Alexander's Q1 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
May 6, 2025

Key Takeaways

  • Strong first quarter results with Comparable FFO of $0.63 up 8¢ year-over-year and same-store NOI rising 3.5%.
  • Completed major transactions—including the $935M NYU master lease, Uniqlo sale and PENN1 ground rent reset—boosting cash by $500M and cutting debt by $915M.
  • Robust leasing pipeline of 2,000,000 sq ft in negotiation, highlighted by a 337,000 sq ft Universal Music deal at PENN2, with pro-forma occupancy now 87.4% aiming for low 90s.
  • Strong balance sheet with $1.4B in cash and $1.6B of undrawn credit for $3B immediate liquidity to cover maturities and support growth.
  • Manhattan Class A office fundamentals remain a landlord’s market as replacement costs exceed $2,500/sq ft and rates at 6–7% curb new supply, driving rents and values higher.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
Alexander's Q1 2025
00:00 / 00:00

Transcript Sections

Skip to Participants
Operator

Morning, and welcome to the Vornado Realty Trust First Quarter 2025 Earnings Call. My name is Nick, and I will be your operator for today's call. This call is being recorded for replay purposes. All lines are in a listen-only mode. Our speakers will address your questions at the end of the presentation during the question-and-answer session. At that time, please press star, then one on your touch-tone phone. I will now turn the call over to Mr. Steve Borenstein, Executive Vice President and Corporate Counsel. Please go ahead.

Steven Borenstein
Steven Borenstein
EVP, Corporation Counsel, and Secretary at Vornado Realty Trust

Welcome to Alexander's First Quarter Earnings Call. Yesterday afternoon, we issued our first quarter earnings release and filed our quarterly report on Form 10-Q with the Securities and Exchange Commission. These documents, as well as our supplemental financial information packages, are available on our website, www.vno.com, under the investor relations section. In these documents and during today's call, we will discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations of these measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures are included in our earnings release, Form 10-Q, and financial supplements. Please be aware that statements made during this call may be deemed forward-looking statements, and actual results may differ materially from these statements due to a variety of risks, uncertainties, and other factors.

Steven Borenstein
Steven Borenstein
EVP, Corporation Counsel, and Secretary at Vornado Realty Trust

Please refer to our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our annual report on Form 10K for the year ended December 31, 2024, for more information regarding these risks and uncertainties. The call may include time-sensitive information that may be accurate only as of today's date. The company does not undertake a duty to update any forward-looking statements. On the call today from management for our opening comments are Steven Roth, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and Michael Franco, President and Chief Financial Officer. Our senior team is also present and available for questions. I will now turn the call over to Steven Roth.

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

Thank you, Steve, and good morning, everyone. The microenvironment in which we operate is certainly different today than when we last spoke three months ago. On their calls, a couple of office CEOs did not think all this would affect their businesses too much, but it will affect our customers, clients, and tenants. Of course, this will affect all of us somewhat. I know nothing more than you all do, but the way I see it, the objectives of the tariffs are to introduce symmetry and fairness, but even more so to generate a new revenue stream for the federal government, which, at say, a 10% tariff, is large enough to make a big dent in getting our federal budget deficit under control. Notwithstanding the tactics, reducing government bloat has to be a good thing and will also reduce the deficit. I am agnostic.

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

Whatever the outcome, I believe the best bet is that this global kerfuffle will be resolved, settled, and over much more quickly than you think. The basic dynamics that I outlined in my recent annual shareholders' letter that make us so enthusiastic about the future of our business still hold. Our stock performance is at the head of the office class, having increased 49% in 2024 after having increased 36% in 2023. While year-end is down 12%, we are down less than the other CBD office companies. Manhattan continues to be the best real estate market in the country, especially so for office, but also for apartments and retail. In the 180 million sq ft Class A better building market in which we compete, demand continues to be robust.

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

Available space is evaporating quickly, and with the cost of a new build, i.e., replacement cost at say $2,500 per sq ft and interest rates at 6%-7%, no new supply is on the horizon. All this is the very definition of a landlord's market. We've seen this all play out in past cycles, and the story has always been the same. The supply and demand dynamics will push rents higher, and existing better buildings will increase in value quite substantially. All good, very good. Here at Alexander's, our teams have been very busy building liquidity and doing leases and deals. In January, we completed the unit close sale at 666 Fifth Avenue at a record-breaking $20,000 per sq ft. We used the $342 million in net proceeds from the sale to partially redeem our retail JV preferred equity on the asset. $342 million cash to Alexander's.

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

We used this cash to pay at maturity our 3.5%, $450 million unsecured bonds. Next, last month, we completed a $450 million financing of 1535 Broadway and used the $407 million of net proceeds to partially redeem our retail JV preferred equity on the asset. So, $407 million cash to Alexander's, which increased our cash balances. This financing was done at a very choppy market with skill and relationships by our capital markets team, so all thanks to them. Next, on April 22, we received a favorable ruling on the PENN 1 ground lease rent reset arbitration. The panel determined that the annual ground rent payable for the 25-year period beginning June 17, 2023, will be $15 million.

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

There is pending litigation, and the panel's decision provides that if the fee owner prevails in a final judgment, the annual rent for the 25-year term will be $20.2 million retroactive to June 17, 2023. For GAAP, we have been accruing $26.2 million per annum of ground rent, and therefore, as a result of the panel's determination, we reversed $17.2 million of previously over-accrued rent expense in the first quarter. Of note, commencing in the first quarter of 2025, we are now paying $15 million annual rent, and so our GAAP earnings will increase by $11 million annually. By the way, this PENN 1 ground lease has fully extended goes to 2098. Next, in March, we finalized a major 337,000 sq ft lease at PENN 2 with Universal Music Group, the world's leading music company, thank Taylor Swift and her friends.

