54 Bleecker Street (The NoHo Star)
54 Bleecker Street, New York, NY 10012
NoHo
BBL 1005227501 · BIN 1008223
- Year built
- 1896
- Type
- Condominium
- Units
- 2026
- Landmark
- Designated
Every recorded sale at this building, 2005–2022
Price-per-square-foot over time, the line- and floor-premium curves, and every recorded sale.
- Median $/sf
- $2,270
- Recorded sales
- 11
- On record
- 2005–2022
The corner of Bleecker and Lafayette was warehouse ground in 1896, and the building that went up there was built to carry weight: eight stories of steel frame behind a Romanesque Revival masonry envelope, designed by George Keister for J. B. Cole. Keister's reputation rests on theatres — the Belasco, the Apollo — and this is the commercial half of a career that is otherwise remembered for proscenium arches. The plate is the point. A 4,800-square-foot corner lot carried through eight stories produces floors deep enough to make loft apartments, which is exactly what happened eighty-nine years later.
The conversion is dated with unusual precision by its tax record. A J-51 benefit was initiated on the property in 1985 — the standard incentive for exactly this kind of alteration in exactly this period — the condominium declaration was recorded on October 24, 1986, and the first unit deeds followed that December. What the public record does not contain is the alteration job itself: the Department of Buildings' published filing dataset for this building begins in 2000, which places the conversion alteration outside the digital file. The condominium is therefore documented by ACRIS and by the Department of Finance, and the building department's contribution to the story starts a decade and a half later.
Two consequences of the conversion's vintage still govern this building. The first is occupancy. In 1985 NoHo was zoned M1-5B, and residential use was generally available only as joint living-work quarters for artists. A 2005 Department of Buildings filing describing "renovation of existing JLWQ apartment on the 5th floor" is direct evidence of that classification here, and it is the kind of sentence a buyer's counsel needs to see before contract. The December 2021 SoHo/NoHo rezoning replaced M1-5B with M1-5/R9A inside the new Special SoHo-NoHo Mixed Use District and made conventional residential use available going forward — but a rezoning does not amend an existing certificate of occupancy, and DOB filings for this building continued to carry the old district until very recently.
The second is taxes. The J-51 that made the 1985 conversion financeable ran twelve years on the exemption and fourteen on the abatement. It expired around the turn of the century. There has been no building-wide tax benefit here for roughly a quarter of a century, and no buyer should be modeling one.
What the building has in place of a tax benefit is scale and light. Eleven residences in 26,251 square feet, on a corner, with private elevator landings and floor plates that run two units wide up to the sixth floor and full-floor at the seventh. The ground and second floors are commercial — the NoHo Star restaurant held the base from the early 1980s until 2018 — and that commercial area, 11,176 square feet of it, carries a share of the building's common charges that materially changes the residential per-unit burden.
Architecture and unit composition
The building presents two full elevations, on Bleecker and on Lafayette, which is the reason its apartments read as corner lofts rather than as narrow through-floors. The Romanesque Revival treatment is masonry over a steel frame, with the heavy base and arched upper openings characteristic of 1890s warehouse work in this district. Landmarks records the primary material as steel with brick — a technically accurate description that distinguishes it from the cast-iron front buildings a few blocks southwest and explains why the façade's structural questions have been about spandrel beams rather than ironwork.
The residential stack runs from the third floor up. Floors three through six carry paired A and B residences; the seventh floor is a single full-floor unit; the eighth carries 8A and 8B, combined into one apartment under a 2002 filing though still recorded as two tax lots. Published descriptions record ceilings to about twelve feet and original columns retained in the apartments, which is consistent with the warehouse structure. Interiors vary considerably: the units were conveyed in 1986 and have been renovated on individual owners' schedules across four decades, so condition is a unit-level question rather than a building-level one.
Building operations
There is no staff program to speak of — private elevator landings, no doorman, no amenity suite. The operating question at this building is the envelope, and the record is substantial.
The building has run a near-continuous exterior program for more than a decade. Sidewalk sheds and scaffolds appear in the filing record in 2013, 2014, 2017, 2020, 2022, 2023, 2025 and again in June 2026. The substantive work behind them includes spandrel repairs in 2017, exterior repair work in 2014, Local Law 11 façade repair in 2020, masonry, pointing, lintel and sill work in 2023, and — most notably — reinforcement of an existing steel spandrel beam at the second-floor framing elevation, filed in July 2025 with further plumbing and structural filings approved in June and August 2026. A structural reinforcement at the second-floor framing line in a steel-framed 1896 warehouse is not routine cyclical maintenance, and it is currently live.
