The Bennett (736 West 187th Street)

The building is a seven-story masonry mid-block on a 21,392-square-foot lot, wide enough for a rear outdoor parking court and a garden. Floors one through six carry nine residences each except the first, which gives up floor area to the lobby, the driveway entrance and the covered parking. The seventh floor holds four penthouses.

Residence sizes on the assessment roll run from roughly 670 to about 1,400 square feet, with a median near 1,190. That median is the story: a building composed almost entirely of two- and three-bedroom plans, at sizes that most Hudson Heights co-ops can only match through combinations. The washer/dryer rule tracks the plan — hookups were built into the three-bedrooms and seventh-floor two-bedrooms, and the house rules confine machines to those residences and the penthouses.

The design is plain contemporary brick, in the context of a neighborhood of Tudor and Art Deco apartment houses. It sells on layout, light and parking rather than architecture.

The 421-a exemption. The Department of Finance exemption roll carries code 5114 — 421-a, 25-year term, no cap — on all 86 unit lots, with a 2003 base year and a benefit-start year recorded as 2008. On the current roll the exemption covers about 95 percent of each lot's assessed value; the remaining 5 percent is the pre-construction base value, which has always been taxed. Under the standard 25-year schedule the full exemption runs for the first 21 years and then drops in 20-point steps over the last four, so taxes rise in stages before the benefit ends. On DOF's recorded start year that places the step-downs around 2029 and the end of the benefit around the 2032/33 tax year. Listing records commonly cite 2030; that is most likely the end of the full-exemption years, not the end of the benefit. The offering plan disclosed only that a 421-a application had been filed, without a term. Confirm the year-by-year schedule on the DOF record for the specific lot and underwrite taxes at full assessment for any hold beyond the early 2030s.

Capital posture. The 2022 audited statements show a roof replacement contracted at about $929,000 before change orders. It was financed with a $700,000 bank line of credit, interest-only for the first year, which converted in November 2022 to a 15-year self-liquidating loan at 5.05 percent. The board also declared a $700,000 assessment, payable monthly over 60 months from April 2021 through March 2026. The assessment has now run its course; the loan runs well past it. Local Law 11 façade work also appears in 2021 and 2022. At year-end 2022 the association carried a members' deficit after the roof spending, and the auditors note that no reserve study has been commissioned. Ask for the current loan balance, the current reserve balance, and whether any new assessment has been declared.

Staffing and services. A security and lobby-attendant contract is the largest single expense line in the 2022 statements, ahead of utilities. The building has a superintendent, a common laundry room under a vendor contract, and a compactor. Parking income is a separate revenue line to the association.

Right of first refusal. Sales and leases of residences are subject to the Board of Managers' right of first refusal, per the offering plan; the board may not discriminate in exercising it.

Parking. A parking unit may be sold or leased only to an owner or lessee of a residence. The two accessible spaces (parking units 17 and 18) carry a trade-or-sell obligation: an owner who becomes disabled may require the holder of either space to trade for, or sell at fair market value, that owner's space.

Use. Residences are for residential use; professional office use requires the board's prior written consent. Owners that are entities may allow their officers, members and employees to occupy.

Pets. One household animal per residence without further approval; all pets registered with the managing agent.

Moves and deliveries. Weekdays only, 8:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., with a refundable deposit, a move fee and a certificate of insurance.

Alterations. Structural work requires written consent under the building's alteration agreement; noisy work is limited to weekdays, 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Floors must be at least 80 percent covered outside kitchens, baths and closets.

Recent sales

Sales sourced from NYC Department of Finance recorded transfers (BBL 1-02180-7503) 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.

Model the tax step-up, not the current bill. The current tax bill reflects a near-total exemption. Run the carrying cost at the phase-out percentages and at full assessment, and match them to your expected hold.

Ask about the roof loan. A 15-year term loan taken in 2022 is still on the association's books. Get the balance and the debt service, and confirm that common charges cover it now that the 60-month assessment has ended.

Buy the parking with the apartment if you want it. Spaces can only go to residents, which keeps them scarce; a residence sold with a deeded space is a different product from one sold without.

Check the washer/dryer right on the specific residence. The rule depends on the bedroom count and floor. A two-bedroom below the seventh floor does not carry it.

Put the tax schedule in the listing package. Buyers' attorneys will find the 421-a term on the DOF roll. Presenting the schedule with the current and stepped-up figures keeps it from becoming a late renegotiation.

Have the capital answers ready. Roof loan balance, reserve balance, any new assessment. These are the three questions a buyer's attorney will ask.

Sell size and parking. At a median near 1,190 square feet, most residences here are larger than the one- and two-bedroom co-ops that make up the rest of the neighborhood. Lead with the plan and the space.

If you're considering The Bennett, also evaluate:

• 4260 Broadway — The Belford, a 1920 prewar condominium at West 180th Street; the other condominium path in Washington Heights, in prewar fabric
• 100 Bennett Avenue — Horace Ginsbern's 1939 cooperative on the same tax block; the co-op alternative next door
• Castle Village — the 1938–39 cooperative complex on Cabrini Boulevard; the neighborhood's best-known river-view co-op
• 116 Pinehurst Avenue — Hudson View Gardens, the 1920s garden cooperative a few blocks south
• 330 Haven Avenue — Lafayette Gardens, the large post-war co-op in Hudson Heights; the post-war co-op benchmark
• 2131 Frederick Douglass Boulevard — a Harlem condominium with an active 25-year 421-a; the closest tax-structure comparison in northern Manhattan
• 2280 Frederick Douglass Boulevard — another 25-year 421-a condominium; useful for how the phase-out schedule is priced
• 111 Central Park North — a 2006 condominium with deeded parking and an expired 421-a; what the building looks like after the benefit ends