Charles Cohen, Design Center of the Americas
Florida Real Estate Developer Buys To-the-Trade DCOTA
Oct 18, 2008
Father and son Dantos had developed the property in three phases over 20 years, from the ground up, as Cohen notes, and it took them a while to become sufficiently motivated.
DCOTA is the 775,000-square-foot, 150-showroom, to-the-trade-only design “campus” in Dania Beach that has been serving the local design community since 1985 as a high-end, wholesale Home Depot.
At the time of the sale, Cohen, owner, president and CEO of Cohen Brothers Realty Corporation (CBRC), estimated that DCOTA was about 95 percent occupied.
So how, exactly, was he hoping that an estimated $5 million to $10 million in renovations over several years would improve what seems to have been an already ideal situation?
“DCOTA doesn’t have many open spaces,” Cohen told South Florida CEO a few months after the sale. “The previous owner did an excellent job of really putting together a collection of high-end showrooms, but what we hope to do is bring to the table the best of what’s new and would be well-received here.”
The Plan
Cohen’s plan for DCOTA is really simplicity itself: create local “synergy” for designers by offering them showplaces in each of his four design centers — the Decoration & Design Building in New York City, the Pacific Design Center in Los Angeles and the Decorative Center Houston as well as DCOTA — thus creating a kind of monopolistic unstoppable force of designdom.
Cohen does not say this. Instead, he focuses on the “total makeover, similar to California” [PCD’s client base reportedly expanded from local L.A. to the Pacific Rim after CBRC’s 1999 buy and makeover.] that he expects to achieve: “DCOTA is probably the largest design campus in the world, and we want to put in perspective all these resources, creating a design center that will be a country club for designers.”
The “country club” is slated to include new landscaping (including water fountains), lighting, signage and interiors as well as new architecture in the form of a conference center and upscale restaurant.
Everything will roll out in three phases, with late 2008 as the target date for the first rollout. “Most of the work is at night, in nonprime selling season [i.e., summer], so it’s less disruptive,” Cohen says.
The New DCOTA
In Cohen’s view, DCOTA will maintain the inevitability that the Dantos brought to the project as a one-stop shop for the trade. It will push it further, however, by reaching out to the natural international contingent of Latin America and the Caribbean.
New showrooms, including JANUS et Cie, Versace Home, Allmilmo Kitchens Florida and Loewen Window Center of South Florida, have also recently opened. Yacht furnishers might be on offer as well at some point; several have expressed interest in opening showrooms.
Cohen is determined that the rehabbed DCOTA will be as designer-friendly as possible. “We’ve been focusing on the main thrust,” he said, “We want to capture as much business as qualifies.” He is firm about keeping DCOTA strictly to-the-trade. It has always been so, more or less; the accent is now definitely on the “more.”
“What designers do is unique and special,” says Cohen. “And showrooms are equipped to deal with design pros,” but emphatically not retail shoppers. He has instituted DCOTA Design Services to connect would-be clients of the showrooms with pre-vetted designers.
Cohen also intends to build relationships with the local design schools and to encourage events that educate the public about design. “We need to increase awareness and continue to make sure [DCOTA’s] competitive in the heart and mind” of the community, he asserts. “And to make it worthwhile for designers to come and participate and at the same time stay and shop.”
 |
