Charles Cohen up close

He's the owner of the Pacific Design Center and is in the process of adding a Red building to the 14-acre parcel. It's a pair of sleek asymmetrical structures that sit on either side of a landscaped open-air palm court. I profiled Cohen in the April issue of Los Angeles magazine (not available online). Some background: Cohen is a veeery rich NY real estate guy who took over the family business in the early 80s and snapped up the then-struggling PDC in 1999. Actually, it was Cohen and another group of investors, who later sold their stake to Cohen and are now suing him for allegedly being shortchanged. Even before the Red building goes up, Cohen has plowed $50 million into the complex, more than he expected. Here are some excerpts:

Charles Cohen wants to make it perfectly clear that he owns and operates the massive Pacific Design Center, with its idiosyncratic Blue and Green buildings and its soon-to-be constructed Red building. That’s Charles Cohen – and if you happen to forget it, he has Cohen etched 54 times into the six glass doors at the entrance. He also has a bio that manages to use “remarkable revitalization,” “universally hailed,” and “unequivocal triumph” in a single sentence. “Don’t be surprised if he seems abrupt,” warns one of Cohen’s people as we wait for him on the main floor of Blue – what’s been tagged the “Blue Whale.”

I’ve been warned about a lot. Cohen expects his male employees to always wear white dress shirts (something about colored shirts he doesn’t like). He insists on signing every check that comes out of his New York-based company, Cohen Brothers Realty Corporation, even if it means having them overnighted to wherever he happens to be. And if you’re a potential tenant, be prepared for Cohen to put you through the financial wringer – assuming he even wants you in. When I ask one of his business associates about Cohen’s personality, the response is: “Large – let’s just leave it at that.”