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

This important deal brings an exciting tenant to the PENN District and takes the building to approximately 50% lease. More leasing at PENN 2 will follow. Next, yesterday, we finally announced the completion of an important deal with NYU at 770 Broadway, completing a master lease for 1.1 million sq ft on an as-is triple-net basis for a 70-year lease term. Under the terms of the lease, a rental agreement under Section 467 of the Internal Revenue Code, NYU made a prepaid rent payment of $935 million and will also make annual lease payments of $1.3 million during the lease term. NYU has an option to purchase the lease premises in 2055 and at the end of the lease term in 2095. NYU will assume the existing office leases and related tenant income at the property.

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

We used a portion of the prepaid rent payment to repay the $700 million mortgage loan, which previously encumbered the property, and $200 million to increase our cash balances. Though this transaction is a lease under GAAP, which can be a little wacky, it is treated as a sale. As such, we will recognize the GAAP financial statement gain of approximately $800 million in the second quarter. We will retain the Wegmans retail condo, which will produce $4.7 million in income this year. The NYU lease absorbs 500,000 sq ft currently vacated at the asset. Overall, the transaction is accretive by $25 million annually. If we pro-formed leasing the vacancy at market rents with related capital spend, downtime, and free rent, it would have been a pro-forma push, as you might expect.

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

We are delighted to expand our relationship with NYU and congratulate NYU Board Chair Evan Chesler and President Linda Mills and their teams. We are excited about their ambitions for this project. As I have said before, this is all very good for NYU and is very good for New York. NYU's press release issued yesterday is available at www.nyu.edu. All told so far this year, as a result of the above activity, we reduced our debt by $915 million, increased our cash by $500 million, and our retail JV preferred equity, which is an asset on our balance sheet, which began the year at $1,828 million, is now down to $1,079 million. Our cash balances are now $1.4 billion, and together with our undrawn credit lines of $1.6 billion, we have immediate liquidity of $3 billion.

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

The above transactions will increase GAAP earnings by approximately $36 million, $25 million from the NYU transaction, and $11 million from the PENN 1 ground rent reset result. Tom, that would be Tom Sanelli, who all of you know, in a more complete analysis, including debt repayments and the loss of preferred income, calculates $30 million of accretion. I'm happy to defer to Tom. In a moment, Michael will review the quarter and the financials, but here are a few headlines of a very good first quarter. Comparable FFO of $0.63 increased by $0.08 versus last year's first quarter and is $0.09 higher than analyst consensus. Our overall GAAP same-store NOI was of 3.5%. We leased 1,039,000 sq ft overall, of which 709,000 sq ft was New York office at $95 starting rents with mark-to-markets of 6.5% cash and 9.5% GAAP, and an average lease term of 14.7 years.

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

In addition to the 337,000 sq ft lease with Universal Music Group at PENN 2, we leased 163,000 sq ft at PENN 1. We completed leases totaling 222,000 sq ft at our 555 California Tower in San Francisco at $120 starting rents. 555 continues to be the preferred financial services headquarters in San Francisco, and even in this historically soft market, 555 continues to outperform. It is proving that it is the best building in San Francisco. We are big fans of the new San Francisco Mayor, Mayor Dan Lurie. Our New York leasing pipeline is a robust 2 million sq ft. As I said in my annual shareholders' letter released on April 8, the lease of PENN 2 and the lease of our retail vacancies alone will generate incremental NOI of $125 million and $150 million respectively over the next several years.

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

Tom, here is Tom again, specifies that while NOI for PENN 2 is budgeted to increase by $125 million, FFO is budgeted to increase by $95 million, the difference being capitalized interest. Either way, these are big numbers, and with PENN 2 built and ready, this $125 million per year is as close to a sure thing as there is. The PENN District, our three-block long city within a city, continues to amaze and receive outstanding reviews. We sit on top of PENN Station, adjacent to our good neighbors to the west, Manhattan, the West and Hudson Yards. The three of us combined are what I call the new booming west side of Manhattan. One of our analysts calls the PENN District one of the largest mixed-use projects in the country.

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

Be that as it may, the PENN District will be a growth engine for our company for years to come. As I said in my annual letter, we raised market rents in the PENN District from $50 to $100. Our neighbors to the west are achieving rents of over $150, and I predict that we will do the same in the PENN District in due time. You can all do the math as to what an incremental $50 on 4.3 million sq ft will do to our earnings and values. 350 Park Avenue, our recidival as our anchor tenant and Ken Griffin as our executive department, has begun the development process to create a grand 1.8 million sq ft headquarters tower on the best site on Park Avenue. The new building will stand out as being truly the best in class.

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

We have several other assets for sale in the market. We recently filed our very comprehensive sustainability report, which can be found in the sustainability page of our website. It was the first in the nation to achieve 100% LEED certification across our entire portfolio of in-service buildings. The many awards we have achieved can also be found on the sustainability page of our website. Kudos to Lauren Moss and her team. Finally, one other observation I would make is that the majority of our secured loans reflect current market rates, while others are still living off their low-rate loans. As I have said before, there is really no protection against loans that mature into a rising rate market. Now to Michael.

