Boston Properties Q1 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
April 30, 2025
Skip to Participants
Operator

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Q1 twenty twenty five BXP earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. After the speakers' presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you would need to press 11 on your telephone.

Operator

You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press 11 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker, Helen Hahn, Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Helen Han
Helen Han
Vice President, IR at Boston Properties

Good morning, and welcome to BXP's first quarter twenty twenty five earnings conference call. The press release and supplemental package were distributed last night and furnished on Form eight ks. In the supplemental package, BXP has reconciled all non GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measure in accordance with Reg G. If you did not receive a copy, these documents are available in the Investors section of our website at investors.bxp.com. A webcast of this call will be available for twelve months.

Helen Han
Helen Han
Vice President, IR at Boston Properties

At this time, we would like to inform you that certain statements made during this conference call, which are not historical, may constitute forward looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. Although BXP believes the expectations reflected in any forward looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, it can give no assurance that its expectations will be attained. Factors and risks that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by forward looking statements were detailed in yesterday's press release and from time to time in BXP's filings with the SEC. BXP does not undertake a duty to update any forward looking statements. I'd like to welcome Oatman Thomas, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Doug Linde, President and Mike LaBelle, Chief Financial Officer.

Helen Han
Helen Han
Vice President, IR at Boston Properties

During the Q and A portion of our call, our regional management teams will be available to address any questions. We ask that those of you participating in the Q and A portion of the call to please limit yourself to one and only one question. If you have an additional query or follow-up, please feel free to rejoin the queue. I'd now like to turn the call over to Owen Thomas for his formal remarks.

Owen Thomas
Owen Thomas
Chairman and CEO at Boston Properties

Thank you, Helen, and good morning to all of you. Our results in the first quarter demonstrated BXP's continued strong performance given our execution and a sustained property and capital market recovery. Our FFO per share for the quarter was in line with our forecast. We completed over 1,100,000 square feet of leasing in the quarter, which was 25% above the leasing volume we achieved in the first quarter of 'twenty four. Further, over the last four quarters, our leasing volume of 5,900,000 square feet was 33% higher than the prior four quarters.

Owen Thomas
Owen Thomas
Chairman and CEO at Boston Properties

Importantly, we made progress leasing up our development pipeline assets and completed several significant leases with important clients such as Goodwin Procter, Cooley and a defense technology company. We completed over $4,200,000,000 of financing activity demonstrating improving market conditions and BXP's strong access to capital. We released our 2024 sustainability and impact report highlighting BXP's leadership and accomplishments in sustainable business practices important to the capital providers, clients, and communities we serve. Now starting with the operating environment, the obvious question is what impacts will tariff and other federal policies have on BXP's business? So far, the tariff program has increased volatility in the capital markets, created concerns over the potential for higher prices, inflation, and interest rates, and reduced consumer confidence leading to more economists forecasting a recession or slower US GDP growth.

Owen Thomas
Owen Thomas
Chairman and CEO at Boston Properties

For BXP, the primary drivers of leasing activity are corporate confidence and in person work behavior. Our primary concern has been that our clients may delay or terminate space requirements due to the more uncertain operating environment. This has not happened. Specifically, for the million square feet of deals where we have assigned LOI and are negotiating a lease, to date, only a single 8,000 square foot prospective user declined to go declined to move forward due to market conditions. Doug will describe our current pipeline of leasing activity, which remains robust.

Owen Thomas
Owen Thomas
Chairman and CEO at Boston Properties

Federal funding cuts to the NIH and other research organizations as well as uncertainties over FDA approvals are causing significant concerns for the life science community and creating additional headwinds for life science leasing. If The US were to enter a recession, leasing demand would undoubtedly slow, but interest rates would likely be lower and remote work would likely decrease due to a weaker labor market. Tariffs will drive up material prices, increasing construction costs. Given non US material procurement is a modest component of our construction budgets and contractors are eager for new business, we don't see tariffs having a major impact on our construction estimates, and Doug will provide a real time example of this. As mentioned last quarter, we think Doge has had a positive has a positive impact on BXP's Washington DC business as federal workers and their contractors who are our clients return to the office.

Owen Thomas
Owen Thomas
Chairman and CEO at Boston Properties

We are already seeing increased foot traffic retail activity and parking revenue at Reston Town Center as a result of Doge. Moving to office market conditions, I will continue to emphasize that the premier workplace segment where BXP primarily competes continues to materially outperform the broader office market. Premier Workplaces, as defined in CBRE's research, continue to be the highest quality 7% of buildings representing 13% of total space in our five CBD markets. Direct vacancy for premier workplaces is just over 13% versus 19% for the broader market. Likewise, net absorption for premier workplaces has been a positive 18,000,000 square feet over the last three years versus a negative 30,000,000 square feet for the broader market.

Owen Thomas
Owen Thomas
Chairman and CEO at Boston Properties

Asking rents for premier workplaces continue to be more than 50% higher than the broader market. Regarding the real estate private equity capital markets, office sales volume in the first quarter was $7,600,000,000 down approximately 14% from the first quarter of last year. Though financing remains available and transactions continue to close, the current market volatility has widened credit spreads in both the CMBS and REIT investment grade unsecured markets, which should have some impact on pricing. Though several premier workplace transactions are underway in The US, there were few new commitments of note. Moving to BXP's capital allocation activities and new investments, we commenced the development of two ninety Kohl's, a 70 unit, 100% market rate multifamily development project in the Soho West Submarket of Downtown Jersey City.

Owen Thomas
Owen Thomas
Chairman and CEO at Boston Properties

Jersey City's multifamily market is highly attractive due to its easy access to Manhattan and a less expensive housing option resulting in robust population growth, strong demand for apartments, and resultant rent growth despite new development activity. Our partners in the project are Albany's organization as co developer and Cross Harbor Capital Partners as financial partner. A key attraction of the investment for us is the capital structure, where BXP will be providing 20,000,000 in common equity for a 19.5% interest in the project and 65,000,000 of preferred equity with a 13% preferred return. At project stabilization, the $225,000,000 senior loan and BXP's accrued preferred equity investment will represent under 65% of the total $456,000,000 cost of the project. And the unleveraged cash development yield on cost is projected to be more than 6%.

Owen Thomas
Owen Thomas
Chairman and CEO at Boston Properties

Including development fees and carried interest earned, we project the common and preferred equity investments together will deliver total returns in the mid teens. Construction has commenced, delivery of the initial units is scheduled for the first half of twenty twenty eight, and asset stabilization is forecast for the second half of twenty twenty nine. Continuing with new development, I have described our 930,000 square foot 343 Madison project in Midtown with direct lobby access to the Grand Central Madison Concourse and located two blocks south of JPMorgan's new headquarters building. The Midtown office market is strong and experiencing rent growth with a vacancy rate under 7% for the higher quality buildings. 2022, '20 '20 '3 and 2024 were all record years in New York City for leases signed in excess of both $100 a square foot and $200 a square foot.

