Urban Edge Properties (UE) Q1 2026 Earnings Report, Transcript and Summary

Greetings, and welcome to the Urban Edge Properties First Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce Areeba Ahmed, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Good morning, and welcome to Urban Edge Properties First Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. Joining me today are Jeff Olson, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; Jeff Mooallem, Chief Operating Officer; Mark Langer, Chief Financial Officer; Heather Ohlberg, General Counsel; Scott Auster, EVP and Head of Leasing; and Andrew Drazin, Chief Accounting Officer. Please note, today's discussion may contain forward-looking statements about the company's views of future events and financial performance, which are subject to numerous assumptions, risks and uncertainties and which the company does not undertake to update. Our actual results, financial condition and business may differ. Please refer to our filings with the SEC, which are also available on our website for more information about the company. In our discussion today, we will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations of these measures to GAAP results are available in our earnings release and our supplemental disclosure package. At this time, it is my pleasure to introduce our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Jeff Olson.

Thank you, Areeba, and good morning. We had a great first quarter, delivering results that exceeded our internal expectations. We generated FFO as adjusted of $0.36 per share, a 3% increase over the first quarter of last year. Same-property net operating income, including redevelopment, increased by 2.8%, primarily due to rent commencements from our signed but not open pipeline. Leasing fundamentals across our portfolio remains strong, reflecting continued demand from retailers seeking well-located, high-quality space. Our shopping centers, primarily anchored by grocers, discounters, off-price retailers and home improvement stores, along with shops comprised of quick service restaurants, health, fitness and service uses continue to generate increased traffic. During the quarter, we executed leases totaling 419,000 square feet, including 84,000 square feet of new leases at a strong 52% cash spread. Our leasing pipeline remains robust and should result in record leasing activity over the coming quarters with leasing spreads expected to exceed 20%. Our signed but not open pipeline remains a meaningful contributor to future growth, representing $22 million of annual gross rent or approximately 7% of current net operating income. This provides us with strong visibility into earnings through 2027. In March, we completed the acquisition of the Village at Bridgewater Commons, a 92,000 square foot shopping center located in Bridgewater, New Jersey for $54 million at a 7.7% cap rate. This property is situated in a highly traffic corridor within an affluent market. It attracts 2.2 million visitors per year, among the highest for its size. Tenants include Summit Health, Chipotle, Shake Shack, Millburn Deli, CAVA and Starbucks. We structured the acquisition of Bridgewater in an accretive 1031 transaction with the expected sale of a Kohl's-anchored property in New Jersey. Looking ahead, based on the results we achieved in the first quarter, we increased our 2026 FFO as adjusted guidance by $0.01 per share on the low end to a new range of $1.48 to $1.52 per share, reflecting 5% growth over 2025 at the midpoint. Urban Edge is well positioned to continue delivering steady growth, supported by strong fundamentals, our $22 million SNO pipeline, our $157 million redevelopment pipeline and future acquisitions. I will now turn it over to our Chief Operating Officer, Jeff Mooallem.

Thanks, Jeff, and good morning. From an operating standpoint, the first quarter reinforced what we have been consistently seeing across the portfolio. Demand for our space remains strong and leasing momentum has not slowed. During the first quarter, we executed 45 leases, comprising 13 new leases and 32 renewals for a total of 419,000 square feet. New leases were signed at a same-space cash rent spread of 52% and every new lease signed this quarter, including 2 new anchor leases, have contractual annual rent increases of 3% or higher. We continue to push not only starting rents but also contractual rent increases in all of our deals, and we are seeing the results of that effort. Same-property leased occupancy at quarter end stood at 96.4%, a decrease of 30 basis points over the previous quarter and the first quarter of 2025. The decline was expected and was primarily driven by the recapture of the Saks box at Hanover Commons, where we are evaluating multiple potential uses, ranging from grocer to apparel to creating additional shop space. Based on the activity in our pipeline, we continue to believe that occupancy levels of 97% to 98% are achievable by the end of the year. In addition to leasing our remaining vacancy, we also are working to proactively take back space that is under leased. At several of our properties, we've approached tenants with low rents and average performance in an attempt to convert those spaces to better uses at better rents. This will become a bigger part of our growth in the coming years as market rents have now increased to the point that landlords can accretively terminate leases to make way for a replacement tenant, something that was nearly impossible a few years ago. For example, in Framingham, Massachusetts, we negotiated an early recapture right on our Kohl's space and are in active negotiations with multiple users to lease the space at a significantly higher rent. On the redevelopment front, we stabilized 4 projects totaling $7 million during the quarter with the rent commencement of Trader Joe's and Ross at The Plaza at Woodbridge, Lidl and Boot Barn at Totowa Commons, Texas Roadhouse at The Outlets at Montehiedra and Big Blue at Plaza at Cherry Hill. These projects generate nearly a 50% yield, which speaks to the lower level of landlord contributions national retailers are now accepting. Our total active redevelopment pipeline is now $157 million with an expected yield of 13%. These projects are largely pre-leased, providing both visibility and attractive risk-adjusted returns. With that, I'll turn it over to our CFO, Mark Langer.

