It was constructed from 1929 to 1930 and was designed by the firm of Jardine, Hill & Murdock in the Art Deco style for Kent Automatic Garages.

The building originally functioned as a 1,000-spot garage, with a gas station at the corner of Columbus Avenue and 61st Street.

Originally, the building had large vehicular elevators, as well as electric trolleys on each floor, which automatically transported vehicles to parking spots.

Aaron Green and Growth Realty Companies bought the building for $9.3 million in August 1983 and converted it into a residential and commercial condominium over the next year.

[4][5] The surrounding section of Columbus Avenue contains many residential buildings, including a 30-story apartment house directly north of the Sofia.

[6] The building is on the same block as Park Loggia to the east, and it faces the Fordham University School of Law to the west.

In addition, the David H. Koch Theater of the Lincoln Center performing-arts complex is one block north.

[18] The Sofia's main entrance, on the Columbus Avenue elevation of the facade, contains a two-story-high frame made of multicolored pieces of terracotta.

[12] Immediately above the entryway are multicolored Art Deco chevrons and medallions, which are inspired by Aztec designs.

[6][10] The outer bays contained wide 12-paned metal sash windows, originally divided into a transom above and a hopper below.

[10][20] The three center bays contain smaller sash windows, separated vertically by slightly projecting piers.

The center of the wall contains a projecting pavilion, which formerly housed the garage's elevator shafts and is one bay deep.

[22] Because it was originally used as a parking garage, the Sofia was built as a fireproof structure with an extremely strong frame.

[12] During the condo conversion, the Sofia's marketing specialist traveled to London to research interior designs of large apartment buildings.

[29] During the late 19th century, the site of the Sofia was within San Juan Hill, a primarily Black neighborhood with many tenement houses, and the Ninth Avenue elevated railroad line ran nearby.

[8][10][27] In October 1928, Packard sold a plot measuring 100 by 140 ft (30 by 43 m), at the northeast corner of 61st Street and Columbus Avenue, to Kent Automatic Garages.

[39][40] The 61st Street garage opened on July 30, 1930, when New York City Police Department officials attended a demonstration of the new technology.

[46] The next month, Kent announced plans to reorganize its businesses,[47][48] and Fred T. Ley moved to foreclose on the 43rd and 61st Street garages.

[53] Columbus Realty itself defaulted on its mortgage payments, and the Central Savings Bank foreclosed on the garage.

[14] In January 1944, the Sofia Brothers Warehousing Company acquired the Kent Parking Garage with plans to convert the building into a storage warehouse.

[11][54] The Sofia Brothers also sealed off the vehicular entrance on Columbus Avenue and advertised the building as the "World's Tallest Storage Warehouse".

[58][59] Tenants during the 1950s included the Underwood Corporation, which sold business machines,[60] and De Luxe Pictures, which leased some space for film storage.

[66] The buyers converted the Kent Garage building into the Sofia, a residential condominium with 94 units on the top 17 stories.

The nine stories immediately above the lobby were converted into a 65,000 sq ft (6,000 m2) office condominium, which was sold to the College Board.

The conversion was designed by the firms of Allan Lapidus; Abraham Rothenberg Associates; and Rothzeid, Kaiserman, Thomson & Bee.

[12] The first units were marketed in June 1984, and four-fifths of the apartments had been sold by October, with prices varying between $200,000 and $1.5 million.