Michael Franco
Michael Franco
President and CFO at Vornado Realty Trust

Thank you, Steve, and good morning, everyone. First quarter comparable FFO was $0.63 per share compared to $0.55 per share for last year's first quarter, an increase of $0.08. The increase was primarily due to the impact of the positive ground rent reset determination at PENN 1, higher signage NOI, and higher NOI from rent commencement, partially offset by the impact from known move-outs and lower interest and investment income. We have provided a quarter-over-quarter bridge on page two of our earnings release and on page five of our financial supplement. On our last earnings call, we said that we expected 2025 comparable FFO to be slightly lower than 2024 comparable FFO of $2.26 per share. As a result of the lower than originally estimated PENN 1 ground rent, we now expect 2025 comparable FFO to be essentially flat compared to last year.

Michael Franco
Michael Franco
President and CFO at Vornado Realty Trust

Looking beyond that, we expect the lease-up of PENN 1 and PENN 2 to occur with full positive impact in 2027, resulting in significant earnings growth by 2027. Turning to occupancy, as expected, our New York office occupancy decreased this quarter to 84.4% from 88.8% last quarter, which, as previously mentioned, is primarily the result of PENN 2 being placed fully in the service. However, with the full building master lease at 770 Broadway now completed, our current office occupancy has increased to 87.4%, and we anticipate it will tick up over the next year or so into the low 90s. The New York office leasing market maintained strong momentum during the first quarter, with the strongest quarterly volume since fourth quarter 2019.

Michael Franco
Michael Franco
President and CFO at Vornado Realty Trust

Availability in the best of the class A market continues to shrink, and with only 500,000 sq ft of new construction set to deliver during the next several years and 13 million sq ft of office to residential conversions in process or announced, we expect the market to continue to tighten, which sets the tale for strong rental rate growth. While we are, of course, mindful of companies potentially becoming more cautious in their decision-making given the current market volatility, we do not believe it will impact most tenants' ultimate decisions to lease space, and we remain very constructive on the market and the deal pipeline across our portfolio. The recent major commitments by NYU at 770 Broadway, Deloitte at Hudson Yards, and Amazon at 522 Fifth Avenue are perfect examples. During the first quarter, our leasing activity once again led the marketplace.

Michael Franco
Michael Franco
President and CFO at Vornado Realty Trust

We completed 31 transactions totaling 709,000 sq ft at average starting rents of $95 per sq ft and 6.5% positive mark-to-market. Our activity was highlighted by the largest new lease done in the market in the quarter. Universal Music Group's 337,000 sq ft lease at our new PENN 2, anchoring the base of the building on floors four through seven. We are delighted with this transaction and look forward to Universal creating a world-class office and studio production headquarters at PENN 2. The transaction strongly reflects the overall quality of the project's new, modern, high-quality workspace and the market's continued attraction to our robust work-life amenity program across the PENN District campus.

Michael Franco
Michael Franco
President and CFO at Vornado Realty Trust

Leasing at PENN 1 continues at a healthy pace as we leased 163,000 sq ft here during the quarter, including a 61,000 sq ft lease renewal with Cisco, along with a 36,000 sq ft relocation with UnitedHealthcare and a new lease with Dish Network for 27,000 sq ft. Our deal pipeline at PENN 1 and PENN 2 is very strong, with a variety of new transactions already in lease documentation or deep in letter of intent stages. Excluding the just completed master lease with NYU at 770 Broadway, our New York pipeline consists of 2 million sq ft of leases in negotiation at various stages of proposal. In San Francisco at 555 California Street, we completed two large headquarter renewal and expansion deals with Dodge & Cox and Goldman Sachs, both at positive cash mark-to-markets.

Michael Franco
Michael Franco
President and CFO at Vornado Realty Trust

555 continues to strongly outperform the market as we have leased 657,000 sq ft since 2022. 555 is the city's flagship office tower with world-class tenants and is brilliantly leased in a market which has been one of the more challenging in the country coming out of the pandemic. The market, though, is finally showing signs of improvement. The new mayor is off to a great start, and we are confident that he will help restore the city's health and vibrancy. Lastly, turning to the capital markets. During the first quarter, the CMBS market was wide open for large high-quality assets such as ours, with spreads continuing to tighten. Since the president announced his new tariffs policy on April 2, there's been significant volatility in the financing markets, with spreads widening out and new issuances being delayed. Despite this volatility, we're able to complete our 1535 Broadway financing.

Michael Franco
Michael Franco
President and CFO at Vornado Realty Trust

We expect the market to settle near term with high-quality issuers and assets continuing to have access to it. We are hard at work on refinancing or extending our upcoming maturities, with many in process. With that, I'll turn it over to the operator for Q&A.

Operator

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. If you have a question, please press star, then one on your touch-tone phone. If you wish to be removed from the queue, please press star, then two. If you are using a speakerphone, you may need to pick up the handset first before pressing the numbers. Once again, if you have a question, please press star, then one on your touch-tone phone. Each caller will be allowed to ask a question and a follow-up question before we move on to the next caller. Please hold as we pull for questions. Your first question today will come from Steve Sakwa with Evercore ISI. Please go ahead.

Steve Sakwa
Steve Sakwa
Senior Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Evercore ISI

Thanks. Good morning. Michael, I was wondering if you could just maybe break down that 2 million sq ft, I guess, lease negotiation between PENN 1, PENN 2, and then the balance of the portfolio. I guess I wanted to just maybe circle back to Steve's comment last quarter about PENN 2 being 80% leased and just trying to understand the volume of activity that you've got, particularly at PENN 2.

Michael Franco
Michael Franco
President and CFO at Vornado Realty Trust

Good morning, Steve. I want you to start off, and then I'll chip in.