Thank you, Jeff, and good morning, everyone. Our first quarter performance further highlights the stability and earnings strength of our portfolio, particularly in the current environment. FFO as adjusted for the quarter was $0.36 per share, reflecting 3% growth over prior year and was driven by the growth in same-property NOI, including redevelopment, which increased 2.8% compared to the first quarter of 2025. NAREIT FFO this quarter benefited from an $8 million gain recorded in other income received from the state of New Jersey for environmental remediation costs incurred a number of years ago. On the financing front, in March, we obtained a $62.5 million 7-year nonrecourse mortgage secured by The Plaza at Woodbridge at a swapped fixed rate of 5%. The debt markets remain highly liquid and competitive as evidenced from this recent transaction. We ended the quarter with total liquidity of nearly $1 billion, with $30 million drawn on our credit facility and no amounts drawn on either of the 5-year or 7-year delayed draw term loans. Our balance sheet is in excellent shape, which provides significant flexibility to pursue attractive growth opportunities that may arise. Looking ahead to the remainder of 2026, we have increased our guidance for FFO as adjusted by $0.01 per share at the low end to a range of $1.48 to $1.52 per share, primarily due to the 25 basis point increase on the low end of our same-property NOI guidance, which now reflects a new range of 3% to 3.75%. In terms of some of the puts and takes driving NOI growth, let me start with the first quarter and then touch on future expectations. Same-property NOI growth of 2.8% in the first quarter benefited from new rent commencements and better-than-expected recoveries, including $500,000 of out-of-period tax refunds related to appeals that got settled for multiple prior year periods. The better recoveries in tax refunds more than offset higher-than-expected bad debt this quarter. The elevated bad debt pertained to isolated cases of tenants we were negotiating payment plans with that got moved to a cash basis. Going forward, we believe uncollected rent levels should trend near 75 basis points of gross rents for the remainder of the year. In terms of NOI growth going forward, I will note the point that I made last quarter when we gave initial guidance in regards to our SNO pipeline. We expect to recognize another $3.3 million of gross rents from our SNO pipeline in the remainder of the year. 90% of this amount is expected to be generated in Q3 and Q4. In addition, recall that Q2 of last year benefited from $1 million of onetime tenant, CAM true-up billings. Therefore, same-property growth is expected to accelerate in the back half of the year as SNO rents commence. Our guidance now incorporates $60 million of disposition activity that Jeff mentioned. In closing, we are encouraged by the continued momentum in fundamentals, the depth of our leasing pipeline and our ability to generate sector-leading FFO and cash flow growth. With that, I'll turn the call over to the operator for questions and answers.

[Operator Instructions] First question comes from Michael Goldsmith with UBS.

Mark, you mentioned a couple of isolated instances of bad debt in the quarter. Can you walk us through what you're seeing if you're able to identify the tenants or at least like the types of categories where maybe there's been a little bit more pressure than anticipated?

Sure Michael. What I would say is the most significant increase that I referred to in the quarter pertain to a franchise operator that has 6 different QSR locations in our Puerto Rico portfolio. The tenant was moved to a cash basis. So both the back rents and current rents were reserved for. I can tell you that since we've closed the quarter, we've executed a payment plan with this operator and the operator has fully paid April rent and started making payments on the arrears. So this is why we think it is more isolated. It's not systemic of any other patterns. We did go through a deep dive of all of our other Puerto Rico tenants and receivables were normal. So as I said in my prepared remarks, I believe what you should expect for the rest of the year is closer to 75 basis points rather than what was incurred in Q1.

