Peter Moglia
Analyst · SMBC Nikko. Please go ahead with your question
Thank you, Steve. I'm going to spend the next few minutes updating you on our near-term pipeline, recent lab office comps and provide an update on construction costs. As we noted on page two of the supplemental, we've delivered 1 million square feet over the past two quarters, including 481,000 square feet in the first quarter. After a delay noted on our last call due to work performed by the city of Cambridge that interfered with our glazing installation and delay caused by the power company who were months late in hooking up permanent power, we delivered 123,403 square feet at the 399 Binney Street building in January, only one month over our pro forma delivery date. More good news is that we've increased our stabilized cash yield to a 7.2% yield which is a solid increase of 50 basis points over our original pro forma of 6.7%. At today's cap rates for lab office in Cambridge, we believe we've developed to a value accretion margin in the range of 60% plus when comparing our current stabilized yield with current market cap rates. Anchored by Alphabet's Life Science subsidiary Verily, we delivered 139,810 square feet or 66% of the 279 East Grand building in South San Francisco in the first quarter at a very healthy 8.1% yield. Green Street's current NAV model applies a 5.3% nominal cap rate to South San Francisco assets. So the 280 basis point spread over that benchmark makes 279 a significant new contributor to NAV. 188 East Blaine, our new flagship building on Lake Union in Seattle, delivered 90,615 square feet or 46% of the building at a 6.7% initial stabilized cash yield. Steady leasing progress continued as we move from 49% leased at the end of 2018 to 67% leased at the end of the first quarter. And the limited supply in the market has enabled us to push rents above $60 net for the first time in our history there. As of the end of the first quarter, we've delivered 56,137 square feet or approximately half of Phase 1 of Alexandria Center for AgTech, also known as 5 Laboratory Drive in RTP. This project has been very well received by the market and has reached 97% lease within 15 months of the commencement of construction. It is the latest of eight properties containing over 0.5 million square feet within our asset base that serves AgTech research and development and it will expand our leadership in the sector by providing a multi-tenant, multifunctional, amenitized research and development project that will serve as the center of gravity for the industry in RTP. We delivered 66,000 square feet of the 142,400 square foot 681 Gateway building this past quarter and remain on target to meet our outsized yield of 8.5% for this redevelopment of office space allowed at our South San Francisco Gateway campus. In Palo Alto we delivered 48,547 square feet at Alexandria Park completing the first phase of redevelopment there at a 6.2% yield, which was slightly higher than what was originally projected. Credit tenant Workday leased all of that space. Rounding out the first quarter deliveries was 10,250 square feet at our multi-tenant 80,000 square-foot building at 704 Quince Orchard in Gaithersburg, Maryland where we are successfully targeting a growing cadre of early-stage company there. As we typically do, I'll discuss a couple of lab office sales comps that occurred this quarter. Both are in Cambridge and were reported to have had significant interest from several institutional investors, which correlates well with the enthusiasm we're hearing from brokers and investors about the demand for life science and real estate investments. I'll also note a sale in Mission Bay of a pure office building that illustrates investor enthusiasm for that market. 610 Main Street North, 610 Main Street South and 710 Main Street were sold by MIT in April. The purchase price was $1.1 billion or $1,625 per square foot, representing a 4.3% cap rate for the approximately 677,000 square-foot campus, which includes a 650-car parking garage. The properties are subject to a ground lease and are anchored by Pfizer and Novartis. 1030 Massachusetts Avenue was sold by Bain Capital representing Harvard's endowment for $128 million, or $1,640 per square foot and a 4.7% reported cap rate. The 78,049 square-foot property is in mid-Cambridge between Harvard and Central Square and it's fully leased to a mix of life science tenants including Astellas and private biotech Obsidian Therapeutics. I'll wrap up this commentary with a notation that 550 Terry Francois a 289,408 square foot office building leased to the Gap in Mission Bay was sold by Hines in December for $342.5 million or $1,183 per square foot, representing a 4.1% cap rate. The property is adjacent to our 1455-1515 Third Street and 455 Mission Bay Boulevard south properties in Mission Bay. So a quick update on construction cost. They've remained stable in our markets, except for Seattle where our GCs are projecting 2019 and 2020 to escalate 0.5% higher than our previous projections and we've adjusted our pro formas accordingly. This is being driven by demand for skilled labor. For our consultant in New York City, escalations may be growing -- or may be slowing there, but we're keeping them at our current levels of 4.5% to 5% until we see further evidence in our pricing. As for the impact of tariffs, we've accounted for them in current project budgets that are under GMP and are included in our escalation assumptions for those that are not. In addition to monitoring escalations, we're also assessing and including the impacts of increased project costs due to anticipated energy efficiency and resiliency programs both our internal goal and those that will be required from various regulatory agencies. I'll go ahead now, and pass it on to Dean.