Glen Weiss
Glen Weiss
EVP at Vornado Realty Trust

Hi, Steve. It's Glen Weiss. The 2 million pipeline, about 50% is PENN 1, PENN 2 to start off. There's a lot of great activity at PENN 2. We finished, obviously, Universal. We got more to come. PENN 1 continues to flood with new tenants. At the same time as all this is going on, we continue to press rents upwards by the week. PENN is really in fifth year. It's a big part of the pipeline, not all the pipeline. The portfolio overall is performing very well right now. We're feeling very, very good about where we are along all of our portfolio.

Steve Sakwa
Steve Sakwa
Senior Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Evercore ISI

I guess, confidence level around kind of getting to that 80% mark by the end of the year at PENN 2?

Michael Franco
Michael Franco
President and CFO at Vornado Realty Trust

I mean, Steve, what I would say is, as we sit here today, we still feel good about it, right? Whether it happens by the end of the year, first quarter, whatnot, I think, as Steve said in his opening, we're going to lease the building, right? We're generally going to hit the numbers that we laid out. There's a significant uptick, and whether it happens a quarter earlier, a quarter later, from our perspective, it's not going to have a meaningful impact. We're going to get there. The rents that we're going to achieve, as we published last quarter, are higher. Glen started a pre-build program at PENN 2. The rents we're achieving there are spectacular. We may do a little bit more of it. I wouldn't get focused on whether it happens exactly by year.

Michael Franco
Michael Franco
President and CFO at Vornado Realty Trust

Yeah, as we sit here today, our confidence level is the same as it was last quarter.

Glen Weiss
Glen Weiss
EVP at Vornado Realty Trust

We love our spot here. If you think about it, Steve, there's a dwindling supply of quality blocks in the market, and it's really nothing like what we did at PENN 2. We think, even with more patience, the rents will keep rising, the quality of tenants will keep getting better. We're feeling better and better as we go here overall.

Steve Sakwa
Steve Sakwa
Senior Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Evercore ISI

Okay. Maybe just to follow up too, I think Steve made a comment. I do not know if I caught all of it about 350 Park. I just cannot remember what your decision to fully go or no-go on that project is. Can you remind us kind of of the milestones and maybe achievements that you need to see or want to see in the market to ultimately make that decision?

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

Steve, good morning. Our disclosure on the details that you've just asked about is very robust. Go back and read the 10-K and the press release. I think that'll be the best way to do it.

Operator

Your next question today will come from Dylan Berzinski with Green Street. Please go ahead.

Dylan Berzinski
Dylan Berzinski
Senior Analyst at Green Street

Hi, guys. Thanks for taking the question and congrats on closing the NYU transaction. I guess, Steve, I think you mentioned now, after all the transactions close subsequent to quarter end, that you have about $1.4 billion of cash on the balance sheet. I guess, can you guys just talk about what some of those proceeds might be earmarked for?

Michael Franco
Michael Franco
President and CFO at Vornado Realty Trust

Sure. Good morning, Dylan. First of all, I want to commend you on your report you published. I think you nailed 770 better than anybody. Kudos to you and the team. In turn and overall, quite thoughtful. In terms of the cash, look, we're.

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

Dylan, what that means is that he liked your report. Go ahead.

Michael Franco
Michael Franco
President and CFO at Vornado Realty Trust

In terms of the cash, look, we're obviously pleased with what we've done. I think we've done quite a bit. These are our large, substantial transactions. If you think about it, we've been able to delever the balance sheet meaningfully and yet still have that significant cash balance, right? We're in a very good spot. What are our plans, right? In an environment like this, where there's clearly a little bit more volatility, having more cash is a good thing. We hope and expect that's going to lead to some opportunity to deploy some of that cash in new investments. We're looking. At the same time, we have some higher-cost debt that we might either pay down or pay off. I think you'll see a combination of, A, leaving in cash, as is our history, to make sure we have an appropriate buffer for anything.

Michael Franco
Michael Franco
President and CFO at Vornado Realty Trust

Two, tackle some of the debt. Three, is hopefully deploy that into new opportunities we see.

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

Taking it a little bit further, we are loading in cash to pay off an unsecured bond that comes due in a year and a fraction. We are loading in cash because we are going to have a robust development program both at 350 Park and at the PENN District and perhaps one other site that we control. The cash is a good thing, and we're going to be using it, and we're going to be using it to grow the company.

Dylan Berzinski
Dylan Berzinski
Senior Analyst at Green Street

That's helpful, and appreciate the comments on our report from last night. I guess just maybe one other follow-up. Obviously, you guys have done a successful job monetizing some of the prep and selling some of the assets within the share retail joint venture. I guess, I think last quarter, you guys alluded to having additional dispositions or looking to go out and execute additional dispositions. I guess, can you kind of talk about just the appetite of some of these luxury retailers and the desire to wanting to continue to own the real estate versus lease the real estate?

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

I think I said this in my letter. I advertised in a very subtle way that some of the buildings that are outside of New York might be for sale at the right price. That continues to be true. These are a couple of very large assets, so we'll see how that works. In Manhattan, we have a couple of non-core buildings that are in the for sale market now. I think, as I said in my letter, there are no sacred cows. The other thing is we have shown a willingness to sell some of these important retail assets when we get a buyer that is willing to pay an appropriate price. That continues to be the case. The interesting thing is it's not just the retailers that are buying these assets.

