Don Wood
Analyst · Green Street Advisors. Your line is now open
Thanks, Brittany, and good morning, everyone. Well, we have got a lot to talk about on this call, this quarter with some acquisitions, dispositions and personal appointments, in addition a very robust development and operational updates. Jim will cover acquisitions, dispositions, balance sheet, some operations and earnings points, and I will try to cover the rest before opening up to questions. I don’t think I have ever been as grateful for the arrival of spring -- a spring of this year. Snow removal expenses topped $10 million in the quarter, doubled what we forecast. And while the strength of our leases allows us to past-through over 85% of that costs, residential, office and some retail leases, along with vacancy, build from that recovery and accordingly our first quarter FFO per share were $1.26 was negatively impacted by over $0.02 a share, good year for Boston in particular. Other than the weather, the company continues to perform well and in line with our expectations and early anecdotal evidence suggest that cooked up Northern Eastern shoppers are more anxious than in most years to get out and shop and eat as spring has arrived. We are certainly seeing that at Assembly Row, okay, enough about snow. Rental income growth in the first quarter was strong at 9%, as the same-center growth of 3.6%, despite only $500,000 in lease termination fees this quarter versus $1.5 billion last year. Those fees are such an integral part of managing our business and we always include them in our same-store numbers, as we do with all financial impact to running the shopping centers. Sometime they benefit the comparisons, sometime they hurt it, we live with a new way. In terms of leasing it was a good quarter. We completed 86 deals, 75 of them for a quarter million square feet of comparable space at average rents of $37.50, 11% more than the $33.70 per foot, representing the last year in the former lease. Both leases with new tenants and renewals of existing tenants were profitable, and grew at 16% and 8%, respectively. The capital include in those new deals was consistent and in fact, a bit lower than last year’s first quarter, diverting much in line with the past couple of years, which I view very positively. California in general and Silicon Valley in particular continues to lead the market we do business in. In terms of leasing demand, exceeding supply and the product that we offer with Boston and New York Metro following closely behind, really strong. The other market we do business in, particularly, Washington DC are good, but are not exhibiting the same leasing power and strength that we are experiencing at west at this point in time. A few years back was just the opposite, reminding us how important the geographically diversified portfolio is, the business plan that provides us consistency and stability. Occupancy remains strong in the quarter with portfolio of 95.4% leased, just slightly up the 95.6% leased percentage at the end of the year and last year’s first quarter. On a same-center basis, we were 96% leased, up slightly from the end of the last year. All-in-all, these are very healthy times in our business. Let me move on now and report some development news. The early success of Assembly Row made a really clear to us that commercial and residential demand in and around the site wasn’t satisfied with the first phase. Earlier this week, our investment community and then Board approved the next phase of Assembly Row. This newest phase will include an expansion of the retail street in the connection with the ground in the second floor retail in the Partners HealthCare building. All-in-all, the additional 167,000 feet of retail for the project, 447 row apartments, the Federal will build to manage 155 rooms with Tico tells to be owned in the partnership with New England based XSS Group, the deal is not done, but its awfully closed, and 117 for sale condominium sitting eight floors above the hotel. Excluding the condos, we have committed and appropriated up to $285 million for this phase and expect to yield an unlevered return of about 7% in the first full year of stabilization. Appropriated capital for the condos approximate $65 million, while we expect in lease-hold at net proceeds significantly above that cost, we are assuming breakeven in Phase II disclosed returns. Assembly Row continues to perform extremely well, but the only material portion of the first phase remaining to be leased is about half of 100,000 square foot office building. Assembly Row and the adjacent Assembly Square marketplace have really begun to solidify themselves as an important new shopping and entertainment district in the market, feels great. And when the second phase is completed in late 2017, early 2018, we will still have much more to exploit on this site. At Pike & Rose in North Bethesda, Maryland, you will see a fully leased and occupied residential building hold for sale. We only leased first phase retail components of the project, with openings continued through the -- continuing through the summer and an office component with Merrill Lynch and Bank of America moving in as we speak and otherwise being negotiated on the balance of the space. We’ll begin leasing the second residential building called Palace next month and the Phase II parking garage is well under construction and will alleviate limited parking pressures by September this year. Around that same time, construction begins on the next two building that will extend the main shopping street. We should have some pretty interesting retail leasing announcements over the next few quarters based on the interest that we’re seeing. Lots and lots happening at Pike & Rose. By 2017, we’ll have over $510 million deployed on that site in nine buildings before selling 104 condos, that is, 340,000 feet of retail, 757 residential apartments, 104 condos, 80,000 feet of Merrill Lynch anchored office, a 177 room Canopy branded hotel and nearly 2,000 parking spaces. And like a family, we’ll still have much more notably on the site. The point in El Segundo, California, will open up in late summer with additional tenant openings continuing through FFO and beyond. This intersection Sepulveda at Rosecrans with the addition of the point and considering the adjacent Plaza El Segundo shopping center that we control and operate has really become incredibly dominant and important to the beach communities. We expect it to become more so with the new centers open. At Santana, construction of the office building addressed as 500 Santana Row at the San Jose site continues on schedule and on budget. The continued strength of the Silicon Valley economy, the strong job growth and the growing reputation of Santana Row is very desirable office as it is very bullish about doing deals in the state-of-the-art building over its remaining construction period. In terms of our important search for a Senior Vice President of our core shopping center portfolio between Boston and Washington DC, we’re down with two final round candidates and expect to make a decision announcement within a couple of weeks, maybe sooner. Fortunately, I have been really impressed with the quality of the candidates we have seen, feel really good that the enhanced focus on the shopping center site of our business will be fruitful over the next few years. On the mixed-used side, you may have read that our very own home growing choice to lead the operational side of that side business, John Hendrickson, was wooed away by Ramco Gershenson to service their CLO. Until that process begin before, John was promoted to his latest role at Federal. I think the world of John. I wish much continued success. But this is the Federal Realty earnings call and as such I’m thrilled to announce that Dawn Becker will assume the role of Executive Vice President Mixed-Use Operations in addition to her General Counsel responsibility. As I said on last quarter’s call, our company has grown significantly over the past several years in the bifurcation of core and mixed use necessary service each. Dawn’s skills and background, her relationship with the senior team partners and respect throughout this organization to make her perfectly suited to this role. It’s a great ask. We’ve got more to talk about in terms of our most recent Florida acquisition, future acquisition prospects and are egged from San Antonio, Texas along with balance sheet and earnings considerations. For those and other items, I’ll turn it over now to Jim Taylor before opening up the line for your questions. Jim?