Mitchell N. Schear
Analyst
Thank you, David, and good morning, everyone. In Washington, we continue to see signs of an improving economy. Unemployment has dropped again to 4.7%, which is down from 5.2% a year ago and below the national average of 5.5%. Jobs continue to grow with 50,700 jobs added from March to March. Importantly, office-using professional and business services grew by 12,900 jobs, a marked improvement from last year where the number was negative. While it will take more time for the recovery in the economy to translate into robust demand and rent growth, we believe the tide is shifting and the worst is behind us in D.C. Specifically, in our portfolio, we continue to expect our EBITDA for 2015 to be about even with 2014. We had a strong volume of leasing in the first quarter. In the quarter, we leased 763,000 square feet of office and retail space in 55 transactions. About 70% of this was in new leasing and 30% represents renewals. Our biggest deal was the new lease signed for 371,000 square feet for the U.S. Marshals headquarters in Crystal City. As we mentioned in our last call, the Marshals have been our tenant in Crystal City for the last 15 years, and it was important that we retain them for another 15 years. We relocated them from 1750 Crystal Drive down several blocks to our building at 1215 South Clark Street. We took them from a building in a bull's-eye location right at the metro and at our main entrance to Crystal City and moved them to a less prime location at 1215 South Clark. This was the building that Boeing vacated in the first quarter. As a reminder, Boeing moved just down the street in Crystal City into a new headquarters that they built and own. So we're delighted to have both resolved Boeing's vacancy in our gateway buildings and freed up one of our best buildings right at the Metro for re-leasing. More on that in the development story, which I will get to in just a minute. I mentioned the Marshals specifically, not only because it was the largest transaction in the region so far this year but also because, frankly, it skewed our metrics a bit. Overall, office leases signed in the first quarter generated a GAAP mark-to-market of negative 17% and a cash mark-to-market of negative 17.6%. These results are heavily weighted downward by the U.S. Marshals' lease. Boeing's rent had grown significantly during the short-term extension, and we needed to be aggressive to win the Marshals' competition. As you would expect, we had a significant roll down in rent on this big deal. Without the Marshals deal, the cash mark-to-market on the remaining 403,000 square feet of leasing in the quarter was basically flat, down 0.4%. The deals in the D.C. market continue to require significant TIs. TIs and leasing commissions for the leases we signed during the first quarter were 21.7% of initial rents or $7.60 per square foot per annum as compared to Q4 2014 at 17.7% and $6.54 per square foot. Once again, the U.S. Marshals deal required TIs that were higher than normal at $8.19 per square foot or 25.6%. Without the Marshals deal, our first quarter metrics would have been 16% of initial rents or $6.16 per square foot per annum, better than the Q4 2014 metrics. For Q1 2015 versus Q1 2014, we reported negative same-store EBITDA of minus 0.2% GAAP and minus 5.5% cash. Overall occupancy, including residential and Skyline, was up by 40 basis points from Q4 2014 to 84.2%, and up by 90 basis points from Q1 2014. Office occupancy, including Skyline, was up 60 basis points to 81.5% and a full 100 basis points above Q1 2014. Skyline's occupancy fell to 53.4%, an obvious drag on our overall performance. Without Skyline, our overall occupancy, including residential, is now 90.1%, and our office occupancy is 88.2%. Crystal City's office occupancy rose by 150 basis points to 86.7%. So our policy to provide enhanced disclosure on BRAC space. For Q1 2015, we resolved another 123,000 square feet of BRAC space, almost all of it in Crystal City. As a result, in Crystal City, we have now resolved 1.2 million of the 1.4 million square feet of BRAC space. Overall, we have now resolved almost 70% of the original 2.4 million square feet of BRAC space. Of the remaining 742,000 square feet to resolve, almost 60% of it or 430,000 square feet is in Skyline. So that's where we are on our office leasing. On the residential side, we continue to be pleased. We are full with occupancy at 97.1%. Crystal City continues to be our greatest focus in Washington. Here's what's happening. First, we've seen an increasing influx of associations and nonprofits. Crystal City is a great alternative to D.C. for these organizations. The combination of Metro, proximity to Capitol Hill, adjacency to Reagan National Airport and abundance of hotels, our wide cadre of amenities have made Crystal City the location of choice for over 40 associations and nonprofits. In addition, Crystal City is a great value play for the associations and nonprofits. In 2014, we did 190,000 square feet of leasing in Crystal City to associations and nonprofits, and thus far in 2015, we have an additional 116,000 square feet of leases either signed or currently pending. Next, we're focused on creative innovation in Crystal City. As has been widely reported on April 16, we announced a new partnership with 1776, a global start-up incubator and seed fund that will open a campus in our rapidly growing innovation hub in Crystal City. The tech environment in Washington is focused on major global priorities: cyber, drones, energy, health, defense and more, all with growing mandates to innovate in new ways. Partnerships between start-ups, corporations and government are beginning to redefine the future of innovation in Crystal City. With our existing deep base of agencies, indigenous defense tech companies, and now a growing start-up community, we believe Crystal City is a natural environment for this kind of collaboration. On the development front, we have a lot of action in Crystal City, Pentagon City, Rosslyn and Downtown. Currently in Crystal City, we are well along on the renovation of a 165,000 square foot building for WeWork's residential concept, which is scheduled to open later this year. In addition, we are actively exploring several invigorating concepts for exciting new retail, residential and other placemaking concepts that will change the face of Crystal City. We are particularly excited about the intersection of Crystal Drive and 18th Street, both for the repositioning of the building that the Marshals will be vacating at the Metro and for some significant retail that we are planning on that block. Our development pipeline in Crystal City alone is extensive, and we are carefully studying our next move. In adjacent Pentagon City, our 699-unit apartment project to Bartlett and Whole Foods is on track for delivery about a year from now. We just poured the 12th floor and believe that, that building will not only be a premier residential property for us but an important connector between Crystal City and Pentagon City. Downtown, early in 2016, we will be demolishing 2 older contiguous buildings where we will develop our new 335,000-square-foot corner trophy office building, 1700 M Street. The building will be located right off Connecticut Avenue in the heart of the Central Business District. We are hard at work in Washington, and look forward to harvesting our opportunity. Thank you, and I will now turn the call over to the operator for Q&A.