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

For example, Amazon is coming in and buying significant assets in Midtown Manhattan for, I guess, their HQ3 or whatever it might be. There are lots of examples of some of these larger companies which are switching their strategy from leasing to buying, and that's a good thing. We know that that's aggressively happening in New York. I'm not aware of whether that's true in the rest of the country. For New York and for the New York real estate market, that's a very good thing.

Dylan Berzinski
Dylan Berzinski
Senior Analyst at Green Street

Great. Appreciate the color and congrats to you both. Thanks.

Operator

Your next question today will come from John Kim with BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

John Kim
John Kim
Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst at BMO Capital Markets

Can I just follow up on real estate valuations? We've seen high street retail kind of go back to 2019 levels. On the assets that you're looking to potentially sell, whether in New York or outside and including 555 California, are we going to go back to 2019 valuations or exceed them?

Michael Franco
Michael Franco
President and CFO at Vornado Realty Trust

Sure. I think, John, I would just add on to what Steve said. I think if you look at what we've done to date, I do not know that any of these assets were quote on the market, right? We are being targeted, opportunistic about the right counterparty. I think that continues to generally be the case. The capital markets continue to improve on the sales side, but you have to figure out who the right buyer investor is. I think what the cycle has once again validated is that great assets command great prices, right? The best is always the best. Maybe you had a favor for a little bit of time, but if you are patient, you weather the storm, that is going to recover, right? That clearly was the case in street retail.

Michael Franco
Michael Franco
President and CFO at Vornado Realty Trust

I think that's going to be the case with if you look at some of the financings and the implied values from New York office and certainly the trophy assets in San Francisco. The best is generally always the best.

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

My succinct one-word answer, sure. Really, to interpret that was that we are not going to sell great assets at distressed prices that came from COVID or whatever. The benchmark is pre-COVID, which is 2019. These assets have recovered. They are recovering, and they will command increasing prices over time.

John Kim
John Kim
Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst at BMO Capital Markets

That's great color. Thank you. On the leasing pipeline, which increased pretty significantly from last quarter, can you describe how much of that is on your in-service portfolio or leases that could drive occupancy within the next couple of years versus maybe 350 Park or an early renewal that won't drive SSL?

Glen Weiss
Glen Weiss
EVP at Vornado Realty Trust

A very significant portion of the pipeline will increase occupancy without a doubt. A lot of it is absorption, a lot of new deals, a lot of expansion. There is a lot of expansion in New York and our properties right now. A lot of our significant activity will absorb vacant space over the next 9-12 months without a doubt.

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

This is the first time on this call that the word occupancy came up. Will somebody cover occupancy? The occupancy number that we reported is aberrantly low. Let's see if we can get an accurate portrayal of what our expected occupancy is into this call.

Michael Franco
Michael Franco
President and CFO at Vornado Realty Trust

John, to follow Steve's comment, I think we had telegraphed this the last couple of quarters that our occupancy was going to go down, and we brought PENN 2 in service, which we did fully this quarter, right? We published 84.4%. We talked about pro forma, what it is when you add in 770, which goes to 87.4%. I said in my prepared remarks that we've acted to be 90% plus in the next 12 months or so. Obviously, a lot of that's driven by PENN 2. I think as we look more broadly in New York, if we lease up PENN 1 and PENN 2, or when we lease up PENN 1 and PENN 2 fully, and let's say that happens in the next 24 months and a couple of other things here and there, we're going to be at about 94% occupancy.

Michael Franco
Michael Franco
President and CFO at Vornado Realty Trust

I can't tell you exactly when that's going to happen, but if you just think about if we execute on PENN 1, PENN 2, a little bit of space, 1290, 280, we're going to be at that 94% level, and we love that position, right? From our standpoint, in terms of driving growth, we have our best assets that have some holes in them today. There are fewer options in the market. We've just deployed a significant amount of capital in these assets. Glen talked about how the rents are rising, not just in the market, but specifically at these assets. That's all going to translate into growth. I think, as we've said in the last couple of calls, that really kicks in in 2027. We feel good about the position.

Michael Franco
Michael Franco
President and CFO at Vornado Realty Trust

I think, from an occupancy standpoint, we always ran the business at around 95%-96%. I think when we get a couple of years out, our expectation is we're going to get back there.

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

The most significant thing to keep in your mind is that as occupancy rises, earnings rise. They rise significantly. That is a very interesting factor.

John Kim
John Kim
Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst at BMO Capital Markets

Yep. Good stuff. Thank you.

John Kim
John Kim
Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst at BMO Capital Markets

Yep.

Operator

Your next question today will come from Floris van Dijkum with Compass Point. Please go ahead.

Floris van Dijkum
Floris van Dijkum
Managing Director and Senior Analyst at Compass Point

Hey, good morning, guys. Thanks for taking my question. Getting back to your comment on one of the most valuable mixed-use projects in the country, which the PENN District is.

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

Who said that?

Floris van Dijkum
Floris van Dijkum
Managing Director and Senior Analyst at Compass Point

I don't know. Somebody mentioned that. Hopefully, that caught your attention. One of the, obviously, $300 million of NOI once PENN 1, PENN 2 are stabilized is pretty impressive. Can you talk about one of the things we noticed this quarter, and I suspect it's going to be the case for the next couple of quarters, is the gap. There's roughly a $20 million gap between GAAP NOI and cash NOI, presumably as free rents in PENN 2 as that comes online before you actually get the actual cash. How long is that going to last? At some point, are you going to see or when do you think you're going to inflect and see cash NOI actually be stronger than your GAAP NOI going forward?

