Michael Franco
Analyst · Citi
Thank you, Cathy, and good morning, everyone. Overall, our business is in great shape. Our buildings are full, and we can see us drilling in on a significant opportunity that we have with the redevelopment in the Penn district. Let me review our third quarter financial results before giving some thoughts on the markets and our portfolio in particular the Penn district.
Third quarter FFO as adjusted was $0.89 per share, $0.07 lower than last year's third quarter. As I discussed on last quarter's call, these results were impacted primarily by reduced income related to the over $3.1 billion in asset sales we completed year-to-date, and the lost income from the Topshop and Forever 21 bankruptcies. Last quarter, I also discussed the impact of Topshop's closing at 608 Fifth Avenue, and 478 Broadway. In August, we delivered the required 9-month notice to the ground lessor at 608 Fifth Avenue and we will terminate the lease in May 2020. This permanently reduces FFO by approximately $10 million annually and nicks our NAV by roughly $1 per share. This ground lease has only 14 years left on it and was not economic for us to hold on to.
Now for Forever 21, which we mentioned last quarter was a restructuring candidate. As you know, they filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection at the end of September. They are a tenant at 1540 Broadway and 435 Seventh Avenue. They have a third lease with us at 4 Union Square, which expires next month, and we chose not to renew with them. We have already released a portion of that space to Whole Foods as part of their expansion and have a lease out with another important tenant for an additional portion, both at higher rents than what Forever 21 was paying us there. Forever 21st's annual rent on 1540 Broadway and 435 Seventh Avenue totals approximately $20 million this year. While the bankruptcy process is fluid and is still in its early stages, we have reached a tentative agreement with Forever 21 to shorten their leases and retain them in those 2 locations for a little less than half of their current rent, with us having the right to recapture the spaces at any time after the first year, enabling us to secure long-term tenants for these spaces. Both of these assets are in prime locations, and we are confident of their long-term potential. So to summarize, even with these items, we remain on track to meet the approximate $3.40 per share and comparable FFO for 2019 that we referenced in last quarter's call.
Our noncomparable items this quarter included a couple of large gains: one, the $178.8 million of net gains on sale of real estate primarily related to the July sale of the 25% interest in 330 Madison where we made 8 times our investment. And two, the $109 million after-tax net gain on unit closings at 220 Central Park South. To date, we have closed on 48 units for net proceeds of $1.25 billion, including 14 units at $349 million this quarter, and we continue to sign new contracts for the few remaining units as well. Remember that we paid off the remainder of the $950 million loan on this asset in July. So as closings continue through 2020, we retain all net proceeds, which, importantly, will be redeployed into the Penn District redevelopments, turning this capital into highly accretive earnings and propelling our future growth.
Company-wide, our third quarter cash basis same-store NOI increased by 1%, broken down as follows. New York office and Street retail, both up 1%. theMART was down 1% and 555 California Street was up 17.7%. For the first 9 months, cash same-store NOI across the business was up 2.7%.
Let me now turn to the New York market. The New York office market, which continues to be fueled by positive job growth and delivery of premium office product performed strongly during the third quarter of 2019. Leasing activity across the city remains vibrant driven mainly by technology and financial tenants with asking rents at record highs for the market overall. More than 25 million square feet of new leases have been signed in New York during the first 3 quarters of 2019, with many large deals in process expected to be closed in the fourth quarter. Talent wants to be in New York, and therefore, companies are migrating to and expanding in the city, creating tremendous competition for top talent. Nowhere is this more evident than with the dramatic demand from the big tech companies. The executives view the real estate as one of the key drivers to recruiting the best and brightest talent to their teams. Private sector jobs increased 53,000 in the first 9 months on pace of 2018. With 9-month office sector jobs increasing about 18,000 as compared with 20,000 for all of 2018. And certainly at a pace strong enough to continue absorbing the new supply coming online. There are currently 65 tenants actively looking for 100,000 square feet or more, totaling 16 million square feet of potential [ rental ] activity. This demand is coming from all industries -- all industry sectors from companies already in the city as well as those seeking their first home here.
Our development in the Penn district is seeing the benefits of this demand as we are in full gear on our 5.2 million square feet of combined redevelopments at Farley, Penn 1 and Penn 2. We are experiencing robust interest in all 3 projects as prospective tenants begin to appreciate the magnitude of our district transformation. Tenants are responding very favorably to the unique nature of our amenities, space offerings and design elements at each property that will serve today's workforce at the most successful location directly on top of the most important transportation hub in the region. Farley is one of a kind, and we have great activity in the space. At Penn 2, we are negotiating a lease for the 400,000 square feet headquarters tenant. And there's more in the works beyond this, all at rents at or above our underwriting. All our activities will benefit from significant public sector projects being built in our district, including the new grand Moynihan Train Hall which will be delivered in 2020; the expanded LIRR concourse, running from 7th to 8th Avenues by the end of 2021 and soaring new station entrance at 33rd Street in Plaza33. Against the backdrop of this district transformation, we are placed to make an entire district and are hard at work negotiating deals, securing the district with new food and beverage outlets by leading operators, coffee spots, fitness offerings and other retailers to service our tenants. These additions will dramatically enhance our offering and drive greater demand and rental rates within our 10 million square foot district portfolio. Our goal simply is to make the Penn district and our holdings specifically, the go-to location for tenants in the city.
