Edward Fritsch
Analyst · Bank of America. Please go ahead
Good morning and thank you for joining us. Our company continues to benefit from sound business conditions that are resulting in steady demand for our well-located BBD product. While many of us often wish the pace of GDP growth was faster, this measured cadence may very well be leading to an even longer sustained expansion period rather than a live fast, die young scenario. Yesterday afternoon we reported FFO of $0.77 per share for the second quarter and 1.2 million square feet of office leasing. We grew same-store cash NOI 5.3% from a year ago and increased in-service occupancy 90 basis points sequentially. We are now projecting company-wide occupancy of 93% to 93.5% at year-end, raising the low-end by 50 basis points. A key highlight for the quarter was our execution in development. We announced our $107 million Riverwood 200 project and we placed $72 million of 100% leased development in service. The second MetLife building and the Biologics headquarters building, both in Raleigh. We are also pleased to announce two additions to our development pipeline: Seven Springs II in Nashville and Enterprise V in Greensboro. Seven Springs II, a 131,000 square foot office building with structured parking, will consume our last office pad in our Seven Springs project in Nashville’s highly popular, 97.7% occupied Brentwood submarket, one of the market’s BBDs. The total investment is expected to be $38.1 million, including the value of Company-owned land. We anticipate construction commencing next quarter with delivery in the second quarter of 2017 and stabilization in the third quarter of 2018. Our existing in-service Seven Springs portfolio is 100% leased. It consists of two office buildings encompassing 332,000 square feet plus 41,000 square feet of amenity retail. In addition, construction is well underway at Seven Springs West, a 203,000 square foot office building that is now 86% pre-leased to AIG and is scheduled for delivery in the third quarter of 2016. This quarter, we will commence development of Enterprise V, a 131,200 square foot industrial building for an anticipated total investment of $7.6 million. The building is projected to stabilize second quarter of 2017, a year after its 2Q 2016 delivery. This is another solid opportunity for us to put Company-owned land to work. In Enterprise Park, we have three existing buildings totaling 658,000 square feet that are 100% occupied. We have two more pad sites at Enterprise Park that can support 360,000 square feet of additional industrial development. Our Enterprise Park is in the airport submarket where industrial occupancy is 98%. Riverwood 200 in Atlanta, the other addition to our development pipeline subsequent to our April call, is a 299,000 square foot office building adjacent to our 94% occupied 503,000 square foot Riverwood 100 project. We announced this $107 million development in June with 39% pre-leasing and have grown pre-leasing to 66% in just two months’ time. Our current development pipeline is now $521 million and includes eight projects in six markets encompassing 1.6 million square feet that is 72% pre-leased. We continue to chase additional development opportunities, mostly on Company-owned land, and have raised the low-end of our guidance from $150 million to $200 million. We have left the high-end at $250 million unchanged. Looking ahead, we would expect stabilization GAAP yields to continue to average 8.5% to 9%. Turning to acquisitions, cap rates are rich and some assets, particularly stabilized assets without significant future upside, have traded at prices per pound out of sync with our view of their risk profile. However, we believe we can be successful in acquiring BBD-located buildings that enhance the quality of our portfolio at prices that offer upside, whether through lease-up, Highwood-tizing and/or harvesting operating efficiencies. We have left our guidance positions unchanged at $50 million to $300 million. Turning to dispositions, we’ve sold $32 million of non-core properties year-to-date. This includes a sale subsequent to the end of the second quarter where we sold a 102,000 square foot office building in Winston-Salem for $15.3 million. This property is 100% leased to U.S. Airways. We have a well-defined list of non-core assets in various stages of marketing and have left our disposition guidance unchanged at $100 million to $200 million. We continue to make significant progress in our War on Complexity, including reducing our exposure to joint ventures. During the quarter, we acquired our JV partner’s 77% interest of Eola Park Centre, a 168,000 square foot office building in Orlando, for a total investment of $22 million, 50% below estimated replacement cost. We now wholly own all the for-lease office buildings of size surrounding Lake Eola in CBD Orlando, a BBD. Another of our non-core joint ventures sold its two buildings and an adjacent small parcel of land in Atlanta, generating $9.8 million of proceeds for our 40% share. This transaction resulted in a land sale gain of about $1 million dollars in the second quarter. We expect to close-out two more relatively small non-core joint ventures later this year. Given this, by year-end 2015, we will have gone from a historic peak of 71 JV assets representing approximately 10% of our revenues to only 13 JV assets representing approximately 2.5% of our revenues. Turning to FFO, we have further tightened our 2015 per share outlook. We’ve raised the low-end by $0.03 to $3 and reduced the high end by $0.01 to $3.06. The midpoint of our range is now $3.03 per share. As we look ahead, we expect meaningful NOI upside over the next few years. Atop 909,000 square feet of 97% leased development, representing a total investment of $217 million delivered over the past three quarters, we have an additional 1.5 million square feet of already 71% pre-leased development, representing a total investment of $485 million, delivering over the next two years. Ted will now cover leasing highlights. Ted?