Owen Thomas
Owen Thomas
Chairman and CEO at Boston Properties

343 Madison is the only immediately actionable office development site in close proximity to Grand Central Terminal. We have made lease proposals to seven anchor clients, primarily financial service firms, with an average requirement of 350,000 square feet. There are another 10 clients with requirements aggregating over 3,200,000 square feet who have received presentations and are considering the building. We expect to launch this $2,000,000,000 project in 2025 where, as a reminder, BXP owns a 55% interest. We are in various stages of negotiation for the sale of eight land sites that will generate, if successful, net proceeds of approximately $250,000,000 over the next twenty four months.

Owen Thomas
Owen Thomas
Chairman and CEO at Boston Properties

Several of these sales require re entitlement creating a more extended closing period. We continue to evaluate additional asset monetization opportunities. So in conclusion, DXP is a domestic business with long term leases and a stable dividend that will not be as heavily impacted as other industries by volatility in global trade. Further, new construction for office has dropped precipitously and users are gravitating to higher quality assets, the combination creating rent growth in several of our submarkets. BXP is maintaining momentum in both leasing and new investment activity despite this more challenging market environment.

Owen Thomas
Owen Thomas
Chairman and CEO at Boston Properties

With our current leasing momentum and only 3.9% portfolio lease rollover in 2026 and five point one percent in 2027. We expect to gain occupancy revenue and FFO in the years ahead. Development deliveries and potentially acquisitions will add additional growth. I'll turn over the report to Doug. Good morning, everybody.

Douglas Linde
Douglas Linde
President & Director at Boston Properties

It's a beautiful spring day here in Boston, and we have a pretty optimistic report that we're going to give you. Owens described our views of the business environment and the current challenges that are associated with the constant dynamic changes in trade relationships and government efficiency. My comments this morning will address what we're seeing in our results and our client interactions. Our client purchase cycle may be a lagging indicator, but based on the first quarter leasing results, both in our current pipeline of transactions under negotiation and our funnel of possible additional activity, we've seen very little impact on our 2025 plan, which calls for about 4,000,000 square feet of leasing, but more importantly, including about 3,000,000 square feet of leasing on vacant space and known 2025 expirations, which is where our focus is, our least square footage. During the first quarter, we executed just over 1,100,000 square feet, which is almost 35% more than our seasonal Q1 average over the last five years.

Douglas Linde
Douglas Linde
President & Director at Boston Properties

More importantly, the activity included 467,000 square feet of leases on vacant space and 561,000 square feet of twenty twenty five known expirations. This 1,000,000 square feet of leasing activity on our near term exposure, vacant space and 25 expirations will drive improvements to our occupancy over the next twelve to eighteen months. Post fouronetwenty five, our current pool of leases in negotiation is 1,100,000 square feet. It covers an additional 435,000 square feet of currently vacant space, 230,000 square feet of 25 expirations, a 90,000 square feet of twenty six and twenty seven expirations, which will lower our future exposure, as well as our second lease at 725 Twelfth Street. We have another 1,700,000 square feet of active pipeline transactions, which could cover an additional million square feet of vacant space or 25 expirations.

Douglas Linde
Douglas Linde
President & Director at Boston Properties

This would put us on our target for our full year 25 vacant and 02/2025 expiring lease guidance of about 3,000,000 square feet. One of the inferences from Owen's comments would seem to be enhanced caution from clients as they navigate uncertainty. And we would be naive to think we won't see some impact, but speaking to you today, it has yet to be material. Let me give you a few examples of current client behavior. An existing Boston client with a recent return to work mandate believes it needs additional seats, but it's being measured in its approach and waiting until there is clarity of use before they commit to more space.

Douglas Linde
Douglas Linde
President & Director at Boston Properties

In our Reston, Virginia portfolio, where we have an embedded base of defense and security clients, where those probably we would think had the most impacts. We are seeing renewals and incremental additional space needs, not downsizing and canceled requirements. This is a government contractor in the market that wants to relocate a 50 to 60,000 square feet block of space to the town center. And at the moment, we're unable to accommodate them. In Manhattan, we have one existing 11,000 square foot client put its expansion plans on hold saying, we want to watch how the financial markets evolve.

Douglas Linde
Douglas Linde
President & Director at Boston Properties

In the same building, another 11,000 square foot client in the same industry is negotiating for an 11,000 square foot expansion. In the aggregate, these conversations are consistent with what we were hearing in January '90 days ago. As we discussed in January, the expiration of 350,000 square feet at 200 Fifth Avenue, coupled with about 150,000 square feet of expirations in San Francisco's CBD reduction to 86.9%, a 60 basis point decrease from last quarter. However, we executed a lease for 244,000 square feet of that now vacant space at 200 Fifth and expect occupancy in late twenty six. And our pipeline of deal discussions covers more than a 25,000 square feet of our San Francisco CBD vacancy.

Douglas Linde
Douglas Linde
President & Director at Boston Properties

So we're staying pretty level. The least in service portfolio stayed flat quarter to quarter at 89.4%. So our lease, but not yet commenced square footage has grown to two fifty basis points or over 1,200,000 square feet over our occupied square footage. And we expect about 800,000 square feet to commence in '25 with almost all the rest in '26. We have a large pickup in our development leasing this quarter.

Douglas Linde
Douglas Linde
President & Director at Boston Properties

Notice page 15 of our supplemental, where we signed up another floor at 360 Park Avenue South, our second lease at 72512 signed during the second quarter, and we completed 162,000 square foot lease at 1050 Winter Street, resulting in a jump from 50% to 62% pre leased on our development pipeline. 1050 Winter Street was out of service and we had previously terminated all of the leases in order to reposition it as a life science building. Long story short, a defense technology company that is currently occupying 40,000 square feet in the market approached us to lease the entire building for fifteen years and we made the decision to pivot back to office. The building is 100% pre leased and will be brought into service in Q3 twenty five. Office market conditions are consistent with our remarks last quarter with a possible exception that conditions are even tighter in our Midtown New York City portfolio, the Back Bay Of Boston and Reston, Virginia.

Douglas Linde
Douglas Linde
President & Director at Boston Properties

What this means is that availability is sparse, rents are increasing and concessions remain constant. We completed 91,091 individual transactions this quarter, 300,000 in Boston, Four Hundred And Twenty Thousand in New York, three hundred and fifty thousand on the West Coast and 80,000 square feet in Reston. The overall mark to market on cash basis was up about 5% with an increase in Boston, flat in New York and decreases on the West Coast and in Reston. Other than the new lease at 200 Fifth and at ten fifty winner, no other transaction exceeded 40,000 square feet. Our highlights in Boston this quarter were in the urban edge where we did the fifteen year lease at ten fifty winter and a 39,000 square foot lease at 180 City Point.

Douglas Linde
Douglas Linde
President & Director at Boston Properties

Last quarter, I remarked that we were touring life science clients that had no lab infrastructure needs. Well, the first of these transactions was executed in the first quarter at 180 City Point. In addition, we are in lease negotiations with a second client for another 40,000 square feet at 180 City Point. These life science companies are looking exclusively for office space as they focus their capital on acquiring de risk products that are in trials rather than pure drug discovery and therefore don't need lab infrastructure. The economics of doing an office transaction on Ross Space, even though the building was purpose built lab infrastructure in it are far superior to a lab transaction given the elevated tenant improvements necessary to compete in the markets.