More broadly, our New York office portfolio is in great shape. It continues to perform well. We are substantially full, with occupancy ending the quarter at 96.8%. Our remaining 2019 expirations are only 85,000 square feet while our 2020 expirations are a modest total of 1,055,000 square feet with 760,000 square feet of this amount expiring at Penn 1 and Penn 2. Please remember, this includes 565,000 square feet at Penn 2, which will be taken out of service in 2020 as this development kicks into high gear. This will bring the total out-of-service at Penn 2 at the end of next year to approximately 1 million square feet. Basically, we are repositioning the buildings for mid-60s per square foots rents to the 90s and need to move the old tenants out in order to accommodate the buildings. During the third quarter, our leasing team completed 25 leases, totaling 197,000 square feet in New York at over $80 per square foot starting rents, with very strong second-generation positive mark-to-markets of 23.7% cash and 28.5% GAAP. We have now completed 814,000 square feet of leases during the first 3 quarters of 2019 at a healthy average starting rent of around $79 per square foot. In the quarter, we signed our first lease in our new build 512 West 22nd Street on the high line with WarnerMedia for 20,000 square feet at a triple digit rent. We also have an additional lease out here for 43,000 square feet at triple digits, which we expect to sign in the fourth quarter.
Additionally, during the quarter, we finalized a relocation expansion deal with an existing tenant in our portfolio, which will be moving from Midtown to 28,000 square feet at 330 West 34th Street in the Penn district. The starting rent per square foot here is in the high 80s, a record for this building, which is clearly benefiting as tenants recognize this coming Penn district transformation. Overall, tenant dialogue across our entire portfolio is very strong and we are as busy as ever with 3 million square foot of deals in different phases of negotiations, including our strong momentum at Farley and Penn 2.
Moving to Chicago now. At theMART, during the quarter, we executed 45,000 square feet of leases at an average starting rent of over $48 per square foot, with positive mark-to-markets of 6.7% cash and 14.9% GAAP. This included an expansion lease with Allstate for 17,500 square feet taking their total footprint to 120,000 square feet. Occupancy here is at 95%.
In San Francisco, the market continues to be hitting on all-cylinders. With our campus here at 100% occupancy, we are taking advantage of extreme tightness in the market and are now discussing the renewals of several important tenants, totaling 180,000 square feet well in advance of their expirations. During the quarter, we leased 50,000 square feet, including a 42,000 square foot renewal expansion with an existing tenant in 315 Montgomery Street, at a starting rent of $97 per square foot. Please note our positive mark-to-markets on second-generation space here for a spectacular 39.3% cash and 64.5% GAAP.
Before turning to our retail business, let me comment on WeWork. There's been some speculation in the press that we and several other landlords have meaningful exposure to WeWork when quite the opposite is true in our case. We have WeWork as a tenant in only one location, 606 Broadway, a mere 15,000 square feet of share. While we appreciate some of the creativity that WeWork brought to the office business, we chose to lease our space to end users with better credit over the past few years. Notwithstanding this, we do think that co-working provides an important service in the real estate ecosystem, and we will be providing flex spaces as part of our overall offering for Penn at Penn 1 and Penn 2. This space will provide our tenants swing space, co-working space, meeting and social spaces, food and more. We will brand this space under the Vornado name, and importantly, retain the bulk of the upside.
Turning now to our New York street retail business. Overall, the retail market continues to be challenging, the leasing velocity is slow and assets are prone to negative surprises, a la Topshop and Forever 21. Retail occupancy of 95.9% at quarter end. In the third quarter, in spite of the challenging leasing environment, we executed 9 leases with 26,000 square feet of retail space, achieving positive mark-to-market of 6.2% cash and 15.6% gap on 2nd generation spaces.
During the first week of October, as we finalized their replacement lease for the short lived Four Seasons restaurant at 280 Park Avenue, with the famous best-in-class Fasano Hotel and Restaurant group. Fasano has been a symbol of quality fine dining and excellence in São Paulo and Rio since 1949. This will be their first New York restaurant and will focus on classic Italian cuisine similar to those they operate in Brazil.
Fasano will deliver the best in fine dining to Midtown Manhattan while creating an atmosphere of style, sophistication and energy. We think this will further enhance the quality of our tenant experience at 280 Park and are excited for their opening in the first half of 2020.
We continue to maintain a fortress balance sheet with reasonable leverage and an abundance of liquidity today and growing over the next few years. Our current liquidity is $3.36 billion, comprised of $1.28 billion in cash, restricted cash and securities and $2.08 billion undrawn on our revolving credit facilities. Lastly, I'll remind you that based on taxable gains from our asset sales year-to-date, we are currently anticipating paying a special dividend of approximately $1.90 per share this year.
With that, I'll turn it over to the operator for Q&A