The attractive Pearline Soap Factory Building at 414 Washington Street on the northwest corner at Leight Street is a new loft condominium apartment building in TriBeCa that was designed by Joseph Pell Lombardi and opened in 2008. 

Named after a company that used to occupy a building on the site, the building is 7 stories tall and has 12 apartments. 

It is virtually a twin of a slighter larger building erected at the same time that is known as the Fairchild and Foster Atelier at 415 Washington Street on the southeast corner at Vestry Street. 

Both condominium apartment buildings were developed by Atlantic Walk LLC., whose principals are Gerard Longo, Shiraz Sanjava and Joseph Scarpinito.

BOTTOM LINE

A modest, “new” building that looks like a very nice “old building close to the Hudson River in TriBeCa and it also looks very similar to another “new” building across the street.  Both were designed by Joseph Pell Lombardi, the city’s leading restoration and renovation architect of properties in Lower Manhattan.

DESCRIPTION

The Pearline is a red-brick buildings large, multi-paned windows, many slightly arched and corrugated steel canopies over the entrance and three-foot-high loading docks around its bases. 

The building has no garage, no balconies and no sidewalk landscaping.

AMENITIES

The building, which is also known as 78 Laight Street, has a part-time doorman, a courtyard and allows pets.

APARTMENTS

Ceilings are 10-and-a-half feet high and feature auto window shades and Brazilian teak floors.  

Kitchens are windowed and have Subzero refrigerators, Miele dishwashers and Wolf cooktops and ovens. 

Baths are windowed and have travertine floors and walls, radiant heat flooring, and Toto toilets. 

The three-bedroom apartments are entered directly into the 50-foot-long and 26-foot-wide living/dining room with an open kitchen and island.

HISTORY

When the architect appeared before the landmarks committee of Community Board 1 he confessed that although he had submitted “commercial” applications, he had designed the 414 and 415 Washington Street projects as “residential” since the North TriBeCa area was then zoned as a manufacturing district where the only permitted residential uses were “joint living and working quarters for artists” requiring a zoning variance. 

The City Planning Commission, however, had recently proposed rezoning the area to be the same as South TriBeCa where residential uses were permitted “as-of-right.” 

Both sites were then parking lots. 

Board member Rick Landman was quoted in TriBeCa Trib article by Barry Owens as remarking at the meeting that the two projects were “the nicest manufacturing buildings built in the last 100 years.” 

A January 21, 2010 article by Candace Taylor at therealdeal.com said that original plans for the building called for 15 units of about 1,500 square feet each.  “’In TriBeCa, the market was calling for larger units to accommodate families,’ Mr. Longo said.  ‘We made the decision that 3,000-square-foot, floor-through units would be the best way to go.  That’s one of the things that helped us to be successful.’” 

According to Mr. Lombardi: 

“In the character of the TriBeCa North Historic District, 414 Washington Street and 415 Washington Street have district traditional brick construction in a utilitarian, rational design containing tripartite facades compared of red brick arches clearly expressing the structure with the substantial depth of masonry fully apparent, flat openings with light camber on the first floor, segmentally-arched openings at the middle floors, and found-arched openings at the top floor, raised platforms with glass lenses distinguishing the base and facades terminating in simple corbelled brick cornices, canopies and utilitarian lighting marking the entrances and granite sidewalks.” 

The two buildings were built as one project. 

David Howell designed the interiors.