- Year built
- 1857
- Type
- Condominium
- Units
- 7
- Floors
- 7
- Landmark
- No
- Pets
- Not documented in public records — confirm the house rules with the managing agent
White Street between Broadway and Church is one of the densest concentrations of mid-nineteenth-century store-and-loft architecture left in Manhattan, and almost every building on it has been through some version of the same century-long cycle: built for the dry-goods trade, stripped and fireproofed in the twentieth century, and recovered — or not — in the last thirty years. 53 White is the block's most complete recovery. The Landmarks Preservation Commission dates it to 1857–1858 and credits D. & A. C. Kingsland as the developer; it records no architect, which is ordinary for a speculative loft of that decade. The façade is Italianate, faced in white Tuckahoe marble over a cast-iron storefront with dark columns.
By the 1920s the marble had been coated in fire-retardant cement, fire escapes had been bolted across it, and the cast-iron columns had been encased in concrete block. That is the condition the building sat in for most of a century. DAB Investments bought it in 2016 and spent six years reversing all of it — removing the fire escapes, repairing the underlying stone, and uncovering the columns and window openings — while simultaneously converting a commercial and old-code residential building into seven condominium lofts.
The addition is the part buyers should understand, because it is the reason the building is seven stories today and five stories in older records. The Department of Buildings alteration application, filed in October 2016 and signed off in August 2022, took the building from five stories and 75 feet to seven stories and 93 feet, inserting a mezzanine between the first and second floors and building two entirely new floors above the original roof. That work required a Certificate of Appropriateness from LPC, which was applied for in May 2017 alongside a modification of use. The addition is set back so that it is not visible from the street — the standard LPC condition for rooftop work in a historic district, and the reason it was approved at all. Trade coverage reports the developer also went through a multi-year land-use review before construction and committed to maintaining the restored façade indefinitely as part of the approval.
The result is a small, unusual building: seven full-floor four-bedroom lofts with restored cast iron, wood beams and radiant floors, a triplex with three terraces at the top, and a wellness amenity suite — fitness room, infrared sauna, steam room, massage room — that is larger than a seven-unit building would normally support. The economics of that ratio are the first thing to check in the building's budget.
Architecture and unit composition
The lot is 39 feet wide and 100 feet deep, and the building fills nearly all of it. The original structure ran roughly 24,000 square feet over five floors; after the conversion it stands at about 31,300 square feet over seven stories, with a 2,700-square-foot mezzanine and a 5,000-square-foot two-floor addition on top. PLUTO reports 21,681 square feet of building area for this lot, which understates the completed building and has not caught up with the alteration. Buyers running automated analysis on this address should use the DOB filing or the recorded floor plans rather than the city's building-area field.
Light is the design problem here and the design solution is worth reading carefully. The building is mid-block with a party wall on each side. The conversion added seven new window openings at the rear and — this is the material fact — 24 new lot-line windows on the western façade, which sits behind 49 White Street. Lot-line windows are an amenity that can be lost: if the adjoining owner builds, they can be required to be sealed, at the affected unit owner's expense. In a building where a full floor is a single residence, losing an entire flank of glass is not a cosmetic outcome. Any buyer here should identify exactly which windows in the specific unit are lot-line windows and what the adjoining property could legally build.
Residences are floor-through, four bedrooms each, with exposed brick, restored cast-iron columns, exposed wood beams and radiant heated floors. The top of the building is a triplex with three setback terraces and views in every direction. There is one commercial unit at the base, recorded as unit lot 1601.
Building operations
This is a seven-residence condominium with a wellness amenity program and no documented doorman. The operating structure follows: a small denominator carrying a fitness center, steam room, infrared sauna and massage room, plus a passenger elevator serving a building where every trip is to a private floor. Common charges per square foot should be read against the current budget and reserve position rather than against the amenity list. The condominium is new — the declaration was recorded in January 2022 and the first closings followed within weeks — so the building's expense baseline and reserve history are still short. Ask for the current budget, the reserve balance, the Local Law 11 façade cycle status, and the sponsor's remaining unsold inventory before contract.
The façade obligation is a real operating item and specific to this building. A restored marble and cast-iron elevation inside a historic district is a maintenance liability in perpetuity, and every future exterior repair will pass through LPC. The board should have a plan and a reserve line for it.
Policy framework
Ownership form: Condominium. Transfers close through a right of first refusal rather than a board approval, which produces faster and more predictable closing timelines than the co-op alternatives elsewhere in Tribeca.
Pied-à-terre, subletting, LLC, trust and foreign ownership: Permitted under the standard condominium framework. The recorded deed record includes both individual purchasers and single-purpose LLCs.
Pets, house rules, sublet minimums and flip tax: Not documented in public records for this building. Confirm all four with the managing agent before pricing an offer or a sale.
Real estate taxes: No exemption of any kind appears on the lot. Underwrite full unabated taxes on the specific unit from day one.
Local Law 97
- 2024–2029 annual penalty
- $0 (under cap)
- 2030–2034 annual penalty
- $0 (under cap)
- Per unit / month range
- —
Source: NYC LL84 benchmarking and PLUTO · The Roebling Research Library. City record last verified September 2026.
