Cohen Brothers Realty Plans Two Office Towers in Dania Beach
Charles Cohen's firm filed plans for two 10-story spec office towers on Griffin Road in Dania Beach, next to the DCOTA complex he lost to Fortress.
Cohen Brothers Realty Corporation of Florida has filed plans for a two-tower, 400,000-square-foot spec office project on Griffin Road in Dania Beach, marking developer Charles Cohen’s return to ground-up construction in the Broward County submarket where he lost his signature property to foreclosure two years ago.
The project, called Office Center of the Americas, is planned for 1805 and 1815 Griffin Road, just south of Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport and facing Interstate 95, adjacent to the Design Center of the Americas (DCOTA) that Fortress Investment Group took from Cohen through a credit bid. Nichols Brosch Wurst Wolfe & Associates is the architect, and Cooper Horowitz is arranging construction financing, according to Commercial Observer.
Why it matters
Speculative office towers are a rare bet anywhere in South Florida right now, and Broward’s office market has trailed Miami-Dade’s for new construction through this cycle. Cohen building spec offices next door to the complex he just lost to his former lender is also a signal about site control: he still owns the Griffin Road parcels even after the DCOTA foreclosure, and he is choosing to put fresh capital into that same corridor rather than walk away from it.
The numbers
The project totals 400,000 square feet across two 10-story buildings, each with an attached four-story parking garage. Floorplates run up to 14,000 square feet, with landscaped terraces and promenades connecting the towers. Cohen Brothers estimates the cost at roughly $350 million, delivered in two phases.
What’s next
Cohen recently satisfied a $187 million debt tied to the Fortress dispute and, through his attorney, has demanded $204 million in damages from the lender over the foreclosure auction of four of his former properties, per Commercial Observer’s reporting. Financing and a construction timeline for the Griffin Road towers have not been disclosed, and Cohen’s representative declined to detail a start date.