Lou Haddad
Analyst · Baird. Please go ahead
Thanks, Mike. And thanks to all of you for joining us today. As you can see from this morning's earnings release, the positive momentum of the company continues to accelerate. Leasing activity across all sectors of our portfolio is at the highest velocity we've seen in years, and occupancy in our stabilized asset stands at over 96%. Development pipeline is well stocked and proceeding rapidly. Significant off market acquisition opportunities are on the horizon. Third-party construction engagements are shaping up to become high volume contracts later this year. And most importantly, we are in a strong cash position with access to additional capital from the potential disposition of non-core assets. All these factors have combined to enable us to again raise our full year guidance. And as you saw from last week's press release, the board raised the dividend for the third time this year. This performance as well as other opportunities arising in the near-term, gives us confidence that the company's metrics will support an equity value at pre-pandemic levels, in the not too distant future. As most of you know, ours is a diversified vertically integrated model. This platform has served us well through 40- plus years, and virtually every macroeconomic condition. While it has been instrumental in limiting the downside from the five recessions we've navigated in that timeframe. It is times like these, when opportunities abound in virtually every sector of our business, that our company truly shows its value. In particular, mixed use plan development, which constitutes a large portion of our portfolio have shown sustained growth coming out of each of the last several recessions. Environments where customers can live, work, shop, dine and be entertained, without moving a vehicle, continue to outpace surrounding assets, and provide people with the occupational flexibility and so many desire coming out of the pandemic. Our public private partnerships, most notably the Virginia Beach Town Center, and Baltimore's Harbor Point continued to thrive and expand. Let's briefly discussed each component of our business model and the activity we're experiencing in each of them. Apartment leasing and occupancy continue to exceed all reasonable expectations. Our 2,300 conventional multifamily units are now over 97% occupied. The same-store NOI increase of 12% on these properties, only begins to tell the story of the desirability of these assets and their locations. Rent increases and new leases signed in the third quarter averaged over 9%. With the continued migration to high-value properties in the sought after markets of the Mid-Atlantic, coupled with a shortage of housing, our expectation is that 2022 will be another strong year for these assets. Retail leasing tells a similar story. Last quarter, we reported that our expectation was that retail space percentage leased would be back in traditional mid 90s by early next year. That target has already been achieved. And we expect further gains in 2022. Since our last update, we have leased nearly 45,000 square feet. Several new retailers are on their way to our flagship property to Town Center of Virginia Beach, led by a new retail concept that is the first in the region. It's important to note that many of our tenants, who report monthly sales, eclipsed comparable 2019 sales through the summer. Several of those report that they set all-time records for the period, further supporting our thesis regarding the growth potential of high-quality assets in mixed use environments. As the new tenants occupy and begin to pay rent, we expect the retail portfolio will pass pre-pandemic same-store NOI levels sometime early next year. As we've said on numerous occasions, there is no substitute for well-located real estate, regardless of the asset class. Moving on to office, as most of you know, our stabilized office portfolio is essentially fully occupied at nearly 97%. And we have very little in the way of lease expirations through 2022. The first material expiration is the 46,000 square foot lease expiring at the Thames Street office building in April of 2023. We already have a handful of prospects and expect to seamlessly backfill the space in relatively short order. The only meaningful current vacancy is at Wills Wharf, the office building and lease up that we delivered at Baltimore's Harbor Point at the outset of the pandemic. Last quarter, we reported that tenant activity was starting to resume as COVID restrictions lifted. We announced two substantial leases with Transamerica and RBC. Today, we are pleased to announce that Morgan Stanley Wealth Management has leased 35,000 square feet in the building. This brings Wills Wharf to 70% leased with good prospects for the remaining space. We hope to announce further leasing later this year. You may recall that we terminated the 70,000 square foot lease with WeWork prior to opening the building. Since then, we have backfilled that space with Transamerica and Morgan Stanley, with better than previous financial terms and better credit. We believe that this activity, along with the commitment from T. Rowe Price to adjacently locate their world headquarters confirms Harbor Point, a true mixed use master plan community as the premier location destination in the region for top tenants. These developments, along with the continued strength at our Town Center office locations are further evidence of the view we maintain, that quality tenants in secondary markets will continue to seek out top-quality buildings in prime locations with access to residences and services. In our