Front & York (85 Jay Street)
85 Jay Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201
DUMBO, Brooklyn
BBL 3000547501 · BIN 3425091
- Year built
- 2021
- Type
- Condominium
- Units
- 408
- Floors
- 21
- Landmark
- No
- Flip tax
- None; one month's common charges working-capital contribution due from each purchaser, initial and resale (offering plan)
- Financing
- Standard condominium; no financing contingency at initial offering (offering plan)
- Subletting
- Permitted (standard condo); sponsor-period restriction barred initial purchasers from listing for sale or rent pre-closing and for 12 months post-closing (offering plan)
- Pied-à-terre
- Permitted (condo)
- Washer / dryer
- In every tower unit (offering plan)
- Pets
- Pet-friendly; dog spas among shared amenities (offering plan); specific restrictions unverified
Compiled by The Roebling Research Desk from the building’s offering plan, amendments, and related building documents (primary source dated 2019-06-27). Board policies can change by amendment — confirm at the offer stage.
Front & York is the largest residential development ever built in DUMBO — a full city block, approximately 1.1 million square feet, 408 condominium residences in two 21-story towers plus roughly 320 rentals, on land that spent decades as a Watchtower Society parking lot. When CIM Group and LIVWRK closed on the site in December 2016 for a reported $345 million, the purchase was among the defining transactions of the Jehovah's Witnesses' withdrawal from Brooklyn — the same institutional exit that produced the conversion wave at 25 Columbia Heights and the Panorama campus. Where most of that inventory was adaptive reuse, 85 Jay Street was a blank block, and the sponsor used it to build the neighborhood's first true large-scale, amenity-driven condominium.
The architectural assignment was delicate: a project of this scale sits one block east of the DUMBO Historic District's Gair-era loft buildings, and a glass tower of 728 units would have read as an occupation. Morris Adjmi Architects — the New York firm whose practice is substantially built on new construction that metabolizes industrial context — answered with gridded masonry elevations, deep window reveals, arched crown floors, and a podium-and-towers massing that holds the street walls on all four sides. The result reads from Jay Street and York Street as a descendant of the reinforced-concrete daylight factories that define the district, executed at a scale the district had never absorbed. Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, the landscape practice that designed Brooklyn Bridge Park itself, designed the roughly one-acre private garden in the block's interior — a genuinely unusual credential for a private residential courtyard.
The amenity program is the other structural argument. Approximately 150,000 square feet — the eighth-floor indoor suite (screening, billiards, wine room, music room, co-working, children's and teen rooms), the rooftop pool deck with grill area and outdoor screening, the private park, dog spas, and the 77,000-square-foot Life Time athletic club that opened in the retail component in 2022 — puts Front & York in a service tier that simply did not exist in Brooklyn's loft-conversion inventory. Buyers who weigh a 1 Main Street or 70 Washington Street loft against Front & York are weighing authenticity and volume against infrastructure; the buildings are answering different briefs.
For sellers, the relevant fact is that Front & York established a new top tier of DUMBO's new-development market at meaningful scale: an offering plan carrying an initial aggregate offering of $826.4 million across the 408 tower units, absorbed steadily through the 2021–2024 sales cycle. The building now functions as the neighborhood's principal reference point for full-amenity condominium pricing, and its resale market — still young — trades against sponsor-era pricing rather than against the loft stock.
Architecture and unit composition
The condominium's 408 residences divide between the Front Tower (entered at 180 Front Street) and the York Tower (entered at 115 York Street), each rising 21 stories above the shared podium. Floors are numbered through 21 with a penthouse level; the eighth floor is the principal amenity level, with the indoor suite opening to outdoor lounges, the pool, sundecks, and the grill area on the adjacent roof. The structural system is reinforced concrete, classified fireproof construction, with the parking level and lower level below grade and retail at the ground and upper-retail floors.
Unit inventory runs from one-bedrooms through four-bedroom and penthouse-tier residences; publicly reported sponsor pricing at launch began under $1 million, with the aggregate initial offering of $826.41 million across 408 units implying an average initial price around $2 million — mid-market by Manhattan new-development standards, top-of-market for Brooklyn at the time. Every tower unit contains an in-unit washer and dryer per the offering plan. Corner exposures on the upper floors of both towers carry Manhattan Bridge, Brooklyn Bridge, skyline, and harbor views; interior-facing units overlook the Van Valkenburgh garden, a quieter and greener outlook than the street sides.
