Arthur George Cohen (April 23, 1930 – August 9, 2014) was an American businessman and real estate developer in New York City.
Early life and education
Cohen was born to a Jewish family in
Brooklyn, New York, the son of Frances (née Kostick) and Louis D. Cohen. He received a BA from the
University of Miami and a JD from the
New York Law School
New York Law School (NYLS) is a private law school in Tribeca, New York City. NYLS has a full-time day program and a part-time evening program. NYLS's faculty includes 54 full-time and 59 adjunct professors. Notable faculty members include E ...
.
Career
Arlen Realty & Development Corporation
Cohen became involved in real estate through founding
Arlen Realty & Development Corporation with Arthur N. Levien in 1959.
Serving as Arlen's chairman, Cohen began by developing suburban shopping centers throughout the country, and in 1971 he purchased the national discount retail chain
E.J. Korvette
E. J. Korvette, also known as Korvettes, was an American chain of discount department stores, founded in 1948 in New York City. It was one of the first department stores to challenge the suggested retail price provisions of anti-discounting st ...
. By 1975 Arlen owned and managed over of shopping centers, and was the largest publicly traded
REIT in the nation. Beginning in 1967, Arlen partnered with
Donald Soffer
Donald Soffer (born September 20, 1932) is an American businessman, investor, and philanthropist. He is a real estate developer who developed Florida swampland into what was to become the city of Aventura, Florida.
Early life and education
Soffe ...
's
Turnberry Associates
Turnberry Associates is a real estate development and management company in the United States. The company has developed over $10 billion worth of properties during the course of its history. Current holdings in its portfolio include the Aventura ...
in developing the City of
Aventura, Florida. In 1975, Arlen partnered with
Aristotle Onassis to build
Olympic Tower on Fifth Avenue.
Other prominent Arlen buildings included their corporate headquarters
888 7th Avenue,
1500 Broadway
1500 Broadway is a skyscraper located in Times Square, Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The skyscraper was completed in 1972 by Arlen Realty & Development Corporation, with a height of , and has 34 floors. 1500 Broadway is famous for the seven ...
and
1501 Broadway
1501 Broadway, also known as the Paramount Building, is a 33-story office building on Times Square between West 43rd and 44th Streets in the Theater District neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. Designed by Rapp and Rapp, it was erect ...
in Times Square,
1166 Avenue of the Americas
1166 Avenue of the Americas (also known as the International Paper Building) is a tall office building at 1166 Sixth Avenue between 45th and 46th Street in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. It was completed in 1974 and has 44 ...
, 800 Third Avenue, 100 Wall Street, and the Westyard Building at 450 West 33rd Street.
Additional Investments
In addition to Arlen, Cohen continued to invest in real estate, lodging, restaurants, aviation, and manufacturing industries. Some projects include the development of the
David Childs designed
Worldwide Plaza and the
Crowne Plaza Hotel in Times Square with
William Zeckendorf Jr.
William Zeckendorf Jr. (October 31, 1929 – February 12, 2014) was an American real estate developer. Son of William Zeckendorf Sr., he was the second of three generations of one of New York's great real estate dynasties. While keeping a lower pr ...
, the
Peninsula Hotel in New York City, the
Hotel Pennsylvania, the
Whitehall Building in Battery Park, Fifth Avenue Tower,
The Taft Hotel and
Manhattan Mall
Manhattan Mall is an inactive indoor shopping mall
A shopping mall (or simply mall) is a North American term for a large indoor shopping center, usually anchored by department stores. The term "mall" originally meant a pedestrian promenade wit ...
.
Alongside real estate investor
Jeff Gural
Jeff is a masculine name, often a short form (hypocorism) of the English given name Jefferson or Jeffrey, which comes from a medieval variant of Geoffrey.
Music
* DJ Jazzy Jeff, American DJ/turntablist record producer Jeffrey Allen Townes
* ...
, Cohen was also a partner with
David Walentas
David Walentas (born 1938) is an American billionaire real estate developer.
Early life and education
Walentas was born in Rochester, New York. His father was of Lithuanian descent. When he was five, his postal worker father suffered a stroke ...
in the 1979 acquisition of two million square feet of industrial buildings in
Dumbo, Brooklyn.
Partnership with Ian Schrager
Cohen partnered with hotelier
Ian Schrager in creating some of the first
boutique hotels in New York City at a time in which Schrager had much difficulty attracting more conventional sources of financing. The partnership resulted in the acquisition and renovation of hotels such as the
Philippe Starck
Philippe Starck (; born 18 January 1949) is a French industrial architect and designer known for his wide range of designs, including interior design, architecture, household objects, furniture, boats and other vehicles.
Life
Starck was born on ...
-designed
Royalton Hotel
The Royalton Hotel is a hotel at 44 West 44th Street in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, United States. The hotel, opened in 1898, was designed by architecture firm Rossiter & Wright and developed by civil engineer Edward G. Bailey. The 13-st ...
and
Paramount Hotel, as well as the
Barbizon Hotel
The Barbizon (known since 2005 as Barbizon 63), is a building located at 140 East 63rd Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, New York City. It was for many decades a female-only residential hotel for young women who came to New York City for ...
.
Partnership with Paul Manafort and Brad Zackson
In June 2008 through CMZ Ventures LLC also spelled ZMC, Cohen and his wife through their control of Vulcan Properties entered into partnership with both
Paul Manafort
Paul John Manafort Jr. (; born April 1, 1949) is an American lobbyist, political consultant, and attorney. A long-time Republican Party campaign consultant, he chaired the Trump presidential campaign from June to August 2016. Manafort served ...
through Manafort's XXX LLC founded on June 8, 2008, and Brad Zackson through Zackson's Barbara Ann Holdings LLC.