Steven Borenstein
Steven Borenstein
EVP, Corporation Counsel, and Secretary at Vornado Realty Trust

Yeah. I think, Floris, that's a great question. I think we should probably take it offline. Most of that is going to happen in the later years. As Michael indicated, we start seeing 2027 earnings really pop. That's probably the years you're going to see it, but that's something that we probably should take offline in more detail.

Floris van Dijkum
Floris van Dijkum
Managing Director and Senior Analyst at Compass Point

Great. The other thing, and again, I think you guys sometimes do yourself a disservice by being as transparent as, well, transparent in some ways as you are with the occupancy in particular. Have you ever thought about showing what your core occupancy is or inline or in-service properties? Because obviously, you've got a couple of assets that you're keeping vacant right now, particularly in your retail portfolio, which impact your stated occupancy level significantly.

Michael Franco
Michael Franco
President and CFO at Vornado Realty Trust

We have thought about that, Floris, but your comment now makes us think a little bit harder about whether we should do that because we have kept certain assets offline and continue to do that pending either redevelopment or maybe in a case or two of workout. That is a fair comment.

Floris van Dijkum
Floris van Dijkum
Managing Director and Senior Analyst at Compass Point

Thanks, Grant. That's it for me.

Michael Franco
Michael Franco
President and CFO at Vornado Realty Trust

Thank you.

Operator

Your next question today will come from Alexander Goldfarb with Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.

Alexander Goldfarb
Alexander Goldfarb
Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst at Piper Sandler

Hey. Morning. Morning down there. Steve, question for you looking at the Deloitte deal. Pretty impressive. 800,000 sq ft to anchor a new development. How does the math behind that project compare to what you guys would need for PENN 15? Just trying to understand if we're getting closer with a 2 million plus project can pencil or if the market is still limited to, call it, million two type developments.

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

Good morning, Alex. Before we get into that, you wrote a piece on Alexander's that came out, I think, yesterday.

Alexander Goldfarb
Alexander Goldfarb
Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst at Piper Sandler

Yes. Yesterday.

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

I think you're the only person that I know covers it. In any event, let me help you by correcting you in two things. Number one, we will not—let me emphasize the word not—use our cash to pay down the $731 million retail loan. We're not doing that.

Alexander Goldfarb
Alexander Goldfarb
Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst at Piper Sandler

Okay. We'll note that. We will note that.

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

The second thing is we are not merging Alexander's into Vornado. Okay? Once we get beyond that, look, we were shown the Deloitte deal as were all of the developers in town. We think we have the best vacant piece of land on the west side of Manhattan. Now, I've said frequently that I think it's the second best piece of land in town, the first best being our Park Avenue site. The deal that was made was a very aggressive deal for the tenant. The pricing was very tight. We're not bashful to say no to a deal that doesn't give us the financial results that we think our shareholders are entitled to. We're getting there. I think we're on the foothills of a landlord's bull market, and we think that values, prices, and transactions are going to go up.

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

We think that the number of new builds will be very scarce, and so we think we're in a pretty good spot. We are patient. If you just look at what happened with the Alexander's deal, which was a long time ago, but nonetheless, we let deal after deal pass by until we did the deal with Bloomberg, which turned out to be extraordinary. So we're getting there, and we're very happy with our position.

Alexander Goldfarb
Alexander Goldfarb
Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst at Piper Sandler

Okay.

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

By the way.

Alexander Goldfarb
Alexander Goldfarb
Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst at Piper Sandler

Yes.

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

By the way, the interesting thing is that a lot of this comes from our financial strength. We can be relatively patient because of our financial strength. The PENN 15 lot has no debt on it. The PENN 1 building has no debt on it. The PENN 2 building has no debt on it. The Farley Meadow building has no debt on it. That's a pretty good spot to be in. It's not we're basically a secured lender is the way we structure our business. Those assets have no debt, and that's a great place to be.

Alexander Goldfarb
Alexander Goldfarb
Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst at Piper Sandler

Okay. Let me ask you. You wrote a chairman's letter as you always do. You talked about the attractiveness of apartment developments in part because of the smaller size.

Alexander Goldfarb
Alexander Goldfarb
Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst at Piper Sandler

However, if you look at some of the legislation that Albany has passed, it makes the math tougher if you do tax incentive deals, the bigger the project. As you think about your apartment potential, are you thinking about it on as-of-right sites, or are you thinking about smaller-scale projects, or how are you thinking about apartments fitting in as you expand your thoughts on development and harvesting your different sites? Are these existing sites, new sites, your thoughts?

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

Oh, Lord. When you have the kind of city down at PENN that we have, you have to consider both office. We're principally an office company. We like the dynamics of the office business. We like them as they are improving today. You cannot disregard the fact that if you look back over the past decades, apartments have created more value than office has. The office market is volatile over long periods of time. The apartment markets are less volatile. Nonetheless, the political overtone of the apartment business is much more complicated than the office business. There's a little bit of this, a little bit of that. We will be building some apartments in the PENN District. It will not be a total apartment development project.

Alexander Goldfarb
Alexander Goldfarb
Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst at Piper Sandler

Thank you, Steve.

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

Thank you, Alex. Remember, we're not paying off that loan with cash.

Alexander Goldfarb
Alexander Goldfarb
Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst at Piper Sandler

I will tell my colleague Connor that.

Operator

Your next question today will come from Ianna Gallen with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Ianna Gallen
Ianna Gallen
VP and Equity Research Analyst at Bank of America

Thank you. Good morning and congrats on a strong start to the year. It seems like a recent big trend in New York City is of kind of owner-occupiers, both in office and retail, and was just curious if you could kind of comment on what you're seeing in particular with some of the dispositions you may be looking to do.

