John Kilroy
Analyst · Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Please go ahead
Thanks, Tyler, and hello everyone. Thank you for joining us. We continue to see very healthy conditions across our West Coast markets, with the second quarter setting an all-time high for us in terms of leasing volume. We signed new or renewing leases on more than 1.3 million square on our stabilized portfolio, with rents up 30% on a GAAP basis and 10% on a cash basis. We leveraged the strength of our existing portfolio to create a new 375,000 square foot headquarters for GM Cruise, combining buildings in San Francisco’s most sought-after technology corridor into an urban campus. We made substantial progress and backfilling in our major 2018 and 2019 lease expirations. We have commenced an improvement work on both 100 Hooper, our 400,000 square foot project in SOMA, and The Exchange, our 750,000 square foot project in Mission Bay. We completed our acquisition of Kilroy Oyster Point, a premier waterfront life science development opportunity located in South San Francisco, and we are making progress on all our capital recycling plants. We are now non-refundable on the sale of our Bay Area office campus for $160 million. Now let’s get into the details. Our second quarter leasing activity hit record levels, with improving fundamentals in each of our markets, transactions were spread throughout our portfolio and negotiations were fast and efficient, some in record time. This was demonstrated by a 12-year lease we signed in June with a software company for just over 100,000 square feet at our 250 Brannan Street property in San Francisco. The tenant moved quickly to secure sufficient workspace to accommodate its growth plans. And rent was up substantially over the prior lease, 50% on a cash basis and 100% on a GAAP basis, generating approximately $2.5 million in higher cash NOI on a stabilized basis. The quality of this and similar transactions we’ve completed and the speed with which we have been able to execute them, speaks volumes about the depth of demand in our markets, the competition for space among tenants, the limited availability of large blocks of space in prime locations and the attractive value proposition offered by our properties. The evolution of our portfolio into a younger, higher quality and more sustainable set of properties is giving us what we believe is a clear advantage in the market. It’s also providing an opportunity for us to adapt quickly to emerging market trends. One example is our recent lease transaction with GM Cruise. Looking within our existing portfolio, we were able to assemble properties and combine them with an acquisition to create a compelling urban campus for GM’s self-driving car unit in the heart of San Francisco’s major technology corridor. The new campus encompasses three properties, two existing KRC properties, 301 and 333 Brannan and a third 345 Brannan, which we are under contract to acquire later this year. These three buildings are classic examples of work environments that help attract and retain the modern workforce. They have open floor plans with top gardens and meeting areas, street-level integration with neighborhood retail and fully sustainable operating systems. We believe this transaction solidly demonstrates how we harvest opportunities within our portfolio to create meaningful value, both by increasing cash flow. Stabilized cash NOI from the three buildings will increase by $5 million in 2020. And by building strong relationships with high-growth tenants. Portfolio quality has also been an important factor in our ability to backfill our large lease expirations this year and next. We have made great strides on our major 2018 and 2019 expirations. We have now backfilled nearly 70% of the four major 2018 expirations, and for 2019, we have reduced the five expirations greater than 75,000 square feet to just one. Moving to development. As we’ve reported at our recent Investor Day, we completed the acquisition of Kilroy Oyster Point development site in South San Francisco. As most of you know, we have been expanding our market presence and management expertise in life science for some time. It’s a natural extension of our platform and one of the key industry’s driving growth and innovation in our economy. Kilroy Oyster Point covers almost 40 acres of waterfront property. The site is fully entitled for 2.5 million square feet of office and lab space and is located in the premier West Coast market for health care, life science and biotechnology industries. It is situated on the preferred northern corridor and at the front door to the existing ferry service. The project will include four phases, with a total of 11 buildings, providing flexibility and optionality in terms of timing. Phase 1 is currently planned for three buildings, totaling approximately 600,000 square feet. With regard to our ongoing development program, as I mentioned, we are in the TI phase on both 100 Hooper and The Exchange. The construction continues to progress on time and on budget on all of our projects, including 333 Dexter, Academy on Vine, and One Paseo. These three under construction projects total just under 1 million square feet of office space, 120,000 square feet retail space, 608 residential units. Together, they represent a total estimated investment of $1.1 billion or approximately 10% of our enterprise value. At One Paseo, the retail component is now 70% leased, with additional transactions in varying stages of documentation that would increase this percentage to over 90%. Retail grand opening is scheduled for next spring. We have also now commenced construction on all of the remaining residential units. The apartments will be delivered in phases beginning mid next year. With the retail and residential components creating energy and buzz in the community as well as providing the amenities that the modern tenant wants, respective office tenants are now showing significant interest in our to-be-built 270,000 square foot office project. Given the strong pre-leasing activity, market rental rates at all-time highs combined with no competing supply, we are evaluating when we should start the office component of One Paseo. Let me finish with a quick update on capital recycling. We are now non-refundable on the sale of a multi-building campus in Northern California for $160 million. We expect to close this disposition in the fourth quarter. We are also at various stages of the sales process on several other assets and expect to be within our previously stated range for the year. To summarize, let me leave you with four messages. First, fundamentals in our markets are strengthening, not softening, and our young modern portfolio is ideally positioned to capture that demand. While it’s difficult to forecast precisely, we and the brokerage community predict continued rent increases in all of our markets over the next few years. Second, our capital allocation strategy remains focused on development, which is both increasing FFO and creating long-term value. With the developments mentioned above, we expect FFO to grow by 25% by 2020. Third, we will stay disciplined in managing the risk of the company. And fourth, with the capital market transactions that Tyler will discuss, in addition to our ongoing dispositions, we continue to fund our growth conservatively and economically. That completes my remarks. Now I’ll turn the call over to Jeff for a closer look at our markets. Jeff?