Victor J. Coleman
Analyst · KeyBanc Capital
Thank you, Kay, and welcome, everyone, to our second quarter 2014 conference call. The second quarter was very productive for Hudson, highlighted by the signing of several long-term leases and successful recycling of capital with the disposition of a noncore property. Subsequent to the end of the quarter, we completed the sale of 112,300 square-foot Tierrasanta property located in San Diego for $19.5 million in an all-cash transaction. Proceeds from the disposition were used towards the acquisition of our Merrill Place property pursuant to a like-kind reverse exchange under the Internal Revenue Code Section 1031. On the leasing front, Hudson was very active with the completion of new and renewal leases totaling 267,000 square feet during the quarter. Highlights included the new UBER Technologies at 1455 Market Street, with the expanded -- it was expanding its existing lease at an additional 130,000 square feet. We also executed another new lease at 1455 Market Street property in San Francisco with Rocket Fuel, Inc., a leading provider of artificial intelligence advertising solutions for digital marketers. This leasing encompasses 24,000 square feet of initial occupancy and includes an expansion for an additional 24,000 square feet, for a combined 48,000 square feet of occupancy. With the execution of Rocket Fuel and UBER deals, the office component of 1455 Market Street is effectively fully leased. Other noteworthy leases in the quarter included a new 7-year, 46,000 square-foot lease at our 901 Market Street property in San Francisco with the fast-growing startup NerdWallet, Inc., and a 7-year, 25,000 square-foot lease with McGraw-Hill Global Education Holdings at our 83 King Street property in Seattle. And finally, I'm pleased to announce that our leasing efforts over the quarter also resulted in the execution of a 15-year lease at our 901 Market Street property to the renowned retailer Saks & Company, encompassing a portion of the ground floor and the entire lower level for a total of 41,000 square feet. The space will be home to the latest Saks Fifth Avenue Off 5th store. This lease is expected to commence in the second quarter of '15. With the execution of this lease, our 901 Market property is fully leased. In terms of leasing trends, fundamentals remained strong in each of our core markets. And looking first at San Francisco, the strong leasing demand throughout the region tightened available supply and continued the upward pressure on rental rates. Net absorption during the second quarter was a healthy 788,000 square feet, pushing market-wide vacancy to 7%, a 20 basis point decline from the prior quarter and a 150 basis point decline from the second quarter of last year. Market-wide asking rents increased to $59.28, an increase of 4.7% over the prior quarter and a year-over-year increase of 14%. Looking ahead at the second half of the year, we believe technology firms will continue to provide strong demand for office space in the San Francisco marketplace. Over the next year, 4 additional new construction projects are expected to deliver 1.3 million square feet to the market. However, this space is already more than 80% pre-leased and, therefore, not expected to significantly ease the current supply constraints. As demand holds steady during this time, rental rates should continue to move higher and could approach the $74 per-square-foot highs hit in 2000. Now turning to Los Angeles. The Greater Los Angeles office market exhibits pockets of positive activity. Not surprisingly, West Los Angeles and the Hollywood Wilshire Corridor, our core submarkets in our regions, continue to outperform the market on a greater basis, accounting for more than 180% of the region's net absorption in the quarter. Furthermore, across West Los Angeles, second quarter asking rates increased 1.6% from the end of the first quarter and were up 9.8% year-over-year. And in addition, the West Los Angeles submarket had a vacancy rate of 14% at the end of the second quarter, down from 14.2% at the end of the first quarter 2000 and significantly outpacing the overall region. While the recovery story in the Greater Los Angeles region has recently characterized by the ebb and flow of the local markets, underlying conditions appear to be improving. The unemployment rate in Los Angeles County continued to tick downward with job growth across all sectors. The national economy posted 288,000 jobs in June, causing the national unemployment rate to reach 6.1% for the first time since 2008. But unlike previous quarters, in which Los Angeles lagged behind the nation, the local economy saw hiring gains in line with the national trend. With overall employment projected to grow 1.4% over the next few years, forecasts for the Los Angeles market call for increased demand and moderate rental rate growth throughout our core submarkets. I'd like to briefly update you on our progress over the past quarter on our Icon asset, our latest office development in Hollywood. As you recall, Icon will be approximately 323,000 square-foot best-in-class office tower and an additional 90,000 square-foot creative office building with 1,700 stall parking structure, ideally located immediately adjacent to our Sunset Bronson Studios property. We continue to make progress towards the scheduling commencement of the parking construction -- parking structure construction later this quarter and the groundbreaking of the office tower and production building by the end of this year. We're very pleased with what we're seeing in terms of the leasing activity in Hollywood submarket and delighted with our progress as we near commencement of this important development project. Moving on to Seattle, a recent report by the U.S. Consensus Bureau (sic) [U.S. Census Bureau] found Seattle's population is growing at a faster rate than any other major U.S. city, having experienced a 2.8% population growth in 2013. Driven by the rapidly expanding technology industry, Seattle's unemployment rate dropped to 4.8%, its lowest level since 2008 and its third lowest level -- lowest rate among metro -- major metro area cities in the United States. During the second quarter, total vacancy in Seattle region declined for the fourth quarter in a row, improving 40 basis points to 14.2%, the lowest vacancy rate since the first quarter of 2009. And furthermore, Class-A average asking lease rates increased nearly 1.3% from the end of the first quarter to finish second -- the second quarter at $30 full-service gross levels. This marked the 11th consecutive quarterly increase. Of the major markets, Downtown Seattle, where we have the majority of our portfolio in the region, remained the leader for Class-A asking rates at $33.44 per square foot, a 1.5% increase from last quarter. And in addition, with the current vacancy rates of only 12.8%, Downtown Seattle has accounted for nearly 55% of the region's net absorption during the last 4 quarters and significantly outperformed the region as a whole. With that, I'm going to turn the call over to Mark, our CFO, for details on our second quarter financial performances.