It’s an understatement to say Charles Cohen likes to keep busy. The real estate investor and developer owns a 12 million-square-foot portfolio that includes four large design centers across the country. And these days, he’s putting the finishing touches on a decades-long project: the Red Building, the third and final element of West Hollywood’s Pacific Design Center, which he purchased in 1999. The $165 million building is, in fact, red and looks like a big battleship. It was designed by renowned architect Cesar Pelli and is scheduled to be completed by the end of the year. It will house design, entertainment and other tenants, including the West Coast headquarters of his Cohen Bros. Realty Corp., the New York firm his father started and he later took over. Cohen has a passion for design and architecture, and says he never sells his buildings, which he compares to “selling a child.” Meanwhile, he has developed another passion: Hollywood. He was the producer behind the Academy Award-nominated 2008 film “Frozen River,” about two upstate New York women who smuggle in illegal immigrants from Canada. That film launched Cohen’s production and distribution company, which is set to release eight movies over the next 14 months. The bicoastal businessman, who owns a condo in West Hollywood, sat down with the Business Journal to discuss his career, obsessions with great design and film, and why he considers living in Los Angeles a “diagonal” experience.

Question: You’ve spent 12 years developing the Red Building. How did you manage to keep going?

Answer: It’s about a building living up to its potential, about all of us living up to our potential, and we always reinvest in our buildings. If you are successful as a person, you need to reinvest in yourself and you need to reinvent yourself. It keeps everything fresh and alive.

How is that achieved in the Red Building?

We’ve tried to cover every base in trying to position this building among the very best out there. It’s a really unique structure. It’s built like a battleship. It’s unlike anything the West Coast has ever seen. There are different categories of buildings: A, B and C. And in New York, they developed what became a worldwide catch phrase: trophy building. The Red Building is a trophy-plus.

No companies have signed leases at the Red Building, despite it being close to completion, and its 400,000 square feet of new office space is a lot for this down market to absorb. Why do you think this building will successfully fill up?

I think that it will be unique for tenants that take advantage of what this building has to offer, and businesses will be known by the signature of this building. We’ve made a big investment and we hope that others will too. It’ll be like a badge, not unlike other great buildings that have come into the language of office space and addresses where people want to move. It’s defining.

What’s it been like working with world-class architect Cesar Pelli, who also designed the original Pacific Design Center campus?

I’m very respectful. When working with an artist and genius like Cesar, as an architect, you want him fully invested. It’s probably the only project of its kind that I’m aware of in this part of the world where one architect has been involved for over 30 years. I’ve done a myriad of changes since 2000 and I can say that without exception every change has been approved by him.

How’d you get started in the real estate business?

When I got out of law school, I wanted to go into the film business as an attorney. It was very hard to find a position. I was an English major in college and had never taken a business course. I took a job at a big bank in New York and went into the banking side of real estate. They sent me through a training course on Wall Street where I took business classes.

What did you learn?

It was fascinating. I started in the late ’70s when it was not a good time; projects had failed. I was involved in working out the problems so that was a very valuable lesson to figure out how to undo problems and turn them into positive things.

How did you get into the family business?

(In 1979), my father mentioned to me that he was building an office building with his brother and asked if I wanted to come and learn and help them do this. I was under no pressure, but I was an opportunist, so I thought, “I’ll go do this.” I started doing the leasing, the management, the construction, financing and development.

What was the most important thing your father taught you?

As a business person, it’s funny how we learn things: We learn by observation. His greatest strength is his ability to delegate and allow someone to run with something from beginning to end and not doing something for them. I learned by osmosis.

How’d you become CEO?

I ended up buying my father and uncle out of the business about 15 years or 20 years ago. They were builders, and I started buying buildings and that was different. I expanded the portfolio by 3 million to 10 or 11 million square feet, and now it’s up to 12 million.

Design centers typically house furniture design firms, artists, architects and the like. Why did you get into that business?

Design centers are all about lifestyle. Architecture is about art and design is about lifestyle, and if you can live a life that respects design, I think that that is a way of expressing your individuality.