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

I think we covered a lot of that. Michael, give it another shot.

Michael Franco
Michael Franco
President and CFO at Vornado Realty Trust

Thanks, Ianna. Appreciate the comment. Look, I think you're seeing the owner-occupiers. I mean, retail, I think we've talked about going back over the last year where you saw that activity first. You saw it with Prada. You saw it with Kering. You saw it with Uniqlo. There continues to be interest there. I think that's a function. All that was on Fifth Avenue, although you saw a couple of situations down in Soho recently. If you look at what Ralph Lauren just did in Soho, paid a significant number for that store. Dyson down in Soho. What these retailers are basically saying is that in these great forever spots, Fifth Avenue, Soho, Madison Avenue, Times Square, that are sort of the four key areas of Manhattan, they want to be here forever, right?

Michael Franco
Michael Franco
President and CFO at Vornado Realty Trust

These sales volumes that they do in Manhattan are multiples of what they do anywhere in the U.S. and in many cases around the world. They want to be here forever. Rather than wrangling with the Alexander's of the world every 10 or 15 years, they just want to own it, right? They're prepared to pay a significant number to control that forever. That's a good thing. We have some additional incoming on that. If we get the right numbers on situations, then we'll transact. That continues to be an area where retailers are active. On the office side as well, you've seen some owner-user activity. Let's go back to what that is a function of, right? I think Steve made the distinction that we really haven't seen that elsewhere.

Michael Franco
Michael Franco
President and CFO at Vornado Realty Trust

Maybe it's occurred, but I don't think it's occurred in the volume here. I think it's fundamentally driven by talent wants to be in New York, right? It really is driving every asset class. Alex, to your point, how can you make the math work? The math works on these bigger sites, right? Notwithstanding your comment on the 99, the math works. Why does it work? Because rents are continuing to go up. We have a massive housing shortage in New York City. It's not going to get eradicated in the next decade. Anybody that builds apartments is probably going to do finances, right? Back to office. Talent wants to be here. Employers have no issue getting their employees in the office. This is where all the young people want to come to. They're basically staking out their ground.

Michael Franco
Michael Franco
President and CFO at Vornado Realty Trust

In many of these companies' cases, they borrow cheaper than real estate companies. They borrow cheaper than any companies for that matter. They're using that capital, right? In Amazon's case, where they have stepped up in a big way here recently, they want to be here. They want to grow here. They're going to use their balance sheet aggressively, given, again, the fact that they want to be here long term and the amount of capital they're going to deploy in their assets above what a landlord would normally deploy is significant. They want to own that forever. If you think about NYU, NYU didn't buy the building from us, but they committed to lease it for a long term so they can amortize the capital they're going to deploy in that asset. They have long-term control of that asset.

Michael Franco
Michael Franco
President and CFO at Vornado Realty Trust

Is it going to be something we're going to see every week? Probably not. I don't think this will be the last of those given companies that have significant capital and can deploy that cost-effectively. It's a good solution.

Ianna Gallen
Ianna Gallen
VP and Equity Research Analyst at Bank of America

Thank you.

Operator

Your next question today will come from Seth Bergey with Citi. Please go ahead.

Seth Bergey
Seth Bergey
Analyst at Citi

Hi, thanks for taking my question. I guess it sounds like demand has improved. Your leasing pipeline has grown. What types of behavior are you seeing change from tenants? Are you seeing any improvement on concessions or early renewal activity in addition to the rent growth that you're seeing?

Glen Weiss
Glen Weiss
EVP at Vornado Realty Trust

Hi, it's Glen. Certainly, we're seeing rent growth. That's the first discussion. Rents are going up, and tenants realize rents are going up. Number two, we are starting to see a reduction in the free rent packages. On the TIs, the TIs have stubbornly stayed basically at the same levels. I would say rents are improving and free rents are starting to come down. As part of early renewals, we're definitely seeing people come to us earlier now because they're concerned about where the market's going to go, more and more toward the landlord's market. We have some larger deals in this pipeline as it relates to early renewals, for sure. I'll tell you the one takeaway I would tell you is expansions. The expansions in New York, there's expansions going on all over the markets and every sub-market and definitely in our portfolio.

Glen Weiss
Glen Weiss
EVP at Vornado Realty Trust

A lot of growth in New York, and not just financial. You're seeing tech now grow, the law firms grow, consulting firms grow, media, entertainment, like the Universal deal. I mean, that's basic around what you're asking.

Seth Bergey
Seth Bergey
Analyst at Citi

Yeah. Thanks. That's helpful. I guess for a follow-up, I just wanted to go back to your comments about the capital intensiveness of office buildings versus apartments. I guess it sounds like there's kind of puts and takes to both asset classes, but does that change how you think about investing in the portfolio over the longer term?

Michael Franco
Michael Franco
President and CFO at Vornado Realty Trust

Look, I think it orients you to is you want to own high-quality buildings, the highest quality buildings, right? Because those are the buildings that are experiencing the demand, where you can push rents the most, where you can start to tighten some of the concessions. You're seeing that play out now, and we think that's going to continue to play out. The capital is not going to be avoided, right? Even if TIs go down a little bit, every time you turn these spaces over every 10-15 years that a tenant leaves, there's going to be meaningful capital requirements there. In order for that to be an appropriate investment, rents have to rise, and that orients you towards the higher quality buildings.