Douglas Linde
Douglas Linde
President & Director at Boston Properties

These tax hold in South San Francisco as well as Greater Boston. In Manhattan, in addition to the new client at 200 Fifth, we were able to do three separate 25,000 square foot client expansions at the General Motors Building, 5 90 9 Lexington Avenue, and 250 West 50 Fifth Street. Our most significant Midtown availability today is at 510 Madison, and we are in lease negotiations on four full floors. Taking rents in our Midtown properties are up double digits relative to a year ago and concessions are flat to slightly lower. Our availability in Manhattan is concentrated at 360 Park Avenue South.

Douglas Linde
Douglas Linde
President & Director at Boston Properties

Demand is picking up and there has been some improvement in small tech tenant inquiry. The most significant change in San Francisco over the last quarter has been the completion of some of the large transactions that were in the works. The total volume of leases in the market has settled at a lower level as there were fewer active larger requirements, but there are lots of potential clients under 50,000 square feet working in the market today. Many of the traditional office users have continued to rationalize their space, which has led to little if any growth in the San Francisco CBD traditional demand. So increasing incremental leasing is all about tenant relocations.

Douglas Linde
Douglas Linde
President & Director at Boston Properties

We had one law firm move out at EC at the end of twenty four and two others renew, but they contracted on a total of five floors or a 25,000 square feet. Each of the two renewals had one floor of of give back. We've leased one twenty thousand square foot floor in our lease in lease discussions for another 25,000 square feet of vacant space. View space is in short supply, but space in the lower sections of buildings is available and competitive. Our new amenity center, the Mosaic, is a strong draw for new clients considering Embarcadero Center.

Douglas Linde
Douglas Linde
President & Director at Boston Properties

Twenty twenty four was a terrific absorption year for the AI companies with more than 1,000,000 square feet of positive absorption. We need to see this trend continue. AI is getting a disproportionate share of all venture investing and more than 65% of it is going to San Francisco based companies. So the future bodes well. Before I conclude my remarks, I want to discuss tariffs as they relate to construction activities.

Douglas Linde
Douglas Linde
President & Director at Boston Properties

We are currently bidding the multifamily project in Jersey City to ninety Kohl's. To date, about 60% of the job has been bid and awarded, and we are inside of our hard cost estimates by a few percentage points. We've had one trade where the award bid necessitated a tariff upcharge. The contract including the tariff cost was still below our budgeted estimate for the subcontract, but it's going to add somewhere between 1.54% to that particular trade. Given the overall slowdown in new construction, there seems to be enough subcontractor interest to offset potential tariff increases.

Douglas Linde
Douglas Linde
President & Director at Boston Properties

Remember that construction is a composition of labor, materials, and profit. While this is certainly a positive outcome for two ninety COLES, it's too early to predict how US tariff policy will impact our future development activity. And with that, I'll turn the call over to Mike.

Michael LaBelle
Michael LaBelle
EVP, Treasurer & CFO at Boston Properties

Great. Thanks, Doug. Appreciate it. Good morning, everybody. Today, I plan to cover our activity in the debt capital markets, which Owen described briefly as very significant, which it was.

Michael LaBelle
Michael LaBelle
EVP, Treasurer & CFO at Boston Properties

Our first quarter earnings results and an update to our full year 2025 earnings guidance. As you know, the debt markets have experienced significant volatility over the past month. Credit spreads have widened in the unsecured and secured bond markets, especially for lower rated credits. Spreads for stronger companies like us are now tightening again, but are still wider than earlier in the year. Our ten year bond spreads have increased by about 30 basis points, and we could issue in the ten year unsecured bond market at about 180 basis points spread today or a fixed rate right around 6%.

Michael LaBelle
Michael LaBelle
EVP, Treasurer & CFO at Boston Properties

The Treasury market has also experienced large swings ranging almost 100 basis points this year. Issuers need to pick their spots in this market, but also can take advantage of the volatility when the market dislocates. We were opportunistic a few weeks ago in the middle of the day with dramatic swings in Fed rate cut expectations. We swapped $300,000,000 of floating rate debt for a year at a fixed SOFR rate of 3.68% and locked in some savings. We continue to have open access to all the markets, and we're busy in the bank market, CMBS, and the commercial paper market this quarter.

Michael LaBelle
Michael LaBelle
EVP, Treasurer & CFO at Boston Properties

In the bank market, we increased and extended our corporate facilities, including increasing the borrowing capacity in our revolving line of credit by $250,000,000 to $2,250,000,000 and extending it for five years. We also extended our seven hundred million dollars term loan for four years, plus one year of extension options. And we closed a $225,000,000 construction loan priced at silver plus two fifty basis points in the bank market for our new 290 Cole Street joint venture residential development in Jersey City. In the CMBS market, we closed a $252,000,000 10 year fixed rate refinancing of our loan on the Marriott headquarters building that we developed. It priced at a fixed rate of 5.5%, representing a credit spread of 124 basis points over the four point two six percent ten year treasury rate at the time of closing.

Michael LaBelle
Michael LaBelle
EVP, Treasurer & CFO at Boston Properties

We closed this loan prior to the recent disruption in the markets, and the spread would likely be wider today. We remain an active commercial paper issuer and have increased our outstandings to $750,000,000 The CP market is our cheapest source of debt capital. Spreads have been moving around a little in the last thirty days, though in a relatively reasonable 10 to 15 basis point range for us. Our portfolio is currently priced at a weighted average yield of 4.72%. Turning to our first quarter results, our earnings came right in line with the midpoint of our guidance range, and we reported FFO of $1.64 per share.

Michael LaBelle
Michael LaBelle
EVP, Treasurer & CFO at Boston Properties

As we look at the rest of 2025, here are a few items to consider. First, and as we discussed last quarter, we have two larger expirations in the second quarter aggregating 465,000 square feet in our urban edge portfolio in Boston. We expect our occupancy to decline slightly in Q2 before starting to increase in the back half of twenty twenty five as our signed leases and our 2025 leasing plans start to take occupancy. Second, in our strongest markets of Midtown Manhattan and the Back Bay Of Boston, we're creating transactions to increase future revenue where we currently don't have available space. As a result, we're taking back space early to complete long term leases with expanding or incoming clients.

Michael LaBelle
Michael LaBelle
EVP, Treasurer & CFO at Boston Properties

This quarter, we terminated two floors at 599 Lexington for this purpose, and we're working on a floor at both the Prudential Tower and at 200 Clarendon Street. These deals pulled forward downtime into 2025 in favor of starting new leases with higher rents in 2026. The new leases will be reflected in our leased percentage, but not in occupancy in 2025. We have taken a 360,000 square foot building in the urban edge of Boston out of service this quarter. We are relocating several clients into the other buildings in our portfolio.

Michael LaBelle
Michael LaBelle
EVP, Treasurer & CFO at Boston Properties

The building is extremely well located, and we're evaluating multiple feasible future redevelopment plans. The impact is a shift in the NOI of this asset from our same property pool to our out of service portfolio. Also, as Doug mentioned, we signed a 160,000 square foot lease at 1050 Winter Street. We're completing a repositioning of the building and added it to our development pipeline with full occupancy projected in the third quarter of twenty twenty five. This deal combined with leases signed at 180 City Point and 360 Park Avenue South, as well as faster than expected lease up at our Skymark residential development in Reston has resulted in increasing our assumption for the contribution from our developments placed in service.

