Loren Cohen of McBride Construction stands at the Point Ruston development on the Commencement Bay waterfront in Tacoma.
Loren McBride Cohen’s career in construction didn’t get off to the best start. At age 16, he filled a generator with diesel instead of gasoline and was promptly fired.
Luckily, his father gave him another chance. Now, he’s the managing director and sole owner of Point Ruston LLC, the company that brought the Point Ruston vision to life. He is also owner and managing director of McBride-Cohen Management Group LLC, which is the contracted development manager for the Point Ruston development project.
The 39-year-old Cohen has built a career in construction with his late father, Mike, and his brother, Lee. The trio developed housing, retail, office space and everything in between. Their most recent development, Point Ruston, sits on the once-desolate Asarco Superfund site. The 97-acre property is now a $1.4 billion development that, when complete, will have about 1,800 living units and 500,000 square feet of commercial space. Approximately $1 billion has been invested, so far.
His father passed away in December after a short battle with cancer, giving Cohen a new perspective on the meaning of this work and shaped his plans to carry on his father’s legacy.
How did you get started in construction? My dad was a housing developer in Los Angeles. I had been going to job sites with my dad for years. It was a fun thing to do. He worked with my “goddad,” Robert Gilbert. They built everything, medical buildings, mansions including the homes of Bob Dylan and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. They built houses for the Eagles band members.
Why did your family decide to take on the development of the Asarco Superfund site? Why? Why not? It’s a mile of waterfront on the Puget Sound. I played soccer for University of Puget Sound back in 1999, 2000. My parents would come up from Olympia to watch me and they would go to lunch on Ruston Way. They always wondered what would be done with the Asarco site.
In Tacoma, we started with the Hawthorne Hill condominium project up by Stanley & Seafort’s in East Tacoma. We also tried to do a 66-unit mixed-use project on the east side of Thea Foss Waterway, but that became super controversial and didn’t work out.
It’s interesting though, that because the Thea Foss project didn’t work out, we were able to pursue the Asarco site. We were the only local bidders on the property. We like Tacoma. It’s one of those markets that is big enough to have big things like Museum of Glass, but small enough that everyone is one degree of separation from everyone else.
What do you think Tacoma has right now that makes it so attractive? Its relative affordability to the rest of the region. Affordability is a relative term. Tacoma, at its current market highs, is affordable compared to Seattle. And Tacoma has a surging population because of that. Thirty to 35% of people moving here are coming from King County. At Point Ruston, we have King County folks buying million-dollar condos, and they aren’t the über wealthy. Their house just appreciated enough in King County that they are able to buy these beautiful homes here.
Tacoma also has a great lifestyle. I mean, talk about getting a bang for your buck. Look at what Tacoma Metro Parks has done for this community with all their parks, like the Kandle Park wave pool. And Tacoma has all these water and mountain views.
What type of company culture do you aspire to create? My wife, Holland, and I talk about that quite a bit. It’s especially important with my dad passing. When we told the management team here about my dad’s brain cancer diagnosis I could see the sadness on their faces. At the end of the day, there are some real relationships made at work. It made me realize this is more than a job — it’s a family.
Everyone wants to enjoy what they are doing. It’s much more important than just a paycheck. We try to focus on doing little things to bring people together. For example, we just did a hot dog stand for all of our employees. A leasing agent rode up on his motorcycle and everyone was excited because they didn’t know he had a motorcycle. It is things like that which give people a chance to put their tools down and get off their Zoom calls and just come together in the form of a community.
It’s stressful to build these buildings, there are tons of moving pieces. But there’s a huge amount of pride when you get them across the finish line. When we do, we all celebrate with our team.
What is something that most people don’t know about you? I’m a second-generation American. My mom Julie McBride’s Jewish family escaped from Germany in 1939. My dad’s parents were of Russian origin. They also immigrated to the United States.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
About Loren McBride Cohen
- Age: 39
- Education: University of Puget Sound bachelor’s, JD at Willamette
- Career: Real estate developer
- Employees: 115+
- Family: Wife Holland, children: Destiny, 22; Callie, 10; Ari 9; Noa 4; and Faeryn 1
- Born: McCall, Idaho
- Residence: North End Tacoma
- Interests outside of work: Tennis, whatever my kids are doing
- Lessons learned: The future is unpredictable, go with the flow.
- What’s your superpower? I don’t have any superpowers, but I am proud of what we’ve done at Point Ruston and I’m proud I have the opportunity to carry on my father’s legacy. I’ve heard him described as a lot of things, sometimes four-letter words. But he was a visionary and I hope I’ve inherited some of those skills. Some people have tried to give us credit for being the development that turned Tacoma around, but I don’t think that’s right. We have just been on the rising wave of this area’s growth.