How’d you get started?

It evolved. The (Decoration & Design Building) in New York was available in the late ’90s and it was an opportunity to take advantage and learn something new and connect the dots so that the building takes on more than the brick and mortar. It’s running a marketing program for designers and giving the design center a direction and an evolutionary way.

So where does L.A. fit in?

(I own) centers in three of the top four design marketplaces. New York is No. 1 and (the Pacific Design Center) is a close second. The regions that these design centers are in really have a reach that’s dramatic. New York, it reaches to Europe and Russia. Florida reaches to the Caribbean; Houston to South America; and Southern California reaches to the Pacific Rim.

So how do you like L.A.?

It’s great. I love coming here; it’s very different. It’s more relaxed; it’s more horizontal. New York is very vertical so between the two, I feel more diagonal.

Diagonal?

They’re very different ways of living. In New York, it’s a city of great hustle and bustle, but can be tiring and it’s 24-7 every day, every week, every month. Los Angeles is well-known for its reliance on vehicular transportation. It’s much more relaxed, with more time to think and drive from one place to another. I’m kinda averaging the two.

Tell me about your home here.

I started living here in my own place probably five years ago. I developed it. It took me three years; I started it six or seven years ago. It’s a condo. I put together three apartments. It was a big challenge.

Was your home an extension of your interest in design?

Of course. The guiding principle of everything I’ve tried to do is to bring a sense of design and responsibility for good design. We are defined by design, our individuality is defined by design and that’s what makes us distinctly different people. Design lets us express our individuality.

I hear there’s a movie theater in the basement of your Connecticut home?

Yeah, it’s special. It’s a re-creation of the Paramount theater (in Times Square) in the 1930s. I have the original push bars; I have some of the elements. It’s about 30 feet underground with about 25-foot-high finished ceilings. It’s an old-style film theater.

How did you get hooked on movies?

I’ve always been into movies my whole life. When I was in high school I studied film on my own because there were no courses. I used to write and read reviews for the high school newspaper and then the college newspaper. I made some films as a high school student.

I notice you wrote a book on movies as well.

I wrote a movie trivia book, “TriviaMania,” back in 1985, which sold 175,000 copies. At the time, I was told I sold more books than Mark Twain did in his lifetime and I thought that was unique.

Why trivia?

It was a good idea. I had met a publisher that had done a series of joke books and I thought what would be another idea that could lend itself to that format where you could amuse yourself or play a game with someone else on the beach or plane.

What kind of trivia interests you?

Who directed this? Who starred in that? There are 1,000 questions; a lot came from my memory, and I did research and came up with some questions.

How did you start producing movies?

I got involved in a movie about three years ago known as “Frozen River.” I financed that and worked on that, and that was successful critically and financially.

Why “Frozen River”?

It’s about passion. I always respond to passion. The project was the passionate project of a colleague’s wife, a lawyer who does work for me. He came to me and said, “Can you help me raise money?” I said, “I like the short but I think (its proposed budget of) $2 million is too heavy a budget.” If it was half-million, it was more likely to find a distributor.

So what happened?

He said, “I got the budget to $600,000, can you help us?” And I thought, “This is something that means so much to the person who created it, and the subject matter was something a lot of women would connect with.” I ended up putting up half.

Is that how Cohen Media Group started?

I created that division of the media company that I started with “Frozen River” about 18 months ago. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do, and I’m at a point in my life where I can afford to do it on my own terms. I saw what was going on with the smaller distribution companies closing up and I thought there’d be an opportunity.

What’s next for your film company?

I just came back from Canada and made a deal on two very unique films. One of them is really exceptional; it’s called “The Lady” by Luc Besson, who is a well-known French director. It’s about Aung Saan Suu Kyi, who is a Nobel Peace Prize winner; she’s been imprisoned in Burma for the last 30 years.

And the other film?