experience the vibrant mixed use environments will continue to sustain office occupancy over the long-term. Although, the full impact on earnings of new office and retail leases, as well as the robust rise in multifamily rents won't be fully reflected into well into 2022. We're very encouraged by the trajectory of our portfolio. Turning to development, we continue to execute on our $470 million pipeline, despite the well-documented supply chain and labor challenges. The circumstance emphasizes the considerable advantages of having in-house development and general contracting capability, as well as seasoned joint venture development partners. By way of example, the two multifamily projects currently underway remain on their budgets and ahead of their scheduled delivery dates. In fact, current projections have both projects delivering about 30-days earlier than previously committed. Solis Gainesville began pre-leasing last month and the first move-ins are now scheduled for January. At Chronicle Mill delivery has been accelerated to late summer of 2022. Based on the activity in the sub markets, we anticipate faster than normal lease up at both of these facilities. These assets, when combined with our new apartment development in Harrisonburg, Virginia, that will commence next spring will soon add some 700 units to our traditional multifamily portfolio, bringing the total count to over 3,000 units. Additionally, we have development control and optionality with respect to our Town Center Regal property, another prime apartment site. We believe that this sector of our platform alone has a value of over $1 billion. We also believe that investors will ultimately reap tremendous growth and value from this very significant portion of our diversified business model. This leads me to our three student housing properties. As we have said on several occasions, we view these assets as non-core, and they will ultimately be used as a rare [ph] source of inexpensive capital to fund development and acquisition opportunities. Occupancy of these properties was significantly impacted during COVID. And thus, we don't expect full restabilization to occur for at least another school year. That said, the assets are now over 97% occupied, albeit at lower than pro forma rents. However, given the attractiveness of today's cap rates, we have opted to transact on these properties and ultimately exit this category. Our expectation is that the Johns Hopkins facility will be sold later this month. The two College of Charleston assets are on the market, and we would expect to transact early next year. Collectively, we expect a modest gain in total. More importantly, we expect to recycle this significant amount of capital in better yielding higher growth opportunities that we have identified and intend to transact on in the near future. The balance of the announced development pipeline, the mixed use Southern Post in Roswell, Georgia, and the joint ventures at Harbor Point on the Baltimore waterfront continue on track to break ground around year-end. In addition to the T. Rowe Price world headquarters, the program for the companion building is substantially settled. This building will feature 300 apartments, 15,000 square feet of retail space, and 1,300 parking spaces. So the pipeline is robust. As I previously mentioned, we continue to receive many new prospective engagements. The amount of activity in our markets, coupled with our 40-year track record have yielded many more opportunities for high-value projects across our diversified platform. We will continue to evaluate these for selective inclusion in our pre-development process. This brings me to our construction company. Most of you know this division of our company primarily serves to lower costs and shorten schedules on our development properties. That said, the division contributes meaningful fee income with third-party engagements, and had perhaps its best year ever in 2020 with $7.7 million in third-party gross profits. This year, due to a delay in construction starts as many of our clients postponed projects until later in the year, we anticipate ending the year at the low-end of our historical range. Fortunately, all of those anticipated projects are now moving forward. The effect of the delays has simply been to move more work in place, and therefore profits into next year. This activity coupled with new engagements that should be solidified later in the year, we'll most probably see the division back to the high-end of our normal range, if not beyond in 2022. As we relate to you with our guidance presentation from last winter, we believe that 2021 is a year when our activities would substantially increase NAV through our leasing initiatives, improved quality of earnings, exciting development starts and a de-emphasis of the mezzanine program. In short, we anticipate that our execution will build a solid base for higher earnings and dividends over the next few years, and ultimately lead to a significant expansion of our earnings multiple. We believe that we are well on our way towards delivering on those goals. Although, there are too many factors that remain unsettled to offer exact guidance for 2022, our expectation is that with the exception of the mezzanine program as previously stated, virtually all segments of our business will show healthy increases next year. We expect these trends combined with off-market acquisition opportunities we are targeting to lead to higher earnings next year. As the company's largest active equity holder, management remains committed to generating long-term value for all shareholders. And I'll turn the call over Mike.