The Decorative Center Houston is no longer owned by Charles Cohen. The Texas design building has a new property manager—Partners Real Estate—in place and a new security team staffing the entrances. Employees of the building have also been informed of a change in ownership. The word in the halls of 5120 Woodway Drive is clear: Cohen is out.
The only mystery is, Who now owns the DCH? A representative for Partners Real Estate wouldn’t comment on the ownership change. And while Cohen Brothers Realty released a statement confirming the shift (and touting the “significant capital improvements and modernization initiatives” the company had made over the course of its 24-year ownership of the building), it did not identify the new owners.
Harris County, Texas, property records provide some clues. On August 1, Wells Fargo—acting as trustee for the mortgage backed by the property—transferred the building’s deed to a newly formed limited partnership, “Houston DC SPV I LP.” The partnership’s Fort Worth address and executive officer match those of ECapital Management, an investment firm that specializes in acquiring distressed loans. Delaware records show that the LP was created in late July of this year. An SEC filing shows that it has three unnamed investors, who collectively put $16,875,000 into the entity.
The paper trail suggests the following chain of events: In January of this year, Cohen’s loan went into “special servicing” when his company defaulted on the DCH mortgage. In an effort to force the issue, the lender listed the building as up for foreclosure in May and June, in both cases pulling back before a public auction. In July, the bank found a buyer in the form of a limited partnership administered by ECapital and backed by three as-yet-unknown investors.
The news follows months of drama for Cohen, though much of it has been concentrated elsewhere. The billionaire landlord has been fighting tooth and nail with another lender, Fortress Investment Group, over nonpayment of a $533 million loan. As part of that battle, last November Cohen lost control of the Design Center of the Americas in Dania Beach, Florida. The DCOTA is now managed by Jamestown, the partial owners of the Boston Design Center.
With the loss of the DCH, Cohen’s design center portfolio is down to two: the Decoration & Design Building in New York, and the Pacific Design Center in Los Angeles.