That is the diligence priority at this address. Before contract, ask for: the Local Law 11 cycle status and the engineer's report; the scope, cost and funding of the spandrel-beam reinforcement and whether it is assessed or reserve-funded; the current reserve position and the assessment history; the elevator modernization record; any open Landmarks items; and the underlying commercial leases, because the commercial units carry a large share of the budget and the ground-floor tenancy changed after 2018.
Policy framework
Ownership form: Condominium. Transfers clear through a board right of first refusal rather than a cooperative approval vote, which produces the faster and more predictable closing timeline typical of the form.
Pied-à-terre, subletting, LLC, trust and foreign purchasers: Permitted under the standard condominium framework. Any minimum lease term or rental cap should be confirmed with the managing agent.
Pets: Listing records describe the building as pet-friendly. Weight and breed rules are not documented in public records.
Occupancy — joint living-work quarters. The residential use here is documented in Department of Buildings records as joint living-work quarters, established under M1-5B manufacturing zoning. The 2021 rezoning to M1-5/R9A within the Special SoHo-NoHo Mixed Use District changed the forward rules; it did not rewrite the existing certificate of occupancy. Read the current certificate of occupancy for the specific unit before contract, and have counsel confirm whether any artist-certification condition attaches. This is the most commonly misunderstood point in NoHo loft transactions of this vintage.
Loft Law. The Department of Buildings Loft Board field is inconsistent across this building's filings. Treat Interim Multiple Dwelling status as an open question to be resolved with the managing agent and counsel, not as settled by a data field.
Real estate taxes: No live exemption. The 1985 J-51 exemption burned off around 1997 and the abatement around 1999. Underwrite full unabated taxes on the specific unit against the current bill, then apply the co-op/condo abatement only if the buyer will occupy the unit as a primary residence.
Local Law 97
- 2024–2029 annual penalty
- $0 (under cap)
- 2030–2034 annual penalty
- $13,272/yr
- Per unit / month range
- $0 – $101
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 →Facade safety — Local Law 11
The latest available FISP filing classified the facade as Safe — no repairs were required at that inspection. Facade inspections run on a fixed five-year cycle; future inspection, repair, and any assessment decisions remain building-specific.
How to read this, and where it comes from
QEWI = Qualified Exterior Wall Inspector — the licensed engineer the city requires to sign the report (the independent expert, not the managing agent).
Penalties shown are amounts DOB assessed against filings on record across 2005–10 to 2020–25. The FISP dataset does not record whether they were paid, contested or remain open, so treat the figure as history rather than a current balance and confirm the building’s standing with the managing agent.
Source: NYC DOB facade filings (FISP) · The Roebling Research Library. City record last verified September 2026.
Recent sales
This is a genuine, long-standing condominium with a four-decade record of arm's-length resales among unrelated owners. The residences were conveyed individually beginning in December 1986, and unit lots have traded repeatedly since — with recorded resales across the 2000s, 2010s and 2020s at a range of prices. No unit lot is classified as a Department of Finance condominium rental. Turnover is slow, as it usually is in eleven-unit loft buildings where owners have held for decades.
One structural feature of the current ownership is worth stating, because it affects governance rather than pricing. In May 2026 six of the building's unit lots — both commercial units and four of the eleven residences — were conveyed at nominal consideration from two long-held ownerships into a single limited liability company. The pattern and the pricing are consistent with an estate or entity reorganization rather than a market sale, but the result is that one entity now holds a large minority of the residential units and both commercial units, and therefore a correspondingly large share of the common interest and the vote. In an eleven-unit condominium that concentration is material to how assessments are approved, how the commercial leases are negotiated, and how the current structural work is funded. Ask for the current common-interest schedule and recent board minutes.