Got it. And then you mentioned 2 new anchor leases with escalators of 3%. Can you talk about just the demand on the anchor side? Obviously, you're backfilling the Saks box as well. So just trying to get a sense of overall demand and then your ability to get strong lease terms, right, like with escalators of 3%. Is that kind of the norm for your portfolio? Or is that kind of like an exceptional outcome?

Michael, it's Jeff Mooallem. I wouldn't say it's the norm that we're going to be getting 3% or better annual increases from anchor tenants going forward. There are certain tenants out there like Trader Joe's or T.J. Maxx who fight really hard on things like increases. We happen to have an outlier quarter where we did a couple of anchor deals where we were able to extract that. But I think the point is that the trend line on things like anchor leasing is -- continues to go up. And whether it's less options, fair market value options, annual increases in options, we're able to have conversations with anchor tenants today that we were not simply able to have a few years ago. And we're pushing on not just starting rent and less capital, but pushing on increases as well. So while I wouldn't say that we expect to be able to do annual increases on every anchor deal we do, unfortunately, they're still not quite there yet as an industry. Certainly, the ability to extract better increases and better terms throughout the lease is there. And I would tell you that I think this is the strongest anchor leasing market we've seen in a really, really long time simply because of the imbalance between supply and demand.

Next question, Michael Griffin with Evercore ISI.

Jeff, maybe just on the leasing front, do you have a sense, are tenants starting to come to you earlier to renew given the dearth of available space out there? And do you think that gives you more leverage in the renegotiation process?

Yes, absolutely. We're seeing -- we're having conversations with tenants earlier in the process. And a lot of times now, what our leasing team is doing rather than going to a tenant who has a year or 2 left on their lease and saying, "Hey, do you want to renew?" they're starting by going to the market and really figuring out what we can do with that space so that the initial conversation with that existing tenant is more, "Hey, we have another option here for your space, you need to pay X to stay," and we can switch the leverage over a little bit. There's certainly a lot of desire on the part of the national tenants to lock their space up for longer. Sometimes we'll go to a national tenant with a request for a waiver on something or something we're doing in the parking and they're saying, "Well, yes, we're happy to work with you guys on that. Can you give us another 5-year option?" So the anchors, the national tenants are very motivated to keep as much term and control as they can, and the landlords are savoring getting the opportunity to take space back. If you think about the vintage of a lot of the leases in our portfolio, they were signed, maybe 20-year leases that were signed '08, '09, '10, '11 that time, not a great time in the anchor leasing world. So we're excited to get some of those rents back over these next several years.

That's some helpful context. And maybe just following up on the Bridgewater acquisition. Just wanted to clarify, is that 7.7% cap rate that you quote, that's a stabilized in-place cap rate? And if so, would you say that's indicative of the assets that you're targeting for acquisitions? Or there was something maybe about this that just stood out from a cap rate perspective as maybe more attractive for you to acquire?

Yes. I think we got lucky with this one, Michael. It's Jeff Olson. And I mean, it traded at a higher cap rate in part because the anchor was not a grocery store. The anchor was a medical user called Summit Health, which you may be familiar with, but a very high credit health care tenant. They have a long-term lease. I believe they have 11 years left of term. And in addition to getting it at that 7.7%, I mean, our revised numbers expect to generate 2.75% NOI growth, so very good growth. And more than half of that growth is coming from contractual rent increases and option exercises. So yes, we think it was a great opportunity. I wish we had a pipeline to 10 more like it. We don't at the moment, but we're on the hunt for more.

Next question, Michael Gorman with BTIG.

Jeff, if we could just stick with Bridgewater for a second. I'm curious, as you underwrote it, how much of a role did the Bridgewater Commons adjacency play? How much does the performance of the mall play into the $2.2 million in annual visitors that you cited to The Village component there?

I don't think it's a huge component. Most of our customers are not using the mall as a cotenant. It is fairly far away. So I don't think it's a major component. Jeff, do you want to add anything to that?