Michael LaBelle
Michael LaBelle
EVP, Treasurer & CFO at Boston Properties

So overall, we are narrowing our 2025 FFO guidance range and maintaining our midpoint with a new range of $6.8 to $6.92 per share. The changes in our guidance assumptions include an increase in the contribution of our same property portfolio of $02 an increase in the contribution from developments placed in service of 1¢, offset by a reduction of 2¢ in NOI from our buildings out of service and minor changes to our net interest expense of 1¢. Leasing remains our biggest focus, and we're delighted by another strong quarter of more than 1,100,000 square feet of leasing in the portfolio. Our pipeline continues to build with 2,800,000 square feet of signed letters of intent and active proposals, which represents an increase of 15 since our last call last quarter. These 2,800,000 square feet along with over 1,200,000 square feet of signed leases that have not yet hit our revenue and occupancy, totals 4,000,000 square feet, and it compares favorably to the 3,800,000 square feet of lease expirations we have through the end of twenty twenty six.

Michael LaBelle
Michael LaBelle
EVP, Treasurer & CFO at Boston Properties

This is what gives us confidence that we can grow our occupancy as we look ahead into 2026 and 2027. That completes our formal remarks. Operator, can you open the lines up for questions?

Operator

Thank you, sir. We ask that you please limit your questions to no more than one, but feel free to go back into the queue. And if time permits, we'll be happy to take your follow-up question at that time. Please stand by while we compile the Q and A roster. And I show our first question comes from the line of Steve Sakwa

Operator

Please go ahead.

Steve Sakwa
Senior Managing Director at Evercore ISI

Yes, thanks. Good morning. I guess, Owen or Doug, as it relates to 343 Madison, I mean, the commentary around the demand is quite good. I realize the building doesn't maybe lend itself to pre leasing given the size of tenants. But like, how are you sort of sizing up the start, no start pre lease?

Steve Sakwa
Senior Managing Director at Evercore ISI

And is this just a building where you kind of have to make the commitment to go forward, get it under construction before you can really get any leasing? What kind of yield are you targeting on this building should you go forward?

Douglas Linde
Douglas Linde
President & Director at Boston Properties

Steve, our goal is to get it pre leased. It is a 950,000 foot building. The pre leased

Douglas Linde
Douglas Linde
President & Director at Boston Properties

will not be too low likely past the property.

Douglas Linde
Douglas Linde
President & Director at Boston Properties

It will be in the 150 to $2.50 range would be my guess.

Douglas Linde
Douglas Linde
President & Director at Boston Properties

So that's our first priority. We do have a

Douglas Linde
Douglas Linde
President & Director at Boston Properties

decision point at the July with respect to going forward with the project, and

Douglas Linde
Douglas Linde
President & Director at Boston Properties

given that demand profile that

Douglas Linde
Douglas Linde
President & Director at Boston Properties

I described in my remarks, we have a lot of confidence

Douglas Linde
Douglas Linde
President & Director at Boston Properties

in this property. So we don't have to make

Douglas Linde
Douglas Linde
President & Director at Boston Properties

that decision until July, but that's when we'll have to

Douglas Linde
Douglas Linde
President & Director at Boston Properties

make it. And then our

Douglas Linde
Douglas Linde
President & Director at Boston Properties

forecast yield, or what we're trying to get on the property, is 8%, which we think is appropriate given the higher interest rate environment that we're operating

Douglas Linde
Douglas Linde
President & Director at Boston Properties

And Hillary, you just might want to comment. So you've been part of every one of these presentations we've done. I think there is a significant amount of interest for organizations of a 150 to 300,000 square feet that actually would consider and are considering doing a pre commitment to this building.

Hilary Spann
Hilary Spann
EVP, New York Region at Boston Properties

Yeah, that's right. We've had numerous conversations and multiple rounds of those conversations with some tenants about committing to the building, which at 150,000 square feet is a little bit unusual. Usually those tenants are not looking four years out for their space. But it remains the case that very high quality space at scale in the Park Avenue and Plaza District sub markets is vanishingly rare. And so those companies are willing to sort of look ahead of time and, stretch in terms of figuring out how to get into March.

Hilary Spann
Hilary Spann
EVP, New York Region at Boston Properties

So there has been, a lot of interest from folks who are willing to commit on a pre lease basis.

Operator

Thank you. And I show our next question comes from the line of John Kim from BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

John Kim
John Kim
Managing Director - US Real Estate at BMO Capital Markets

Good morning. Doug, you mentioned in your prepared remarks that the plan this year is for 4,000,000 square feet of leasing, including 3,000,000 square feet on vacant space and 25 expirations. I just wanted to ask how confident you were on this plan. And when you look at the expirations this year, you've about 1,900,000 square feet expiring. So can we deduct that you're planning to grow occupancy by about a million square feet this year?

John Kim
John Kim
Managing Director - US Real Estate at BMO Capital Markets

I'm not sure how developments and first quarter activity factors into this.

Douglas Linde
Douglas Linde
President & Director at Boston Properties

Yeah. Sure. Thanks for the question, John. So so as of today, we've done about a million square feet of leasing on vacant and 25 expirations. And in my my sort of pipeline of what's under negotiation today, like leases that are being actually documented.

Douglas Linde
Douglas Linde
President & Director at Boston Properties

There's another 400,000 square feet of quote unquote vacant space and 250,000 square feet of 25 expiration. Net net, we're actually more than halfway there. And again, my pipeline of other activity has another million square feet of that type of space. So I feel really good about our least square footage percentage. I say this with all due respect, it's really hard for us to correlate least with occupancy on a quarter by quarter basis, because we just don't know when that revenue is going to commence.

Douglas Linde
Douglas Linde
President & Director at Boston Properties

And so if you're looking at our least square footage, which is what I'm trying to point people to, and that number is continuing to expand, that is going to be where the revenue comes from. And as I said, the vast majority of what we're doing today is going to be in '25 or '26. So so I am very confident of our occupancy build as we move into '26 because all the things we're doing now will be in service by then. It's very hard for me to say on 12/31/2025, our occupancy is gonna be x percent because I just don't know what the revenue recognition is gonna require from us.

Operator

Thank you. And I show our next question comes from the line of Nick Yulico from Scotiabank. Please go ahead.

Nicholas Yulico
Managing Director at Scotiabank

Thanks. I guess maybe just following up on the point on how to think about occupancy and earnings impact through the year. Can you maybe just frame out it, know Mike you gave the expiration that's known in the second quarter, but as we're thinking about all this pipeline of activity that's either gotten done or you feel like is going to get done, how much and the impact for 2025 on NOI, occupancy, FFO, how should we think about the earnings guidance range right now about what still needs to get accomplished to get you know, certain points on the range for, let's say, occupancy and FFO? Thanks.

