A Cell With A View

Forget warehouses and churches. Today it's all about the correctional facility as real estate developers look to transform these buildings into luxury condominiums.

An article in the New Yorker points to Harlem's old Parkside Correctional Facility as a how-to-guide for anyone interested in breaking into the correctional-conversion sector. (The building will be known as 10 Mount Morris Park West.) Writer Kate Julian offers the following tips:

One: Pick the right neighborhood. Prisons aren’t usually in affluent residential districts, so if the housing is to be high end (most of the Mount Morris con-dominiums will list for more than a million dollars) it will need to be in a neighborhood (like the Mount Morris Park Historic District) that is already being gentrified.

Two: Allow some time to pass. A healthy interval between the departure of the last inmates and the condominium offering should help avert buyer anxiety. (Parkside has been closed for seven years.)

Three: Remove any fixtures that say “penal institution.” Some reminders of Parkside’s past were disposed of early on. (“We were not able to keep the cage on the roof,” Beyhan Karahan, the architect, said. “It was already so damaged, and we didn’t know what to do with it in an upscale residency, frankly.”) But, six months into construction, the prison’s front door was covered with a metal grate and still said “Parkside Correctional Facility” in peeling blue letters.

Four: Structural obstacles may prove substantial. With ceilings as low as eight feet three inches high, the dimensions of 10 Mount Morris are geared more to institutional efficiency than to luxury living. In an effort to preëmpt such criticism, the developers like to emphasize the unit’s “loftlike” open floor plans.

Five: Open houses can be risky, as the comments of neighbors and passersby may startle prospective buyers. Michael Johnson, who co-owns the S.R.O. across the street from 10 Mount Morris, said to a recent visitor, “Some of my neighbors didn’t like the jail, but the men in my building loved it, because the women prisoners would flash them sometimes through the windows. One lady tried to escape by jumping out.”

A final note: Keep an eye out for prisons with potential, even if they haven’t been vacated. The Bayview Correctional Facility, on West Twentieth Street, for instance, has a rooftop garden, and, on a clear day, residents can see the Statue of Liberty. The Lincoln Correctional Facility, on 110th Street, has an exercise area on the roof with a panoramic view of Central Park. Brian Fischer, who worked at Parkside for many years, recalls his former workplace fondly. “The women didn’t want to leave,” he said recently. “It had a great view, and the place was air-conditioned.” Fischer is now the superintendent of Sing Sing. “Talk about property values—we’re on the river. Unbelievable.”