Pricing here is loft pricing: per square foot, against NoHo and SoHo full-floor and half-floor loft condominiums with private elevator landings, not against new-development inventory. Because interiors have been renovated on individual schedules since 1986, the spread between a recently rebuilt residence and an original one is wide, and a building-wide per-foot average is close to meaningless. Market statements should be indexed to the last complete year. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan 21, 2022 | 5B | 2,170 sf | $5,250,000 | $2,419/sf | off-mkt |
| Dec 14, 2021 | 5A | 2 BR · 2 BA · 1,686 sf | $4,100,000 | $2,432/sf | off-mkt |
| Dec 13, 2021 | 6B | 2,170 sf | $4,550,000 | $2,097/sf | off-mkt |
| Nov 16, 2020 | 5B | 2,170 sf | $4,850,000 | $2,235/sf | off-mkt |
| Jan 16, 2020 | 5A | 2 BR · 2 BA · 1,800 sf | $3,400,000 | $1,889/sf | +13.5% |
| Nov 5, 2014 | 6A | 3 BR · 1,800 sf | $3,400,000 | $1,889/sf | -1.4% |
| Sep 16, 2014 | 5B | 2,170 sf | $4,850,000 | $2,235/sf | off-mkt |
| Jan 24, 2013 | 6B | 2,170 sf | $4,250,000 | $1,959/sf | off-mkt |
Market read. Most recent trades (2022) cleared a median $2,270/sf across 1 sale.
The retrade record
Lines that have traded more than once in the public record — the building’s appreciation arc, apartment by apartment.
Full closing history with price-per-square-foot over time, the complete retrade record, and every line that has traded.
Sales sourced from NYC Department of Finance recorded transfers (BBL 1-00522-7501) 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
Read the certificate of occupancy on joint living-work quarters. The residential use is documented as JLWQ under the old M1-5B zoning. The 2021 rezoning changed the forward rules, not the existing document.
There is no tax benefit. The conversion-era J-51 exemption expired around 1997 and the abatement around 1999. Underwrite full taxes.
The façade program is live, and there is structural work in it. Reinforcement of a second-floor steel spandrel beam has been filed and permitted across 2025 and 2026. Establish scope, cost and funding before you sign.
Understand the commercial base. Two commercial units carrying 11,176 square feet is a large share of a 37,427-square-foot building. The economics of the residential common charges depend on those leases.
One entity holds a large minority position. Both commercial units and four residences moved into a single entity in May 2026. Read the common-interest schedule.
Search both addresses. 54 Bleecker Street and 330–338 Lafayette Street are the same building. Records pulled under one address miss much of the file.
What to know if you’re selling
Lead with the plate, the corner and the elevator landing. Two full elevations, twelve-foot ceilings, original columns and a private landing is a specific and scarce NoHo product.
Have the structural file ready. Buyers' counsel will find the spandrel-beam filings. A clear, documented answer — scope, engineer, cost, funding — converts a red flag into a completed capital item.
Assemble the occupancy paperwork before offers. The certificate of occupancy and a clear position on the joint living-work classification prevent the most common mid-diligence stall in NoHo.
Price the interior separately from the building. Forty years of individual renovation schedules means two units in this building can be a decade and several million dollars apart in condition. Line-specific and condition-adjusted comparables beat any building average.
Comparable buildings
If you're considering 54 Bleecker Street, also evaluate:
- 27 Bleecker Street — NoHo building on a different tax block a short walk east; a separate building and a different tenure
- 36 Bleecker Street — NoHo loft building on the same street; comparable vintage
- 40 Bleecker Street — NoHo condominium a block east; the more serviced alternative
- 10 Bleecker Street — NoHo building at the Bowery end of the street
- 285 Lafayette Street — Lafayette Street loft condominium; the closest peer by street and product
- 295 Lafayette Street — Lafayette Street loft building at larger scale
- 25 Bond Street — contemporary NoHo condominium; the new-construction comparison at similar unit size
- 22 Bond Street — boutique NoHo condominium at a comparable denominator
- 27 Great Jones Street — NoHo loft conversion nearby
- 684 Broadway — NoHo loft building on the Broadway spine; comparable conversion vintage
The neighborhood
For the full corridor — architecture, schools, transit, and pricing across East Village + NoHo — read The Roebling Team Guide to East Village + NoHo.
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.
Considering a move at The NoHo Star, after the restaurant that occupied the ground floor from the early 1980s until 2018?
Request a private building brief with the relevant comparable sales, current and off-market availability, and an apartment-specific view of value.
Own an apartment here? See what it would sell for.
A Private Pricing Opinion — what your apartment at The NoHo Star, after the restaurant that occupied the ground floor from the early 1980s until 2018 would likely sell for today, what it costs to sell, and what you’d walk away with — reviewed personally against condition, exposures, renovation quality, and the competition actually on the market.