Buyers should understand the condominium's internal structure: the towers, the Rental Unit (approximately 320 apartments, operated as a separately owned rental property), two retail units, and a parking unit are distinct components, with certain amenities — the courtyard, gallery terrace, dog spas, and laundry rooms — designated as shared elements between the tower section and the rental component. The tower-exclusive amenities (the eighth-floor suite and the roof) are reserved to condominium residents.
Building operations
Front & York operates with attended lobbies in each tower, a tower-section resident manager (the offering plan designated Unit 2F as the resident manager's unit, purchased by the tower board under a note structure described in the plan), package rooms at each lobby, and the full amenity staff the program implies. The offering plan's governance structure is more layered than a typical single-tower condominium — a condominium board across all components plus a tower board for the residential section, with Front Tower and York Tower owners electing designated seats — and resale purchasers should expect building documents to reflect that architecture.
Two operational notes belong in any diligence file. First, the rental component is institutionally owned (CIM Group sold the 320-unit rental portion in early 2022), so the block functions as a mixed ownership community; shared-amenity scheduling and cost allocations between the tower and rental sections are set by the condominium documents. Second, the offering plan discloses no tax abatement: the tower units pay full real estate taxes, and the correct carrying-cost analysis is the current tax bill on the specific unit plus common charges — run it through the True Monthly Carrying Cost calculator below.
Recent sales
Recent closings at this building, sourced from NYC Department of Finance records. Apartment-level detail (line, condition, asking-price context) verified upon consultation request.
| Date | Unit | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Jun 24, 2025 | 11K | $707,683.75 |
Sales sourced from NYC Department of Finance recorded transfers (BBL 3-00054-7501) 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.
What to know if you’re buying
This is DUMBO's full-service option. The eighth-floor suite, rooftop pool, private Van Valkenburgh park, dog spas, and the Life Time club downstairs constitute an amenity tier without a real peer in the neighborhood. If the alternative you're weighing is a loft at 1 Main Street or 70 Washington Street, be honest about which brief you're buying against.
Understand the block's structure. The condominium includes a separately owned 320-unit rental component; certain podium amenities are shared between owners and renters, while the eighth floor and roof are tower-exclusive. Review the condominium documents' allocation of shared-amenity costs.
Taxes are full and unabated. The offering plan describes no abatement. Model the current tax bill on the specific unit — the carrying-cost profile differs materially from abated new development elsewhere in Brooklyn.
Line selection drives value. Bridge- and skyline-view corners, garden-facing interiors, and street-facing lower floors are different products at different prices; recent same-line comparables are the right anchor in a building this large.
Condominium mechanics are standard and fast. Right of first refusal rather than board approval; 30–45 day closing timelines; LLC, foreign, and pied-à-terre purchasers accommodated.
What to know if you’re selling
Market the credential stack. Morris Adjmi architecture, Van Valkenburgh landscape, the CIM/LIVWRK development pedigree, and the neighborhood's deepest amenity program — this is the rare Brooklyn building where the marketing story is institutional rather than romantic, and it should be told that way.
Price against the line, indexed to sponsor history. With 408 units, building-average $/sf figures mislead in both directions. The correct anchors are recent closings on your line and the unit's original sponsor pricing trajectory.
Expect amenity-motivated buyers. The buyer pool skews toward households specifically shopping the amenity tier — families using the playroom-to-teen-lounge range, and buyers cross-shopping Manhattan new development. Presentation should speak that language.
Disclose the shared-amenity structure cleanly. Sophisticated buyers will ask how the rental component interacts with the condominium; a transparent explanation, documents in hand, shortens negotiations.
Comparable buildings
If you're considering Front & York, also evaluate:
- J Condominium (100 Jay Street) — the neighborhood's first condominium tower (2007), one block west; taller views, an earlier generation of finishes and amenities
- 1 Main Street (The Clock Tower) — the Gair-era trophy loft conversion at the waterfront; scarcity and volume against Front & York's infrastructure
- 70 Washington Street — DUMBO's largest loft conversion; the classic Two Trees-era alternative
- 98 Front Street — recent boutique new development two blocks west
- 51 Jay Street — loft-styled new construction on the same street, at boutique scale
- 205 Water Street — modern boutique condominium on the district's quieter eastern blocks
- 1 John Street — Alloy's 42-unit condominium inside Brooklyn Bridge Park; small-scale, park-front counterpoint
- Quay Tower (50 Bridge Park Drive) — the Brooklyn Bridge Park waterfront tower alternative in Brooklyn Heights
- One Brooklyn Bridge Park (360 Furman Street) — the park's warehouse-scale conversion; comparable amenity depth in a different architectural register
Considering a move at Front & York?
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