattan cooperative. That is an observation from the recorded transfers, not a published policy, and it does not mean an entity purchase will be approved. Ask.

In-unit washer/dryer: Present in individual lofts. Not a building-wide entitlement; confirm for the specific apartment.

Recent sales

Recent transfers 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 $804/sf across 1 sale. 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 1-00484-0001) 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 on co-ops is not officially recorded, figures shown are approximate.

The fifth-floor loft was used as a photography studio by the artist Cindy Sherman before she sold it in 2005 to the actor Hank Azaria, who sold it in 2013 to the actor Meg Ryan; Ryan resold it in 2017. Each of those transfers is recorded in ACRIS and each was covered in the real-estate press at the time.

Search by BBL, not by address. The lot is 1-00484-0001. It answers to 515 Broadway, to 84 Mercer Street, and to 513–519 Broadway. Any analysis built on one of those strings alone will miss transfers, filings and comparables recorded under the others.

Read the new certificate of occupancy. It was issued in June 2026 under an application filed in 2001. Have counsel confirm what it says about your specific floor, how many dwelling units it recognizes, and whether any open DOB items remain.

Understand the Joint Living–Work Quarters history. The residential floors were occupied under the JLWQA framework that governed SoHo before the 2021 Special SoHo–NoHo Mixed Use District rezoning. That history is documented in the DOB filings and is worth understanding, particularly if you intend to work from the apartment.

Underwrite the retail. Twenty-three thousand square feet of Broadway retail sits under this cooperative. Its income supports the maintenance and its vacancy would not. Get the leases.

Confirm the financing ceiling and the post-closing liquidity expectation in writing. Neither is published, and neither is the same thing as the SoHo market's default.

Condition is everything here. Lofts in this building have been renovated one at a time since the late 1970s to no common standard. Run the Renovation Cost Calculator before you decide what a given apartment is worth to you.

Market both addresses. Buyers searching SoHo lofts search Mercer Street and they search Broadway. Your listing should surface for both, and your comparable set should include transfers recorded under 84 and 94 Mercer.

Lead with the 2026 certificate of occupancy. For twenty-five years the honest answer to "does the building have a C of O" was no. It now does. That is a genuine change in the diligence conversation and it should be presented, with the document, up front.

Present the sublet framework accurately. A cooperative that permits subletting with a defined fee schedule, a written procedure and board-interviewed subtenants is more flexible than most SoHo co-ops, and buyers who have been told SoHo cooperatives are inflexible will not assume it.

Be direct about the flip tax. Two percent of the selling price is a real number on a SoHo loft. Buyers find it in diligence; sellers do better raising it first.

If you're considering 515 Broadway, also evaluate:

• 543 Broadway — Broadway loft conversion two blocks north; the closest like-for-like on the same street
• 475 Broadway — cast-iron Broadway loft conversion south of Broome, on a different block
• 476 Broadway — Broadway loft condominium across the street from 475; the condominium alternative on the avenue
• 583 Broadway (The Astor Building) — larger Broadway loft conversion at the north end of SoHo
• 93 Mercer Street — SoHo loft cooperative one block south on Mercer; the closest peer by tenure and scale
• 77 Mercer Street — Mercer Street loft condominium; the condominium comparison
• 107 Greene Street — Greene Street loft condominium in the same historic district
• 33 Greene Street — SoHo loft cooperative; the other side of the district, same ownership form
• 115 Mercer Street — eight-unit Joint Living–Work Quarters condominium conversion; the small-building alternative with the same occupancy history