Yes. I mean, Michael, The Village was actually built as a sort of a lifestyle center adjacent to the mall. But what's happened over time is it's become its kind of own ecosystem mostly of daytime population for lunch. So if you look at the roster of the QSR tenants there and the demand from some of the best names in food that want to come into it if we get vacancy, we've been turning space over there. And really, what you're seeing at that property is there are some mall visitors who will go there for lunch, but mostly, it's the daytime population in and around Bridgewater. There's a very strong suburban office market population in that area and a lot of weekend visitors as well, a lot of tourism in that area for various conventions and hotels and weddings and bareboat mitzvah kind of traffic. So we were very happy when we really dug into this to see that the traffic is coming from a lot of places.

Great. That's helpful. And then maybe back to the same-store. Obviously, solid result in the quarter. I noticed when you kind of dig into the revenue and expense side of things, the property operating was up, I think, 25%. Was there anything atypical in that or onetime? Was that seasonal? I would expect that would normalize over the course of the year. Is that a fair assumption?

Yes, Michael, it's Mark. Absolutely. That was really driven by snow and snow-related costs in the quarter, which were up over -- to put in perspective, about $3.5 million just versus prior year. So that almost fully accounts for the driver. And you're right, it will level off and revert to more normalized levels for Q2 to Q4.

Great. And maybe just one more for me, Mark, on the mortgage that you put in place in the quarter, can you just remind us on the strategy there? Obviously, you stabilized a big chunk of redevelopment at that property, which I would imagine is a help. You still have a couple of phases there. So do those phases get carved out? Are they small enough that it doesn't factor into when you go for a mortgage on a property like that? Maybe just some context there would be helpful.

Yes. I'm glad you asked, Michael. It's actually a great story. The Woodbridge Center actually had a mortgage on it that we paid off last year. It was about a $50 million mortgage. And we paid it off knowing we had visibility with the re-leasing of space we had. This center had a Bed Bath and a buybuy BABY that was paying $17 in rent Fast forward gets re-tenanted with Trader Joe's and Ross that are paying a blended around $25 a foot, a karate studio that was paying $28 the rent more than doubles with CAVA. So we had line of sight for all of that upside in NOI. And fast forward, as you saw, we extracted $12 million more in this new mortgage. And so really, the phases you're talking about in terms of any other outparcel work, we still have the ability to add even more income from that. It isn't that it's carved out, but there's some potential more lift that we could get upon refinancing it again. But that puts into context, I think the story, the asset management strategy, and we were really delighted with that execution to lock that in with more proceeds at 5%.

Next question, Floris Van Dijkum with Ladenburg.

Like the acquisition, I know you mentioned something about a Kohl's sale. Is that -- presumably that's a pending Kohl's anchored sale that you have in the pipeline?

Yes, Floris. We're in diligence with the buyer right now. So we're hoping to complete that deal soon.

And presumably, that would be at a lower cap rate than where you're acquiring it at as well besides the fact that you're also obviously improving your credit profile?

Yes. You got it. That is the game at the moment.

Great. And then the Kohl's at Shoppers World in Framingham, talk a little bit about the upside potentially that you could see there. I know it's a little bit early, but maybe you could give people on the line a little bit of a flavor of what kind of demand you have for that space.

Floris, it's Jeff Mooallem. Yes, I mean, we're super excited about this one. We were able to negotiate an option to get that space back from Kohl's about a year ago, and that option will be coming up in first or second quarter of 2027. So we've been sort of out testing the market and the demand has exceeded our expectations. We have several national retailers that have submitted LOIs on it. We've looked at cutting up the space, adding shops, doing a full-fledged demolition and redevelopment. But ultimately, what I think you're going to see us do is re-tenant the box at a very healthy spread, 75% to 150%, I would say, over the existing rent with a much better user, much better credit. This will enhance the overall Shoppers World profile and experience and really make that parcel within Shoppers World kind of its own little really strong asset. So we're very excited for what that's going to turn into in the next 12 months here or so.

Maybe last question. Can you guys give us a little bit of an update on what's happening in Puerto Rico? I know it's not that big part of your portfolio, but I believe that you're seeing some really strong demand. Can you talk us through some of the retailer demand and what kind of upside in NOI you see for that portion of your portfolio?