Michael LaBelle
Michael LaBelle
EVP, Treasurer & CFO at Boston Properties

Look, we narrowed our range primarily because of the success that we had in our leasing and the timing of some of those occupancy starts that we now know about. So, you know, the bottom end of the range was lower, we've got a lot of leasing done, so we have a lot more confidence that the bottom end is better, and we brought up the bottom end of our same store guidance as well, which correlates to that. Some of the top end of the range was related to lease starts that we might have, or leases that we've done, that, you know, may start now in 2026, but could have started in 2025, but we're doing deals, we're working on deals where we say, you know, the revenue recognition for these deals will probably be in '26 and '25. So we are pulling back a little bit on the top end of our range primarily for that reason. We feel highly confident in the range that we have and the support guidance we provided based upon the activity that we have and we've seen.

Michael LaBelle
Michael LaBelle
EVP, Treasurer & CFO at Boston Properties

I'll just give you an

Douglas Linde
Douglas Linde
President & Director at Boston Properties

outline example of why the variability is so meaningful. So 200 Fifth Avenue, we've done this for 244,000 square feet, which is fabulous and great, and it's starting to 2,006, Right? So it's not gonna be an occupancy in 02/2025. On the other hand, we have another hundred thousand square feet of availability in that building. We're talking to two tenants right now.

Douglas Linde
Douglas Linde
President & Director at Boston Properties

One of those tenants would take the space immediately. The other tenant will probably not take the space until 02/1926. So if on average, the rent there is a hundred bucks a square foot on a hundred thousand square feet, right, that's a meaningful amount of dollars that is gonna shift one way or the other, and and therefore is why we have the range where we have it. And and, unfortunately, we just don't know until these leases are signed and we actually see what the condition requirements are of how we're delivering the space, which way we're gonna go. And it's that sort of subtlety that sort of is why I'm so fixated on our lease square footage and not necessarily quarter to quarter occupancy.

Michael LaBelle
Michael LaBelle
EVP, Treasurer & CFO at Boston Properties

The other transaction that I described in my notes, and maybe I'll try to describe a little better, is these four floors that we have in 599 and the Back Bay, where we have leases in place, right, that are expiring either at the very end of 'twenty five or early in 'twenty six. So we know those tenants are going, right? So we're marketing that space now, and we have live clients that need to expand or want to come into the building, and they want to be in in 'twenty six. So in order to get them in in '26, we have to do something with the existing tenant that wants to

Michael LaBelle
Michael LaBelle
EVP, Treasurer & CFO at Boston Properties

leave in 2025.

Michael LaBelle
Michael LaBelle
EVP, Treasurer & CFO at Boston Properties

And that's a good thing for our occupancy going forward, and our revenue going forward. But we're taking some chips off the table in 2025.

Douglas Linde
Douglas Linde
President & Director at Boston Properties

Again, all of that is built into my guidance, right, to the long range.

Operator

Thank you. And I show our next question comes from the line of Ronald Kamdem from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Ronald Kamdem
Ronald Kamdem
Managing Director & Head of US REITs and CRE Research at Morgan Stanley

Hey, just a quick one. We've been having a little bit of trouble hearing. Maybe it's just us. But I guess I'd love to focus on, one, just trends on the ground in the life science market. I think you talked a little bit in your opening comments about that space, but you guys always have a pretty good perspective.

Ronald Kamdem
Ronald Kamdem
Managing Director & Head of US REITs and CRE Research at Morgan Stanley

Just what are you seeing and what do you think it will take for that to turn around? And then if I

Ronald Kamdem
Ronald Kamdem
Managing Director & Head of US REITs and CRE Research at Morgan Stanley

could ask a little bit

Ronald Kamdem
Ronald Kamdem
Managing Director & Head of US REITs and CRE Research at Morgan Stanley

of a follow-up just on the Boston market overall. We've seen job growth starts to slow there.

Ronald Kamdem
Ronald Kamdem
Managing Director & Head of US REITs and CRE Research at Morgan Stanley

Just what are your thoughts there? Thanks so much.

Douglas Linde
Douglas Linde
President & Director at Boston Properties

So let me answer the question on life science first. I would say that we have seen very little in the way of new requirements for raw life science space in either South San Francisco or in the Greater Boston, Waltham, Lexington market, which is where we have our space. We are seeing, as I described earlier, life science organizations that want office space looking at our portfolio in Greater Waltham in a meaningful amount. And so I would not be surprised if we have leased well over a hundred thousand square feet of life science client demand, but not lab space in our Waltham marketplace in 2025. I think things are actually slightly more extensive and more robust, and I use that word subtly because it's by means a pickup in demand in a meaningful way in the Greater Boston market than it is in the South American marketplace.

Douglas Linde
Douglas Linde
President & Director at Boston Properties

Issues associated with all of the quote unquote changes to the health and human services world and how that's impacting potentially how new therapeutics are going to be regulated by the FDA. I think it's just creating a lot of uncertainty.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, please continue to hold. Your conference call will resume momentarily. Please continue to hold. Your conference call will resume momentarily.

Douglas Linde
Douglas Linde
President & Director at Boston Properties

Okay. We're back, I think. Can you hear us?

Operator

Yes. I can. Loud and clear. You may proceed.

Douglas Linde
Douglas Linde
President & Director at Boston Properties

And then your your what what your question on Boston is relative to just overall, quote unquote demand growth and job growth. I'm gonna let Brian handle that one.

Bryan Koop
Bryan Koop
Executive Vice President, Boston Region at Boston Properties

Yeah, think the key for Boston right now, in our urban edge portfolios momentum that Doug and Owen both brought up. And I can't say this is a huge trend yet, but what we are seeing in a couple deals that we were able to land in this first quarter, they were transactions that were heading some other place but needed capital, which the building wasn't able to supply. We're seeing more of that because of capital stack issues and a lot of the existing product out there. And then also flexibility that Doug mentioned on that one defense contractor transaction where we were able to pivot from life science development that we had for that building laid out to the office use and specialized use for this defense contractor. So flexibility and capital are really starting to be something that's getting noticed by the tenant rep community in a bigger way.

Bryan Koop
Bryan Koop
Executive Vice President, Boston Region at Boston Properties

We'll see how big of a trend that is, but it's certainly helping us to get deals transacted.

Operator

Thank you. And I show our next question comes from the line of Anthony Perlone from JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Anthony Paolone
Anthony Paolone
Executive Director at J.P. Morgan

Thank you. Can you talk about your West Coast leasing activity and what you're seeing there as it relates to strengths and weaknesses by either tenant type or submarket and anything that's changed in the last couple months?

Douglas Linde
Douglas Linde
President & Director at Boston Properties

Yes. So I'll I'll I'll make a brief comment, then I'll turn it over to Rod. My my my view is that, as I said earlier, the large users have all sort of landed and there's a significant amount of embedded tenants in the market, but they're all of a smaller nature. And for the most part, the financial services, legal, professional services are incrementally either staying in place or seeing a modest amount of space reduction still. But there are quite a few what I would refer to as early stage and smaller AI and other technology companies that are in the market looking for space.

Douglas Linde
Douglas Linde
President & Director at Boston Properties

Rod?

