artist in residence building in soho

You could be fine, or you could get screwed. Do you like gambling with large sums of money? I would only do it if I could afford to lose what I put in.

Wonderful advice maly.

Contact a real estate attorney who is very familiar with AIR buildings. Plenty of people have lived in them for years without a problem. But obviously you need to be comfortable.

An attorney I spoke with said worst case scenario you could be forced to sell if you are not a certified artist and the city decides to enforce this. She also added you could put the apartment on the market at such an unreasonble price where no one purchases it and you would be ok.

Consult your attorney.

This is one of the only times I'm going to give this type of advice, so it certainly isn't my usual MO:

up thru the 80's AIR was a serious thing. Origianlly, it wasn't just in the M1-5B zone of Soho and Noho - it was something like up to 2 floors could be AIR just about anywhere. While few of these signs remain, you would see on fire escapes "AIR 2; AIR 5 " to indicate to Fire Dept that there were people using those floors as residences. Then it shifted at some point to geographically restricted to the Soho/Noho M1-5B zone. Back in the 80's, there were risks such as a bunch of banks would not lend in AIR buildings, the Dept of Consumer Affairs claimed they were going to enforce AIR, etc.

But the only time they actually had the power to do anything was when a building was about to get their C of O, and they could make an objection if the building was not AIR compliant and block the issuance of the C of O. But that really meant the once a building finished going Coop or Condo, there wasn't mu to prevent sales/residence to non_AIR Certificate holders.

Through the 80's, attorney ?Margaret Beasley? (the reason for the question marks is she was so prominent, but is unable to found on this issue using Google) was telling clients "don't worry about AIR, it's BS". At the time, I thought she was really misleading he clients and putting her clients at great risk. Well... she was right and I was wrong. hundreds of non_AIR complaint people moved into AIR residences (or, perhaps wore appropriately "Joint Living?Working Quarters for Artists") and basically none of them ever had any real issues.

So if you asked me in the 80's, I would have said "stay away. stay far, far away", today my answer is "it seems like the City couldn't really give a shit about the issue.

Several years ago, I looked at an AIR loft in Flatiron. Price in excess of $2MM, co-op required 50% down. I am pretty sure few if any "artists" were looking at this apartment. My wife, however, can do some mean paint by numbers.

thanks for the comments, everyone. i have a call into my lawyer about it, and will post what I learn.

"Several years ago, I looked at an AIR loft in Flatiron. Price in excess of $2MM, co-op required 50% down. I am pretty sure few if any "artists" were looking at this apartment. My wife, however, can do some mean paint by numbers."

130 West 26th St?

30yrs -- It was the top (6th?) floor of a building, north side of the street. I want to say 20th St. on either side of Broadway. Nice place, enormous skylight, but place was a total wreck. This was probably summer of 2002.

if it was $2MM in 2002, it wasn't 130 w 26th: that's when I was selling the top floor of that building, but it was for a fraction of that. You sure it was AIR and not commercial? Sounds a lot like 6 W 20th, 11th floor, but that's commercial not AIR.

I think it was 20 east 20th. I saw one recent listing on SE that was similar, but smaller, and it it does not mention AIR. This was about 3,000 sq ft, it was actually the summer of 2003.

True AIR lofts only exist in parts of SoHo and NoHo. The last five comments likely refer to commercial property. I strongly recommend against purchasing commerical property (that without a certificate of occupancy) for residential use. True SoHo/NoHo lofts are safe. If the building already has a certificate of occupancy, no one from the city is going to come inspect to see who is living in your apartment. Besides, all of the buildings accept waivers (or, accept non-artists, as many buildings don't even bother with waivers). It's the only way to live in an authentic loft building in those neighborhoods. Speak with a lawyer who is familiar with SoHo/NoHo, but I've never heard of anyone having a problem in the past 15 years.

Interesting board to say the least. Are there any people with strong updates/opinions here?

I do disagree with the above poster that true lofts are "safe." Non-artist residents have been facing increasing scrutiny from the city, and I've heard stories where DoB stopped renovations.

As for the newest update, there was a community board meeting a few days ago, but I didn't get to it ... Sandy, you around?

ali r.
DG Neary Realty

Ali asks, I respond! (When I see the summons)

My report from the community meeting (not Community Board meeting) was posted on June 8 < http://www.realtown.com/sandymattingly/blog/loft-neighborhoods-soho/political-response-to-soho-artist-or-zoning-problem/ >. I tried to report it as it happened, as far as paraphrasing speakers, but my bias should be clear: count me among those who think that A.I.R. as applied in Soho is a problem that needs to be addressed.

For other views, including differences of opinion as to how to characterize the who-said-what facts, Curbed had a pretty good set of comments (for Curbed, a high signal-t-noise ratio): http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2011/06/07/group_wants_to_abolish_sohos_artistinresidence_law.php

Your risk is enforcement of AIR at some point of time. In that case, you may be forced to sell to an artist say at 20% discount. If the apt is small part of your assets and $1.5mm range, worth the risk as the discount is likely to be smaller if forced to sell to an artist. I would not want to risk a major part of my net worth in a expensive apt. That said, Soho is bit cheaper relative to comparable Tribeca properties - likely due to AIR issue.