An owner of residential and commercial New York City properties, Cogswell Realty focuses mainly on multi-family dwellings and office space, as well as properties in receivership and needing redevelopment.

With its focus on redevelopment and revival, Cogswell is not afraid of risk, having moved into buildings in Harlem well before the areas renaissance. Cogswell has also seen some of those risks falter, such as the Newark luxury high-rise Eleven80, which was supposed to be one of the citys first upscale rental developments in almost 50 years but ended up in default.

In 2014 Cogswell further expanded its services, partnership with Lee & Associates to form a new acquisition arm, called Cogswell Lee Development Group, to jointly pursue properties in the city. The two firms had previously collaborated in 2012 to merge property management operations.

Not all of Cogswells joint ventures have worked out, though. In 2009 the company sued developer Hanini Group over a scuttled plan to redevelop an area of downtown Newark to create a hotel and retail complex.