See full Local Law 97 analysis — emissions history, scenarios, methodology →Recent sales
The Tribeca Heritage sold as a sponsor offering beginning in early 2022. Recorded deeds show individual residences transferring to separate, unrelated purchasers — individuals, married couples and single-purpose LLCs — with purchase-money mortgages from four different institutional lenders. That is the record of a genuine condominium sellout, not a rental building in a condominium wrapper, and it is worth stating because a seven-unit conversion held by one sponsor entity can look like the latter in summary data.
Six of the seven residential unit lots have traded individually; the remaining residence and the ground-floor commercial unit have no recorded third-party transfer. The building prices as full-floor Tribeca loft product in a landmark shell with new mechanical systems — a different comparable set from both the pre-conversion loft co-ops on the block and the new-development towers a few streets west. On a per-square-foot basis it sits in the upper band for boutique Tribeca conversions, and the absence of any tax abatement is the largest gap between headline price and true monthly cost. Unit-level transaction history is maintained in The Roebling Research Library and shared with clients during diligence.
Recent closings 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.
| Date | Unit | Apartment | Price | PPSF | vs. Ask |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jun 7, 2022 | 5 | 3 BR · 3.5 BA · 3,315 sf | $7,504,500 | $2,264/sf | -1.9% |
| Mar 11, 2022 | 6 | 3 BR · 3.5 BA · 3,315 sf | $7,550,000 | $2,278/sf | -1.3% |
| Feb 15, 2022 | 4 | 3 BR · 3.5 BA · 3,315 sf | $7,604,500 | $2,294/sf | +0.1% |
Market read. $/sf is measured on the latest sales with reliable square footage (2022): a median $2,278/sf across 3 sales. The building has traded as recently as 2023. Median listing discount 0.7% 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 1-00175-7507) 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 from recorded condo declarations and offering plans.
What to know if you’re buying
Get the address right in every search. City data files this building under 51 White Street. LPC files it as 51–53 White Street. Title, tax bills and violation searches run on BIN 1001934 and BBL 1-00175-7507. A search run only on "53 White Street" will miss the Department of Buildings history.
Ignore PLUTO's 1915 and its square footage. The building is an 1857–1858 structure per LPC, and its completed area is roughly 31,300 square feet, not the 21,681 in the city's file. Both PLUTO fields are stale.
Map the lot-line windows. Twenty-four of them face west onto the rear of 49 White Street. Understand which belong to your floor and what the neighbor can build.
Every exterior change goes through LPC. Window replacement, storefront work, terrace railings, mechanical equipment — all of it requires a Certificate of No Effect or a Certificate of Appropriateness. Budget time as well as money.
Underwrite full taxes. There is no abatement, and there never was one.
Read the budget against the amenity load. Four wellness rooms and an elevator across seven residences is a favorable ratio to use and an expensive one to fund.
What to know if you’re selling
Lead with the restoration and the approval record. The LPC Certificate of Appropriateness, the removal of the 1920s cement and fire escapes, and the recovered Tuckahoe marble are documented facts that survive a buyer's attorney's diligence. They are also unrepeatable — no competing building can add this story.
Be direct about taxes. Buyers comparing this to abated new construction downtown will find the difference themselves. Presenting the full unabated number up front, paired with a True Monthly Carrying Cost analysis, produces better outcomes than letting it surface late.
Same-building comparables are thin by design. With seven residences and a 2022–2026 sellout, pricing is a floor-by-floor argument rather than a building average. Terraces, ceiling height and window exposure move the number more than square footage does.
Comparable buildings
If you're considering 53 White Street, also evaluate:
- 55 White Street — the cast-iron landmark immediately next door, converted to loft condominiums; the closest possible comparable in address, block and building type
- 81 White Street — landmark Tribeca loft conversion a few blocks west; similar scale, different vintage of conversion
- 91 Leonard Street — boutique Tribeca condominium one block north
- 66 Leonard Street — the Textile Building; the larger prewar loft conversion alternative
- 155 Franklin Street — boutique Tribeca loft building with full-floor residences
- 60 Collister Street — the American Express Carriage House; a comparable small landmark conversion
- The Sterling Mason (71 Laight Street) — landmark warehouse conversion with a contemporary addition; the same architectural argument at larger scale
- 443 Greenwich Street — the full-service Tribeca landmark conversion; the amenity-heavy alternative
- 108 Leonard Street — landmark conversion with a full amenity program; the institutional-scale alternative
The neighborhood
For the full corridor — architecture, schools, transit, and pricing across Tribeca — read The Roebling Team Guide to Tribeca.
How to read the facts on this page. Items attributed to an offering plan describe the building as it was offered at that filing — unit mix, square footage, the amenity program as planned. They are not a statement about how the building operates today. Tax and compliance figures are sourced separately to current City records and carry their own dates. House rules, staffing and fee policy can change by board resolution without any public filing: treat every policy line here as a starting point for diligence and confirm it with the managing agent.
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