Charles Cohen’s Quad Cinema Faces Foreclosure

A Greenwich Village co-op board launched non-judicial foreclosure against Charles Cohen’s treasured Quad Cinema, but Cohen’s team claims it is in the process of being resolved.

The Quad Cinema was New York City’s first theater to have multiple screens under the same roof. Cohen bought Quad Cinema in 2014 and turned it into an arthouse theater. Mayor Bill de Blasio proclaimed the day of its reopening “Quad Cinema Day.”

“You can’t go to the opera or ballet every night,” Cohen said in an interview with IndieWire in 2018. “We try to make the Quad a place you want to go, that has some magnetic attraction to it.”

An auction is scheduled for February 18 on the court house steps in Lower Manhattan. Matthew Mannion of Mannion Auctions is the auctioneer. The auction notice suggests that Cohen owes unpaid rent plus attorney fees and other expenses totaling $600,000.

Cohen Brothers Realty Corporation’s Chief Operating Officer Steven Cherniak told The Real Deal, “This matter is being resolved so please mark your records accordingly.”

The notice lists the base rent of lease at $22,171 per month.

The foreclosure was initiated by the entity controlling the co-op. Co-ops have to turn to Uniform Commercial Code to foreclose because a co-op is technically a corporation and the unit holders are considered shareholders. In this case, the auction is for 1,023 shares of common stock, giving the winning bidder control of the lease.

This is not the first time the co-op board has threatened to kick out the Quad Cinema. A year after it was renovated, tenants complained about the theater’s loud noise, and the co-op board attempted to terminate Cohen’s proprietary lease. Cohen went to court to block the termination.

Cohen’s real estate portfolio has been facing massive distress since the start of the pandemic.

Fortress Investment Group sued Cohen Realty Enterprises in March 2024, alleging that it defaulted on a $534 million loan and that Cohen owed over $187 million in personal guarantees.

Fortress then initiated a foreclosure, which was possibly the largest U.C.C. foreclosure of all time.

Late last year, Fortress submitted a credit bid of $148.7 million giving the firm the right to acquire the Design Center of the Americas and the Le Méridien hotel, both in Dania Beach, Florida, a Westchester development site, and U.K. movie theater chain and film distribution company. Fortress did not bid on the U.S.-based independent movie theater chain Landmark Theatres.

Cherniak previously told TRD in early 2024 that the firm does not plan to lose any assets.

“We are not concerned,” he said. “Perhaps the newspapers are more concerned.”