John Kilroy
Analyst · KeyBanc Capital Markets. Please go ahead
Thank you, Tyler and hello everyone. Thank you for joining us today. I will address four topics in my comments this morning, first a review of 2017; second an update on our key development projects; third, our recently completed acquisition of Oyster Point Tech Park; and fourth, goals and objectives for 2018. 2017 was another year of strong performance at KRC. We delivered excellent results across all areas of our business and continued to create value in our operating and development platforms that will drive future earnings and dividend growth. We signed approximately 2.9 million square feet of leases driving occupancy in our stabilized portfolio to 95.2% and securing long-term high-quality tenants for more than 60% of our under construction office projects. We stabilized Columbia Square. The property’s office space is now 100% leased. We did not make any building acquisitions in 2017 and instead focused on creating value through our development pipeline in the disposition of non-core assets. We commenced construction on 333 Dexter and approximately $400 million office project located in the South Lake Union submarket of Seattle one of the country’s best performing submarkets, where Class A vacancy is just 4.1%. We acquired a land site in the Little Italy section of San Diego, a terrific urban neighborhood that offers the potential for significant value creation. We generated $187 million through our capital recycling program selling 11 non-core properties and a land site in San Diego. We increased our dividend another 13.3% bringing the 2-year increase to 21%. We continue to strengthen our balance sheet and lower our overall cost of capita. We raised close to $675 million in new equity and debt, redeemed approximately $700 million in more expensive debt and preferred stock and expanded our unsecured credit facilities to $900 million. And finally, throughout the year, we continue to build our enterprise capabilities. We had a key personnel to our already strong management team deepening our expertise in the pursuit and execution of our current and future development portfolio and including our projects in the life science area. Now, let me review the fourth quarter, which was led by strong leasing activity. We signed leases totaling more than 1.4 million square feet in the quarter putting a meaningful den in expirations occurring over the next 12 months and securing a top-quality tenant for the entire office portion of The Exchange at 16th. In our stabilized portfolio we signed new or renewing leases on 678,000 square feet. Rents were 15% higher on a GAAP basis and excluding 1-year lease extension in Los Angeles 18.3% higher on a cash basis. The largest executed lease in the stabilized portfolio was a 10-year 207,000 square foot transaction with Okta for all of Delta Dental’s 188,000 square feet plus an additional 19,000 square feet at our 100 First STREET office property in San Francisco, SoMa district. This lease removes a key 2018 expiration and was executed well before Delta Dental’s move out at the end of May. Cash rents were up 27% on a GAAP basis. Our cash rents were up 27% and GAAP rents were up 51%. In addition, Okta has a must take on our additional 48,000 square feet in the building that will become available in 2020. Tyler will provide more color on occupancy in his section. Moving to our development program, as we discussed on our last quarter’s call, in October we signed a 15-year lease with Dropbox for 100% of the office space at The Exchange, our 4-building 750,000 square foot office and retail development project in San Francisco’s Mission Bay neighborhood is the largest single Class A commercial transaction ever completed in this city. The size in terms of this lease are indicative of the robust market demand for this type of creative, collaborative and sustainable workspace design. With The Exchange fully leased, we commenced construction in January on the first phase of Academy & Vine, which will follow Columbia Square as our second mix use project in Hollywood. The first phase of development includes the project’s 306,000 square feet of office space, 24,000 square feet of retail and parking and site work for the overall project. The anticipated completion date is 2020 and total incremental spending for Phase 1 is projected to be $190 million. Hollywood continues to benefit from strong market fundamentals of low supply and strong demand. Market strength is not only being driven by growth in content creation from Apple, Netflix, Facebook, Amazon and others which have all announced plans to invest billions, but also by small and midsize companies across various industries. Phase 2 of Academy & Vine is a 200 unit residential tower that has a projected total incremental spending of $150 million. They are currently evaluating the timing for this phase. To summarize – excuse me our development programs we now have five projects under construction The Exchange, 100 Hooper, Phase 1 of One Paseo, 333 Dexter and Phase 1 of the Academy & Vine. All projects are on schedule and budget. Together they total just over 2.1 million square feet of office space, 120,000 square feet of retail and 237 residential units and represent a total estimated investment of $1.7 billion with remaining incremental spending of $800 million. We expect to generate over $120 million of NOI from these projects, which represents a 25% growth in our companywide NOI from 2017. With respect to the remaining residential phases at One Paseo, our intent is to start the 371 units over the course of the next six months. The remaining incremental spending for these units is approximately $110 million. Lastly, we continue to focus significant effort on our entitlement work at the Flower Mart project in San Francisco and the recently acquired Little Italy project in San Diego. Before I move to our 2018 key objectives, let me review our most recent acquisition Oyster Point Tech Center. Yesterday, we completed the acquisition of three two-story lab buildings for $111 million in an off-market transaction. The three buildings total 146,000 square feet and are located in the Oyster Point Submarket of South San Francisco, a leading hub for the biotechnology industry and one of the strongest life science markets in the country. The project is approximately 80% leased to strong credit companies and generates a mid-6% yield upon stabilization. We were attracted to this acquisition for several reasons. In addition to a strong cash return upon stabilization that provides the potential for significant redevelopment over time. Also as most people know, we have recorded option on a substantial development opportunity in the Oyster Point submarket. The Oyster Point Tech Center is adjacent to this opportunity and could provide significant strategic benefits over time. Under confidentiality, we cannot discuss the details of the development opportunity, but we are making good progress and we expect more announcements on this throughout 2018. Let me finish with a quick summary of our key 2018 objectives. They include making significant progress on our three remaining large 2018 expirations, ensuring solid execution of our development program, including the delivery of core and shell at 100 Hooper in the spring and the exchange on 16th in the second quarter, securing entitlements on our future development opportunities such as the Flower Mart continuing to recycle capital. We are forecasting asset dispositions of approximately $250 million to $750 million with a midpoint of $500 million to fund our development program and finally, keeping our balance sheet strong with conservative leverage and a conservative debt to EBITDA ratio. That completes my remarks. Now, I will turn the call over to Jeff for a closer look at our markets. Jeff?