Rodney Diehl
Rodney Diehl
Executive VP of West Coast Regions at Boston Properties

Yeah. I think that's right, Doug. And mostly what we're busy with right now with the leasing, particularly at Embarcadero Center, has been with a lot of the law firms and other financial firms that are in the market and these are relocations generally. So that's very active though. There's been a lot of them and it's contributing to the volume that you've seen coming out of the West Coast.

Rodney Diehl
Rodney Diehl
Executive VP of West Coast Regions at Boston Properties

On the AI front, it's still meaningful and I think it's important to note that the footprint of AI companies in San Francisco now is over 5,000,000 square feet. And so there's a lot of companies that are out poking around and again names that haven't heard of or have not heard of in the past are showing up and taking space and it's encouraging. And so I think that we're going to continue to see that. We are seeing I'd say a little bit less of that down in Silicon Valley. It's been a little bit slower down there but there's still I think a few more larger requirements that have hit our radar in the last month or so which is good.

Operator

Thank you. And I show our next question comes from the line of Blaine Heck from Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

Blaine Heck
Blaine Heck
Executive Director & Senior Equity Research Analyst at Wells Fargo Securities

Great, thanks. Good morning. Can you talk about leverage and funding a little bit more? Debt to EBITDA ticked up to 8.3 times on your numbers this quarter, which is higher than you've run it historically. I guess, how are you thinking about your comfort there given the additional projects you're taking on?

Blaine Heck
Blaine Heck
Executive Director & Senior Equity Research Analyst at Wells Fargo Securities

And any thoughts on near term moves to bring that down? Or should we just expect you to kind of wait in anticipation of natural downward movement in that metric as developments come online and with potential occupancy upside?

Michael LaBelle
Michael LaBelle
EVP, Treasurer & CFO at Boston Properties

So the first quarter leverage went up a little bit, and it was kind of exacerbated by the seasonality of the first quarter. So, you know, our G and A is much higher in the first quarter than it is for the rest of the year. So that was a big reason because the the EBITDA for the first quarter is just lower. And then you annualize it and it makes a big difference. So if you kind of normalize for that, it was more like 7.9.

Michael LaBelle
Michael LaBelle
EVP, Treasurer & CFO at Boston Properties

So it still did go up from the 7.65 to 7.9. And I would expect that it's going continue over the next several quarters to move up as we fund the development pipeline. And then when two ninety Benney delivers in the second quarter or third quarter of next year, mid next year, we're gonna get a lot of income coming in. We also have, you know, leasing continuing on the other parts of our development pipeline that will bring income in. So I would say it would be moderating after that.

Michael LaBelle
Michael LaBelle
EVP, Treasurer & CFO at Boston Properties

From a funding perspective, you know, we continue to use incremental debt today, which is why you're seeing the leverage move up a little bit. We continue to view that once our pipeline delivers, our leverage will go down from here. And then as Owen described, we're looking at monetizing non income producing real estate. So Owen mentioned, you know, $250,000,000 of land transactions we're working on where we could execute and sell those assets over the next couple of years. And we're going to continue to look at opportunities like that to assist us with funding.

Michael LaBelle
Michael LaBelle
EVP, Treasurer & CFO at Boston Properties

And then we'll also look at, you know, private equity sources if we need to, and depending on where our stock price goes, public equity sources, it just depends where that is as well as incremental debt in order to fund additional investments that we may have.

Douglas Linde
Douglas Linde
President & Director at Boston Properties

Yeah. I just just would make one last comment, which is that 290 Vinny Street from a cash perspective is gonna be online in less than a year. So we may not be recognizing revenue, but if the cash is gonna be there, so effectively on a true basis, our EBITDA is gonna start coming down in a meaningful way when that happens. And I believe that's, you know, February. So even though quote unquote occupancy may not occur from a revenue recognition perspective, the cash is gonna be there.

Operator

Thank you. And I show our next question comes from the line of Jaina Gallen from Bank of America Securities. Please go ahead.

Jana Galan
Jana Galan
Director at Bank of America

Thank you. Good morning. Just wanted to congratulate you on the refinancings and financings completed in 1Q and the market timing. I guess given the capital markets volatility in the last month, Can you comment where you think BXP can issue unsecured debt secured and what CMBS pricing would look like today?

Michael LaBelle
Michael LaBelle
EVP, Treasurer & CFO at Boston Properties

Look, as I I mentioned in my call that the the bond market for us is widened and now it's coming back. So things are kind of settling down a little bit in the bond market over the last you know week or two I would say. So our bond spreads kind of you know in early April they moved out 50 basis points and now they're up 30 basis points so they're settling in. And I think for you know stronger credits the spread widening is less and when you get out into high yield the spread widening is significantly wider. So that's in the unsecured bond market and I think the same thing is in the CMBS market.

Michael LaBelle
Michael LaBelle
EVP, Treasurer & CFO at Boston Properties

You know, quality, lower leveraged deal can get done. And, you know, higher leverage stuff is going to be tough. And AAAs on CMBS widened pretty dramatically. So they had gotten to you know a hundred basis points or less. They went out to 250 basis points and now they're back below 200 basis points.

Michael LaBelle
Michael LaBelle
EVP, Treasurer & CFO at Boston Properties

So there's just been a

Michael LaBelle
Michael LaBelle
EVP, Treasurer & CFO at Boston Properties

lot of volatility. So again I think you people have to think about timing and be you know prepared in advance to strike when that market is good. And again I mentioned the commercial paper market which is also a live market that we're in every day. And there's been a little bit of widening there. But again, it's kind of settled down.

Michael LaBelle
Michael LaBelle
EVP, Treasurer & CFO at Boston Properties

So I would say things are improving right now. We could issue ten year unsecured debt at 6%. CMBS market is really dependent on I'd say it's more asset specific. I think if you have a 50% leveraged high quality loan with good weighted average lease term, you could probably get it done in the low to mid twos, you know, over probably the five year. I would say ten year is harder to come by.

Operator

Thank you. And I show our next question comes from the line of Seth Berge from Citi. Please go ahead.

Seth Bergey
Seth Bergey
Senior Research Associate at Citi

Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. I just wanted to ask a quick question about your in service portfolio occupancy guidance. It looks like Reservoir Place and Reston Center were kind of taken out and six fifty one Gateway wasn't added this quarter. Kind of what are the puts and takes there?

Seth Bergey
Seth Bergey
Senior Research Associate at Citi

And are there any changes that we should be thinking about there as it relates to kind of the NOI run rate kind of going forward?

Michael LaBelle
Michael LaBelle
EVP, Treasurer & CFO at Boston Properties

So we talked about Reston Corporate Center last quarter. So that's a building that was a % leased at the end of the year. The tenant vacated. We knew they were going to vacate. And it's the location for us to build the next phase of Reston Town Center which is 3,000,000 square feet of density.

Michael LaBelle
Michael LaBelle
EVP, Treasurer & CFO at Boston Properties

So that's been in the works for years. We actually have the density approved and we'll be working over the next few years trying to you know make some of that development a reality. Reservoir Place was the asset I mentioned on my in my remarks, which was a building in the urban edge of Boston. It's an older office building, incredibly well located, great visibility and we think there's likely a better utilization for you know that real estate potentially. So we elected to start to move some of the clients that were in there into other buildings in our portfolio.

