Ten Apartments on Charles Street Are Filed to Become One House

A Department of Buildings job to combine 79 and 81 Charles Street, two 1866 townhouses in the Greenwich Village Historic District, into a single one-family home was refiled on September 16 and now sits at “Pending Plan Examiner Assignment.” The filing, M00785892-P4, carries 10 existing dwelling units and 1 proposed, at a declared construction cost of $31,839,028. The owner of record is THE SJL TRUST. The applicant is Steven Harris of Steven Harris Architects LLP. The work is already partly permitted and is not finished.

Why it matters

The change-of-occupancy filing itself is the news: it is the instrument by which 10 apartments leave the housing stock and become one house. Whether any of those units were rent regulated is not established by the DOB or PLUTO record, and we are not claiming it. The timing is what gives the number weight. The city’s rent freeze on stabilized units takes effect October 1, and the policy argument on both sides of it is about supply. Here the supply math is legible in a single job number. More NYC filings are tracked at the New York market hub.

The numbers

The trust paid $16,000,000 for 79 Charles in a deed dated October 29, 2021 and recorded December 23, and $10,150,000 for 81 Charles, dated December 16, 2021 and recorded January 6, 2022. That is $26,150,000 for the pair. Add the declared cost and the committed figure is $57,989,028, or about $5.8 million per apartment removed. The two lots are assessed at $2,710,110 combined, a ratio of 21.4 to 1. Combined existing building area is 7,780 sq ft, which puts the declared cost at $4,092 per sq ft. The job proposes an enlargement, 4 stories to 5 and 43 ft to 54 ft, with 12,240 sq ft of construction floor area, so on the finished figure the declared cost falls to $2,601 per sq ft. Both deeds name The Northern Trust Company as trustee, at a Houston address.

What’s next

Pending Plan Examiner Assignment means the refiled job has not been reviewed. Eleven separate DOB jobs and 32 filings now sit on the lot, covering support of excavation, underpinning, partial demolition, plumbing, sprinkler, HVAC and scaffold. The sidewalk shed at 79 Charles was first filed on September 25, 2023 and last renewed on September 15, 2025, so it has stood for roughly three years. A new certificate of occupancy is what the job is for, and none has issued.