ZMC with only $500 million was intended to form both a United States real estate fund and an international real estate fund that would be able to leverage $15 billion while ZMC contributed 10% of the equity and a third party would have 90% of the equity and control of ZMC.
Its investments in the global real estate fund would have a three to five year outlook.
[ A major investment of CMZ was expected to be the ]Drake Hotel Drake Hotel may refer to:
;in Canada
* Drake Hotel (Toronto), Ontario
;in the United States (by state)
*Drake Hotel (Chicago, Illinois), listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP)
*Drake Hotel (Gallup, New Mexico), NRHP-listed in M ...
in New York City. On June 30, 2008, Manafort along with Oleg Deripaska
Oleg Vladimirovich Deripaska (russian: Олег Владимирович Дерипаска; born 2 January 1968) is a Russian billionaire and an industrialist. Deripaska enriched himself on previously state-owned assets that were privatized in ...
and Rick Gates through their Cayman Islands
The Cayman Islands () is a self-governing British Overseas Territory—the largest by population in the western Caribbean Sea. The territory comprises the three islands of Grand Cayman, Cayman Brac and Little Cayman, which are located to the ...
registered Pericles Emerging Market Partners planned to invest $56 million in CMZ. Gates had spoken to two of Deripaska's associates after which Gates told Manafort "to lock the other financing elements and then come back to him for the final piece of investment." In late 2008, CMZ's interest in the Drake Hotel ended because of lack of enough financial backing although Dmitro Firtash
Dmytro Vasylovych Firtash ( uk, Дмитро́ Васи́льович Фі́рташ; born 2 May 1965) is a Ukrainian businessman who heads the board of directors of Group DF. He was highly influential during the Yuschenko administration and th ...
had arranged over $100 million in financing. Later, in December 2011, Yulia Tymoshenko alleged that CMZ was a front
Front may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Films
* ''The Front'' (1943 film), a 1943 Soviet drama film
* ''The Front'', 1976 film
Music
* The Front (band), an American rock band signed to Columbia Records and active in the 1980s and e ...
for the interests of Dmitro Firtash
Dmytro Vasylovych Firtash ( uk, Дмитро́ Васи́льович Фі́рташ; born 2 May 1965) is a Ukrainian businessman who heads the board of directors of Group DF. He was highly influential during the Yuschenko administration and th ...
, his Group DF
Group DF is a diversified international group of companies whose assets are concentrated in the chemical industry, titanium production, gas, and banking sectors. In addition, the group has interests in several other areas: agriculture, media busine ...
, and Semion Mogilevich, who has links to Russian, Ukrainian
Ukrainian may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Ukraine
* Something relating to Ukrainians, an East Slavic people from Eastern Europe
* Something relating to demographics of Ukraine in terms of demography and population of Ukraine
* So ...
, and Hungarian mafia, which intended to place money in pro Russia, pro Kremlin, and pro Putin interests through money laundering
Money laundering is the process of concealing the origin of money, obtained from illicit activities such as drug trafficking, corruption, embezzlement or gambling, by converting it into a legitimate source. It is a crime in many jurisdictions ...
in New York real estate investments.[ In a 30 July 2014 interview with the FBI, Manafort explained that Pericles Investments LLC and CMZ were intended for investment purposes associated with Deripaska and Firtash.
]
Corporate involvement
Cohen was a director of Citicorp (now part of Citigroup
Citigroup Inc. or Citi (Style (visual arts), stylized as citi) is an American multinational investment banking, investment bank and financial services corporation headquartered in New York City. The company was formed by the merger of banking ...
NYSE: C),the Home Title Division of the Chicago Title Insurance Company (now part of Fidelity National Financial NYSE:FNF), and the John Hancock Mutual Fund. He was on the board of directors and been part of the ownership group for the 1988 leveraged buyout of Braniff Airlines as well as for the 1989 lLeveraged buyout of national restaurant chain Houlihan's and Darryl's.
Philanthropy
Cohen was a former trustee of Brandeis University, New York Law School
New York Law School (NYLS) is a private law school in Tribeca, New York City. NYLS has a full-time day program and a part-time evening program. NYLS's faculty includes 54 full-time and 59 adjunct professors. Notable faculty members include E ...
, Long Island Jewish Medical Center and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He received the Jewish National Fund Tree of Life Award, was named the man of the year by the Anti-Defamation League
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), formerly known as the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, is an international Jewish non-governmental organization based in the United States specializing in civil rights law. It was founded in late Septe ...
, and was a member of the Special Mission to Israel under Golda Meir and special envoy to aid underprivileged nations under Lyndon B. Johnson. Cohen received an honorary degree from Long Island University
Long Island University (LIU) is a private university with two main campuses, LIU Post and LIU Brooklyn, in the U.S. state of New York. It offers more than 500 academic programs at its main campuses, online, and at multiple non-residential. LIU ...
.
Personal life and death
Cohen was married to Karen Bassine from Great Neck, New York. They had five daughters: Lauren Reddington, Susan Siegel, Debra Duran, Rochelle Rosenberg and Kathy Horowitz. Cohen died on August 9, 2014 in Kings Point, New York. He was 84.
Notes
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cohen, Arthur G.
1930 births
2014 deaths
American real estate businesspeople
Businesspeople from New York (state)
Jewish American philanthropists
People from Great Neck, New York
Philanthropists from New York (state)
20th-century American businesspeople
20th-century American philanthropists
21st-century American Jews