Yes. Puerto Rico continues to grow. We've done a lot of re-tenanting work there, as you know, over the last couple of years. And we're now adding names like Sephora, which will open, I think, this week or next week at Caguas, Coach, Bath & Body Works, national names coming over from the mainland to the property. We opened a T.J. Maxx last year that opened extremely strong. So we're very happy with the way the 2 Puerto Rico assets are performing. I think the next step for us in Puerto Rico is to really dig in more on some of the ancillary income opportunity that we're able to generate in other places like signage, carts and kiosks. We're looking to grow on all those areas as well. But if you look at our model and our forecast, Puerto Rico should continue to grow at comparable growth rates to the rest of the portfolio. We've done a lot of the heavy lifting. So I don't think it's going to be a 10% annual growth story going forward over the next few years, but it's certainly going to be positive growth.

It should be in that 3.5% to 4% range.

Next question, Ronald Kamdem with Morgan Stanley.

Great. Maybe I'll start on sort of any update on sort of Sunrise Mall and what sort of the development prospects. I know you were contemplating different things. Just any update there?

Look, the entitlement process is advancing on schedule. We had disclosed previously that Amazon is going to occupy about 1/3 of the property, Ron, and we're finalizing our plans to develop the remaining land for retail and other uses. So we're super excited about our progress, and we really look forward to delivering a great result for the town of Massapequa and also for our investors.

The only other update, Ron, is that our last tenant at the mall which was Dick's Sporting Goods, will be giving the keys back to us tomorrow actually. So we are now fully unencumbered the mall from tenancy, and that will allow us to advance our plans rapidly into later this year.

Great. And then on the -- going back to the 97% to 98%, I think you mentioned sort of occupancy target for the portfolio as you sort of sit through. I mean I think what are some of the sort of tactics that you guys are using to sort of drive that number? And what has been sort of the biggest sort of sticking points or barriers to sort of getting there historically?

I think the biggest tactic is simply that retailers are seeking high-quality space, and they're coming to us proactively. So for the first time in a very long time, we have multiple tenants going after the same vacancy. And so it's more a function of the market than it is a specific tactic that we have. Our tactic, obviously, is to create the best merchandise mix that we can at our shopping centers balanced with receiving good rent terms, good lease terms, et cetera. So we feel very good about the fact that the majority of our vacancy will be leased up, and that's what gives us the confidence of being in that 97% to 98% range.

[Operator Instructions] Next question comes from Paulina Rojas with Green Street.

Given that your portfolio is concentrated in the Northeast corridor and recognizing that local trade area dynamics can vary meaningfully in retail. I'm curious how you think about market differentiation within the region? Are you seeing any meaningful and consistent differentiation, for example, in terms of cap rates, rent growth or even tenant demand between, let's say, New Jersey, Boston or D.C. or even smaller pockets within the corridor where you're seeing something that stands out?

Yes. I mean it is very submarket driven. I think in general, we're most pleased with what we're seeing in Boston at the moment, Paulina. And that may be a function of simply having new ownership on some of the properties in addition to a very strong and tight market. But our assets in Northern New Jersey are doing very well. There's very little vacancy in Northern New Jersey. I guess if there's one market that sort of has been an average market over the years in the Northeast for us, it would be Philadelphia. D.C. is a strong market for us. We don't own that much there. But overall, we're very pleased with our markets. The underlying theme behind virtually everything that we own in the D.C. to Boston corridor is just having a massive population base around our centers. And that doesn't change submarket to submarket to submarket. We have a couple of hundred thousand people on average around our properties within 3 miles, and those customers need areas to shop.

And then you have characterized the demand and supply backdrop in your markets as supportive of sustained long-term growth. So I would like to push a little bit on what that means in practice. And when you use that language, are you thinking about, for example, rent growth that is in line with inflation, above or even substantially above inflation? I'm trying to frame it a little even in broad terms.

I mean given the tightness of the market, I would expect rent growth would be above inflation. And it's really being driven by these larger anchors that are looking for space that are losing out on opportunities to their competitors. And as they lose more deals, they're realizing that they have to pay more. So I would expect more than inflationary type growth, particularly for boxes that are 10,000 square feet and greater.

Thank you. I would like to turn the floor over to Jeff Olson for closing remarks.

Great. We look forward to seeing many of you at the upcoming NAREIT conference, and we will see you then. Please call if you have any questions. Thank you.

This concludes today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and thank you for your participation.