Michael LaBelle
Michael LaBelle
EVP, Treasurer & CFO at Boston Properties

Some went to the CBD, went to other urban edge assets and we just elected to take it out of service and that was 360,000 square foot building and it had I think 220,000 square feet of vacancy at the end of the quarter. As I said we're relocating tenants out of it. There's you know a couple other buildings that we are considering pulling out of service, also suburban buildings that you know total somewhere between 253 square feet that are vacant today and we could take out of service. And then the development pipeline which is coming into service includes 651 Gateway, 3 60 Park Avenue South, and Reston Next Block D. And so all of those will get added we believe sometime in 2025.

Michael LaBelle
Michael LaBelle
EVP, Treasurer & CFO at Boston Properties

Although at 06:51 Gateway we're kind of taking the lead from our partner and when they deliver that. But if all of those deliver and there's no additional occupancy, that would add somewhere between fifty and seventy basis points to the vacancy on the headline.

Operator

Thank you. And I show our next question comes from the line of Alexander Goldfarb from Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.

Alexander Goldfarb
Alexander Goldfarb
Managing Director at Piper Sandler Companies

Hey, good morning. Mike, just or Doug, just going back to the discussion on the uncertainty over when tenants take occupancy, on the initial outlook call back in, I guess, was January, early February, the discussion was of a steep FFO ramp in the back half of this year based on how the occupancy trends were going and tenants taking space. Do you still feel comfortable that we'll see this ramp up in the back half of the year? Or because of what you were talking about as far as uncertainty over when tenants may take space, that ramp up may actually be pushed to 26 versus us seeing it in the back half of this year?

Michael LaBelle
Michael LaBelle
EVP, Treasurer & CFO at Boston Properties

I mean, Alex, think it'll be both, right? So if you look at our the midpoint of our guidance, right, and you look at what the FFO needs to be in the third and you know, the the remaining quarters, You know the second quarter is going to be impacted in a little bit of a negative way although it's up a little bit primarily because G and A is lower. But the third and fourth quarter is going to be up you know pretty meaningfully. And a lot of that is coming from occupancy that is occurring on leases that we've either already signed or we are signing. And so that's going to be coming in through the through the same store primarily.

Michael LaBelle
Michael LaBelle
EVP, Treasurer & CFO at Boston Properties

So that's why the you know the if you just look at you know I think we're a buck 66 in the second quarter, a buck 64 in the first quarter we got average like a dollar 78 or something in the other two quarters in the third and fourth quarter so that's coming from that ramp up that's where you what you're seeing.

Operator

Thank you. And I show our next question in the queue comes from the line of Omotayo Okunsaya from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Omotayo Okusanya
Omotayo Okusanya
Managing Director at Deutsche Bank

Afternoon. Thanks for good morning. Thanks for taking the time. Doug, I feel like there's been a lot of focus on just Erez or StoneContagain, kind of what it could mean to your numbers and the expectation of a ramp up in the back half. But could you talk about potential opportunities to actually exceed guidance and what could be some of those kind of factors?

Douglas Linde
Douglas Linde
President & Director at Boston Properties

Go ahead. You I just just I wanna make sure I heard you right. You you're you just just answer your question again because it was it was a little blurry.

Omotayo Okusanya
Omotayo Okusanya
Managing Director at Deutsche Bank

Sure. So I think, again, on on the call, we've talked a lot about potential risk to your numbers accelerating in the back half, whether it's the slowing economy or clients taking a little bit longer to make decisions. I'm curious for us to flip that around and kinda hear from you in terms of opportunities where you could actually have better numbers. What would kind of drive some of that?

Douglas Linde
Douglas Linde
President & Director at Boston Properties

Yeah. So so that simply put, increasing the amount of leasing that we're doing on vacant space where we're able to recognize the revenue more quickly is gonna will drive that. And so we have, again, a lot of opportunities in both our Manhattan portfolio, which is obviously where the most strength is, and that includes 510 Madison Avenue and 360 Park Avenue South. And then at our Embarcadero Center portfolio in San Francisco, which again where we have opportunities for meaningful increases in occupancy, Those areas will be where if we have outsized performance for our leasing in 2025, where they will come from. And we have, again, we have yet to see any signs of duress or hesitancy in either of those markets to date.

Douglas Linde
Douglas Linde
President & Director at Boston Properties

Not to say that it won't happen. Lots of macro economists are, you know, calling for negative GDP growth and in a recession and all kinds of, you know, things like that. Again, in our behavior of our client interactions, we're not witnessing that yet.

Operator

Thank you. And I show our next question comes from the line of Dylan Przyzinski from Green Street. Please go ahead.

Dylan Burzinski
Senior Analyst, Office at Green Street Advisors, LLC

Good morning, guys. Thanks for taking the question. Just sort of wanted to go back to some of the comments on a lot of your West Coast markets and particularly you know, still seeing tenants rationalize or or downsize space, particularly amongst the the legacy larger big tech companies. However, meanwhile, in certain markets like New York, right, you're seeing Google renew a lot of their space. You're seeing Amazon take down new expansionary space.

Dylan Burzinski
Senior Analyst, Office at Green Street Advisors, LLC

So clearly, there's some appetite for space across their footprints and markets outside the West Coast. So I guess just as you think about it and and speak with these tenants and speak with brokers and whatnot, like, what point of the downsizing cycle for a lot of these tenants in the West Coast do

Dylan Burzinski
Senior Analyst, Office at Green Street Advisors, LLC

you think we're in?

Dylan Burzinski
Senior Analyst, Office at Green Street Advisors, LLC

Do you think, like, they still have another 20%, thirty % of those space to get back, or do you think it's gonna be more incremental from this point on?

Douglas Linde
Douglas Linde
President & Director at Boston Properties

So I'm gonna I'm gonna I'll start the question or the answer, and I'll let Rod deal comment on what's going on in his view in in on the in the West Coast, and I'll let Hillary talk about the contrast in New York. So my comment would be you have to separate what's going on in the CBD of San Francisco from a downsizing to what's potentially going on down in the Silicon Valley, or, you know, the Peninsula, however you want to describe it. There is a there it's a very different place. I think that you're seeing de minimis, if any, significant increases in subleasing or terminations of lease upon expiration in Greater CBD San Francisco today. But you are seeing pieces of meaningful amounts of space from technology companies that over overall in the in the Greater Silicon Valley are still available and could be made available.

Douglas Linde
Douglas Linde
President & Director at Boston Properties

And my guess is if you ask the one of some of the large tech companies, if they could rationalize more space, the answer would probably be yes. So so the I think that's sort of the the big picture perspective. And then in the city of Manhattan, I think it's a little bit more subtle. We have some organizations that are growing significantly and then we have some that are, I'd say, remaining status quo, but not necessarily downsizing. And Rod, I'll let you go first and then I'll ask Hillary for her remarks.