The second is a ghost story called “The Awakening,” and it’s a bit like “The Others” and “The Sixth Sense.” (And) we have film that just opened here and in New York with Gerard Depardieu about two people: an illiterate man in his 50s and a 97-year-old woman who teaches him how to read. It’s called “My Afternoons With Marguerite.”

What else are you going to do in L.A.? More development, more entertainment?

I think all of the above. The next is to complete construction and lease the Red Building, and that’s a painstakingly detailed project. I want to find the right tenants. It’s not only renting it and moving on – because I won’t sell any buildings, I never have – it’s to find the right fit, not only for each tenant but for a group of tenants so there’s a synergy.

You won’t sell any of your buildings?

I’m not a trader and I don’t have that mentality. I am in this business because I enjoy it and take pride in what I’m doing. That’s the way I approach everything; it’s just my personality. I take great pride and invest so much time and energy they become projects of a personal nature. Selling them would be like selling a child. It’s not something that I would every think of.

What is it like to balance the movie and real estate worlds?

It’s great to be busy, but they’re all my worlds, so I have no problem balancing them. The (media company) offices are a big part of my (real estate) offices.

How did you meet your wife?

She’s from Johannesburg, South Africa, but I met her in London about 10 years ago. I was divorced and there was a speaker (at a design lecture series) that I had lunch with who was a designer in London. I mentioned that I wanted to meet someone who had a British accent. She said let me know when you come to London and I’ll throw a dinner party. And I stopped in London, she threw a dinner party and I met my wife.

How did you date someone living in London?

We dated long distance for a couple of years and that was hard. We saw each other probably three times the first year. She wasn’t happy with that. She (was a public relations and marketing executive who worked) with Gucci and Tom Ford for seven years, and then she had a wonderful opportunity to move to New York and bring Jimmy Choo to America and opened a lot of stores and the rest is history.

When did you get married?

We married in 2004. She retired a few years ago and we have two wonderful children and I have two older children.

Tell me about your kids.

They range in age from 2 to 27. In one year, I went into nursery school and out of graduate school. My 27-year-old daughter has a master’s in education and teaches at a private boys’ school in Manhattan. My son who is 22 is a freshman in law school in New York. My 4-year-old is applying to school for next year, and my 3-year-old started nursery school.

Will your oldest son follow your footsteps?

He may. That is his choice. I have a theory that if you want to achieve a level of success, find something that you are passionate about and that you enjoy and it will take you 20 years to get good at it.

What do you like to do for fun?

I like to go boating. I like to play golf. I like to play tennis. I like to go to the movies, the theater. I like to go out to dinner and to travel.

I understand you have a private jet.

I have plane that makes it easier to get long distances. It’s a Gulfstream up in Connecticut. It makes it easier, especially when I travel with a group. It’s a very collaborative business and it really allows us to function as an office.

Did you have the interior designed for you?

Of course. It was designed by the same people who designed our design centers: Area architects Walt Thomas and Henry Goldston (in Los Angeles). They are terrific designers and developed a signature look and have done a lot of our buildings. It was a natural progression from design centers. What they do, it’s all about that singular identity.

Where do you like to travel?

I travel for work but there’s a lot of the world I haven’t seen. I haven’t been to Asia; I’ve been to Istanbul but not further. I haven’t been to South America. I’ve been to Central America, Costa Rica, but not South America.

If you got to go to one place tomorrow, where would it be?

Here. I have a job to do.

CHARLES COHEN

TITLE: Chief executive officer

COMPANY: Cohen Bros. Realty Corp.

BORN: 1952; New York.

EDUCATION: B.A., English, Tufts University, 1974; J.D., Brooklyn Law School, 1977.

CAREER TURNING POINTS: Taking over Cohen Bros. Realty from father. Buying first design center in New York.

MOST INFLUENTIAL PEOPLE: His father, Sherman Cohen.

PERSONAL: Residences in West Hollywood; New York; Greenwich, Conn.; and Palm Beach, Fla.; lives with his second wife, Clo, a former fashion industry executive, and two children.

ACTIVITES: Film, theater, golf, tennis, boating.