tapered Flatiron project loft at 10 East 18 Street sells for $905/ft

the single bathroom is a tell
There are not many Manhattan lofts that are as large as the “2,874 sq ft” #5N at 10 East 18 Street (at the north end of the condominium 7 East 17 Street) that only have one bathroom. (I can’t think of a single other such loft, but there are probably a few such dinosaurs still roaming the world.) Any potential buyer seeing that this loft has just the one bathroom will assume that they should bring a professional friend when they visit, but it is always nice when agents are as specific as this, as stated in the broker babble:

Space WILL NEED a renovation so bring your Architect or Designer and create a traditional OPEN LOFT or a 3 bedroom 2 bath apartment with your taste and preferences!

The only thing missing from that sentence is “a complete renovation”, but there is fair enough warning, as is. Of course the asking price is also a strong warning about condition (Caution: Gut Renovation Ahead!), starting at about $1,000/ft, then dropping ….

The loft took rather a long time to sell, considering there was only one not terribly large price drop, then a negotiation to a similar not terribly large discount. I have to believe that the reasonably well-priced campaign took a while to find The Right Buyer because there are not many people for whom the footprint is exciting. here’s the history, before we look at the … er … challenges in the shape (omitting some short breaks):

That’s 8 months to contract only 5% off the 5-month old price and only 10% off the original price. But there was a probably a thin market for this thin loft.

not a classic Long-and-Narrow
The floor plan shows that loft #5N is very long and very narrow, but is hardly a classic Long-and-Narrow because it gets almost comically narrow as it tapers toward the south. If you zoom in on the plan you can see the dimensions so that you can check my math: the loft is nearly 150 feet long! Only 21’7” at it widest (the entire front half), it telescopes not once but four times until it all but disappears into a 28 inch space just wide enough for a toilet.

Maybe you have to look at too many loft floor plans in your life to find this comical (guilty!) but have you ever seen a floor plan that makes you laugh? Grin, at least? How about, shake your head in wonder? (I will take that.)

I can’t find large format photos anywhere, and what photos you can see are hard to read. I have no idea from the photos, for example, how much light gets in through those 5 windows on the long west wall in the front half, or through those 6 east windows in the back half. Not can you tell from the floor plan where the plumbing stacks are, except for the 3 spots running to the rear where the kitchen, wash-dryer, and (lone) bathroom are. (Please god; there must be plumbing stacks somewhere up front, right??)

Consider the challenges of this floor plan, even assuming you could put additional plumbing anywhere you like along the nearly 150 foot length and that you erased all the interior walls to start over: the best light is almost certainly from the 4 windows up front, at the north (really, probably 3 windows plus fire escape door, which I really hope permits light), but the elevator juts out very close to at least one of those north windows, shrinking the ‘volume’ in your (likely) Living Room; if you use the widest (front space) for bedrooms (to take advantage of the east windows), you could have easily 3 real bedrooms, but would need a long hallway to transit from the living room around 40 feet of bedrooms, to the vast middle of the space, where you’d begin a series of family / media/ office spaces until you got close to the kitchen, where you’d have the dining area.

There’s not many choices to be made, unfortunately, with so little flexibility, even assuming the Loft Gods have provided ample plumbing possibilities.

One way to look at this is that loft #5N is probably the largest loft you’ve ever seen with not very much volume. Nothing is wasted, per se, but it seems to me difficult space to fully inhabit joyfully. Especially if those side windows don’t provide much light. Note that, unlike  a classic Long-and-Narrow, there are no south windows, at the (laughably) narrow end.

how could you comp such a space?
The sellers and agents obviously did a pretty good job pricing this very odd loft, as ti sold at 90% of the first ask, even if it took a while. There can’t be many similarly challenged lofts out there; nor can there be many buyers willing to take on the challenge of this incredibly shrinking loft.

Depending on light and plumbing flexibility (those drums, beaten again), there may be considerable upside. Don’t tell anyone I told you, but if you click around on the StreetEasy building page you will find your way to the space that fills out the 5th floor “key plan” on the loft #5N floor plan. That space is significantly wider than #5N at its widest, never gets as unconventionally narrow at its most narrow, and dresses up real nice. Nice enough that it seems to have been quickly snapped up about $500/ft less than #5N sold for.

If you did click around on the StreetEasy building page, you may have noted that the 8th floor, at least, is divided very differently than the 5th floor. Like me, you’d wonder why the 5th floor is split in such an odd way. You’d also have noted that the north loft on the 4th floor was sold by the sponsor 2 years ago at $2,049,228, but then you’d be as frustrated as I was in not seeing a listing for that sale, or a floor plan, or even a square footage claim.

For those of you who can access Property Shark, that building page shows that #4N was only “2,317 sq ft”, so was likely to be much more rationally laid out than #5N, hopefully without that telescoping section of #5N. Even so, note that #4N must have been in pretty primitive shape then as it sold for only $884/ft. The 7th floor has a much different set of footprints than the 4th, 5th or 8th floors, as The Shark shows that loft #7N is only “2,016 sq ft”, probably the most rational (least telescoped) floor plan of the “N” clan.

(Countdown … 10 … 9 … 8 …)

© Sandy Mattingly 2013