Rodney Diehl
Rodney Diehl
Executive VP of West Coast Regions at Boston Properties

Yeah, thanks, Doug. I think it's a good observation that some of these legacy larger tech companies that are based in the Bay Area, while they may have excess space in the Bay Area are still very active in other markets. Mean, as we talk to our clients in that sector, we're hearing that. So I think in the Bay Area, what you've got is when you look at the big firms that are based here, they have a lot of owned space in addition to the leased space. And I think you're seeing them, each one of them with a little bit of a different story, but they're in their own way consolidating into their premier workplaces, if you will.

Rodney Diehl
Rodney Diehl
Executive VP of West Coast Regions at Boston Properties

They've taken maybe spaces in the anticipation of growth that maybe are not of the quality they want. And so those are the spaces they're putting on the market for sublease and they're folding back into their core better properties. And so I think in the Bay Area at least those firms still do have some excess capacity and we're going to have to work through that in the supply. You see that in the statistics, you know, but I think that's what I would say with firms that are based in the Bay Area in particular.

Douglas Linde
Douglas Linde
President & Director at Boston Properties

But Rod, that's a more of a Peninsula Silicon Valley issue than a City Of San Francisco issue, right?

Rodney Diehl
Rodney Diehl
Executive VP of West Coast Regions at Boston Properties

Yeah, I mean, think there are some examples of that in San Francisco, but it's mostly down in the Valley and with the largest firms that are down there. Again, each one of them kind of has their own story, but there's probably more of that space down in the Valley and I'm talking excess capacity, stumbling space than there is in San Francisco.

Douglas Linde
Douglas Linde
President & Director at Boston Properties

And then Hillary, your view on what's sort of going on with large tech in Manhattan?

Hilary Spann
Hilary Spann
EVP, New York Region at Boston Properties

With large tech in Manhattan. Specifically on tech, I would say that the large tech is stable at this point. We've heard that Meta has taken some space that they were planning to sublease off the market and will be occupying that themselves in Hudson Yards. Referenced the Amazon transaction. That's obviously positive for that building and absorption in the market.

Hilary Spann
Hilary Spann
EVP, New York Region at Boston Properties

We're also starting to see more activity in the smaller tech space, in and around Midtown South. And so that has been a net positive because most of the big leasing that's been done in that submarket has actually been done by more traditional type tenants coming out of Midtown proper. So, as it pertains to tech, I'd say New York feels stable. And, you know, we are starting to see some green shoots on the leasing front. And more broadly speaking, in terms of downsizing and, versus folks expanding, you know, if I could just give one statistic of all the leasing activity that the New York region did in the first quarter, which was just over 390,000 square feet, 11,000 square feet was a straight renewal and everything else was either a new tenant or an expansion.

Hilary Spann
Hilary Spann
EVP, New York Region at Boston Properties

So if that gives you a sense of the pressure of demand in New York, I thought that was a pretty interesting statistic.

Bryan Koop
Bryan Koop
Executive Vice President, Boston Region at Boston Properties

That's one additional thing for Boston, both tech and call it conventional clients, whether it's law or finance, is that we are seeing a trend where there's an adjustment being made as people understand their workforce needs greater there was an undershot and in other words not enough space allocated for focus work and there was maybe extra collaboration that space that's all getting used but we're hearing from several clients in both of those sectors tech included that hey we undershot the focus work areas and they're needing to add on that so we'll see how the formula turns out and whether that's a big nice absorption issue for us but it is definitely happening where they start to get a greater handle on the percentages of workspace they need.

Operator

Thank you. And I show our next question comes from the line of Brendan Lynch from Barclays. Please go ahead.

Brendan Lynch
Brendan Lynch
Director at Barclays Capital

Great. Thanks for taking my question. I wanted to follow-up on your comments around pulling forward some expirations to redevelop assets. It sounds like the specifics of those redevelopment projects are still under consideration. So can you just talk about when that might be finalized and when the actual development process might be able to begin?

Douglas Linde
Douglas Linde
President & Director at Boston Properties

That's it. So that is a that is a a very fluid entitlement and user equation that has to sort of get resolved. So as an example, Brian and his team in Boston are at the moment and having a conversation about a piece of existing office space that they're thinking they might be able to get zoned for a meaningful amount of multifamily. Right? As those that conversation sort of moves forward, there's a jurisdiction, there's a state, there are transportation issues, all that sort of has to get resolved.

Douglas Linde
Douglas Linde
President & Director at Boston Properties

And these these are, you know, time consuming processes. So it's it's very hard to sort of give you a a short duration date for that stuff. Unlikely any of it will be actively in development in 02/2025, but opportunities for some of this stuff to really start to commence in 2026 and 2027.

Operator

Thank you. And I show our last question in the queue comes from the line of Peter Abramowitz from Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Peter Abramowitz
Peter Abramowitz
SVP - Equity Analyst at Jefferies

Yes, thanks for taking the question. I just wanted to ask about 125 Broadway. I believe Biogen announced they're going to be moving to a new development elsewhere in Cambridge. I know you have until '28 to address that, but just curious about kind of the asset, whether you think it needs any repositioning or whether it's something that you think you can just release kind of as is. And you know, how much of that space is is traditional lab space versus office and thinking about positioning that for potentially a new tenant?

Douglas Linde
Douglas Linde
President & Director at Boston Properties

Yeah. So I'll just describe what the building is, and I'll let Brian describe the market. So 125 Broadway is a true lab building, which is predominantly lab infrastructure, and it's been the home of Biogen for thirty plus years. And the building has been reinvested by Biogen, but I am sure when Biogen, you know, moved out, if in fact they're moving out, they haven't told us they're moving out, but there's a presumption that they're moving out. There will be some amount of work that needs to get done to, you know, rethink the systems in the building, but it's like in all likely going to continue to be a life science building.

Bryan Koop
Bryan Koop
Executive Vice President, Boston Region at Boston Properties

Yeah, they were going with the assumption is that that they would be moving out. However, they have told us point blank that they're still assessing their needs. And several of those needs are called specialized uses within that particular building and determining whether or not in fact it can go to the next space. But in terms of that being in the cluster that we've got there, if we get that building back, we'd be highly confident in that as a product. But we are talking to Biogen about their portfolio needs there, which we've had there for forty years.

Bryan Koop
Bryan Koop
Executive Vice President, Boston Region at Boston Properties

So there's a lot of fluidity to it.

Operator

Thank you. I'm showing no further questions in the queue at this time. That concludes our Q and A session. At this time, I'd like to turn the call back to Owen Thomas for closing remarks.

Owen Thomas
Owen Thomas
Chairman and CEO at Boston Properties

No further remarks. Thank all of you for your attention and interest in VXD.

Operator

Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect. Good day.

Executives
    • Helen Han
      Helen Han
      Vice President, IR
    • Owen Thomas
      Owen Thomas
      Chairman and CEO
    • Douglas Linde
      Douglas Linde
      President & Director
    • Michael LaBelle
      Michael LaBelle
      EVP, Treasurer & CFO
    • Hilary Spann
      Hilary Spann
      EVP, New York Region
    • Bryan Koop
      Bryan Koop
      Executive Vice President, Boston Region
    • Rodney Diehl
      Rodney Diehl
      Executive VP of West Coast Regions
Analysts
Powered by Quartr
Earnings Conference Call
Boston Properties Q1 2025
00:00 / 00:00

Transcript Sections