Edward Fritsch
Analyst · Jamie Feldman with Bank of America Merrill Lynch
Thank you, Brendan, and good morning, everyone. While interest rates have increased and REIT stock prices have contracted, economic indicators remain sound, and fundamentals in our business remain healthy with rising rents and steady demand from existing customers and new prospects. As you know, we worked hard to have built a fortress-like balance sheet. And while lowering leverage has modestly reduced near-term earnings growth, we have arrows in our quiver to fund our development pipeline without meaningfully impacting our balance sheet metrics or triggering a prerequisite to issue additional shares. Turning to the third quarter, we delivered FFO of $0.86 per share and leased 884,000 square feet of second-gen office space, including 278,000 square feet of relets. In addition to solid leasing volume, we also posted strong leasing metrics. In the third quarter, we garnered GAAP rent spreads of plus 18.5% and cash rent spreads of plus 3.2%. Net effective rents on lease assigned in the quarter were roughly in line with our recent five quarter average. Furthermore, in five years' time, we've increased net effective rents by more than 25%. Given our strong leasing metrics, in-place cash rents are up 4.9% compared to a year ago. As anticipated, with Fidelity's known move-out of 178,000 square feet from the 11000 Weston building in our Weston - in our Raleigh division, our occupancy declined 50 basis points to 91.3%. Excluding this move-out, occupancy would have increased 10 basis points. As reflected in our outlook, we expect occupancy to improve by year-end. We continue to generate growth with our development program. Since our last earnings call, we've scotched over 115,000 square feet of first-gen leasing, which represents more than half of the remaining spec space in our development pipeline. The strongest move in the quarter was at Virginia Springs I in Nashville, where we're now 100% preleased, up from 38% last quarter. This strong leasing has accelerated this development project's projected stabilization date by 6 whole quarters ahead of the original pro forma, from the third quarter of 2020 to the first quarter of 2019. Similarly, given our strong demand, we fully anticipate accelerating the stabilization of 751 Corporate Center in Raleigh 6 or 7 quarters ahead of our original pro forma. Also, we placed two development projects in service representing a total investment of $67 million and encompassing 223,000 square feet. First, our $29 million, 87,000 square foot, 100% leased build-to-suit headquarters and ambulatory service center for Virginia Urology in Richmond. And second, Seven Springs II in Nashville, a $38 million, 136,000 square foot project that is 74% leased. After placing these 2 projects in service, our development pipeline is now $658 million and 96% preleased. This pipeline will provide meaningful cash flow as it delivers over the next few years. As a reminder, we have $190 million of 100% preleased development delivering in 2019. These projects are Virginia Springs 1 in Nashville, which I mentioned, will now be delivered and placed in service in the first quarter of 2019; our third building at MetLife's Global Technology center in Raleigh, which is on track to deliver in the second quarter of 2019; and Mars Pet Care's U.S. headquarters in Nashville, which is scheduled to deliver and be placed in service in the third quarter of 2019. With regard to construction costs, we continue to see them rise at approximately 1/2% per month, in line with the ZIP code we've been experiencing over the past few years. As you know, we are largely insulated from cost increases in our current development pipeline given our build-to-suit projects are open book, and we have GMP contracts in place for our multi-customer development projects. During the past several years, demand for new space has remained strong despite higher rents. In addition, we continue to have conversations with a number of sizable preleased prospects across several potential development projects. This sustained level of interest leads us to believe the depth of demand should remain attractive as construction costs and rents continue to rise. As a reminder, our initial 2018 development announcement outlook was $100 million to $350 million. With our $285 million Asurion build-to-suit announcement, we surpassed our original midpoint by $60 million. Turning to building dispositions, our current 2018 outlook is $80 million to $120 million, with $31 million closed thus far. We continue to expect a number of noncore asset sales to occur before year-end. We've kept our acquisition outlook unchanged at $0 million to $200 million. For the few assets that have been in the market, pricing for BBD-located, Class A office properties remains highly competitive with cap rates in the mid-5s to low-6s. We continue to evaluate on- and off-market opportunities with a commitment to prudent investing. In summary, strong leasing activity in our operating portfolio and continued focus on disciplined capital recycling, combined with carefully managed operating expenses, a strong balance sheet and a very highly preleased development pipeline, sets the table for growth in our cash flow and NAV over the next several years. Ted?