Michael Franco
Michael Franco
President and CFO at Vornado Realty Trust

I think what we've tried to do in the last several years is reshape our portfolio, sell assets that we viewed as not best positioned for the future, and have a portfolio that we think is well positioned for that. Are we 100% there? No, but we're pretty close, and we feel good about it. I think that's where you have to be investing in, is we've modernized our assets. They're in the right locations. I think your portfolio has to be oriented that way to succeed given the capital requirements.

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

A couple of things. We expect rents to rise. We expect free rent to start to come in as the market tightens. We don't believe that cash TIs are going to come in because the tenants really are spending a lot more than that to develop the space.

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

Rents and free rent, face rents and free rents will improve. We do not believe that cash TIs will improve. There is that. With respect to the mix between apartments and office, we are an office company. In our major development activities, we will be developing office. In the PENN District, we will be sprinkling in, I want to say, a not insignificant amount of apartments as well. I do not believe that we will be a buyer of existing apartment buildings. We have looked at some, but basically, I think we would be a developer of apartments, but a reluctant buyer of apartments.

Seth Bergey
Seth Bergey
Analyst at Citi

Great. Thank you.

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

Thank you.

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

Your next question today will come from Anthony Paolone with J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.

Anthony Paolone
Anthony Paolone
VP and Senior Analyst at J.P. Morgan

Yeah. Thanks. I guess just following up to some of these questions around PENN District and apartments versus office, I mean, what do you think is the next project that Vornado pursues in the PENN District? Is it apartments because it is smaller versus PENN 15? How should we think about that? Also, in the same vein, your thoughts on federal government getting involved with the planning of PENN Station and how that might impact you?

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

We're not going to pregame what we're doing by announcing today what the mix of apartments is. We'll do that when we actually start to do something that's a real project. We will notify the market. We've already said that we are focused on doing a small apartment project on 8th Avenue and 34th Street on a piece of land, a smallish piece of land we own there. That is in the works. Otherwise, we will announce development starts when they start. With respect to the question about the federal government getting involved in PENN, we think that's great. I'm going to turn that over to Barry because he likes to talk about that one. Go ahead, Barry.

Barry Langer
Barry Langer
EVP of Development and Co-Head of Real Estate at Vornado Realty Trust

Good morning. As you're aware, we've spent a lot of time over the last several years working on several public-private partnerships making PENN Station better, whether or not that's the Moynihan Train Hall, the Long Island Railroad, 33rd Street Concourse, or the couple of new entrances we worked with the government building on 7th Avenue. Anyone that wants to keep investing in PENN Station and continuing the good work we've done, continue making PENN Station better, we support.

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

There's that. By the way, when was the last time that you walked through the PENN District?

Barry Langer
Barry Langer
EVP of Development and Co-Head of Real Estate at Vornado Realty Trust

Last weekend.

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

Oh, good. I think that you'll agree that the PENN District, the legacy idea that PENN is—what's a good word?—that PENN is a sloppy district. That's past. When you walk down there now, what we've done on 7th Avenue, what we've done with the buildings, all the granite that we put in the sidewalks, the Moynihan Train Station is spectacular. The train hall is spectacular. The Long Island Railroad Concourse too. The PENN District looks a lot different today than it did five years ago, and we're pretty proud of that. Anybody that wants to come in and help us finish the job, below ground, basically, we own all of the above ground. The government and the railroads own the below ground. Anybody that wants to help us fix that, we're in favor of.

Anthony Paolone
Anthony Paolone
VP and Senior Analyst at J.P. Morgan

Okay. Thanks. Just a quick follow-up. I may have missed this. It might be in the queue. Just what is the remaining par value for the preps that you have in the Fifth Avenue JV now and the yield on that?

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

It's about $105 billion in round numbers. The yield on that is—what is it? 5.5%?

Michael Franco
Michael Franco
President and CFO at Vornado Realty Trust

It probably blends to about 5%, Tony. It probably blends to about 5%. Steve's accurate on the amount.

Anthony Paolone
Anthony Paolone
VP and Senior Analyst at J.P. Morgan

Okay. Thank you.

Steven Borenstein
Steven Borenstein
EVP, Corporation Counsel, and Secretary at Vornado Realty Trust

Yep.

Operator

Your next question today will come from Caitlin Burrows with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Caitlin Burrows
Caitlin Burrows
Analyst at Goldman Sachs

Hi. Good morning. Maybe first, I feel like it's been talked about a couple of different ways, but you mentioned in the prepared remarks at the very beginning how you didn't think the uncertainty in the macro would impact leasing. I was just wondering if you could talk about that a little bit more, kind of what gives you that confidence and any more specific detail you can give on trends through one Q and April and now into May.

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

We have not seen an impact on our leasing as of yet, but of course, we're mindful of it. We're getting our deals done, and we'd be irresponsible not to be thinking about it and paying attention to it. Thus far, we've had no impact yet on the leasing.

Michael Franco
Michael Franco
President and CFO at Vornado Realty Trust

Caitlin, what I would say is just to add on to what Glen said, that if you look at the Amazon announcement, the Deloitte announcement, the NYU announcement, I mean, these are all done in the last couple of weeks. Of course, companies, tenants, fully aware of what's going on and making decisions and still proceed. Now, that's not to say every deal is going to proceed. I think there's a bias towards we're in some volatility. I think as Steve said in the outset, this is going to get settled in the near term. On the retailer side, those that source product overseas, obviously, it's got a more dramatic impact on their business, right? They're going to certainly pause until they see what that—what exact it translates into. We have seen a little impact from some of those players.

Michael Franco
Michael Franco
President and CFO at Vornado Realty Trust

I think Glen characterized it right. To date, not much, but you have to be mindful of it.

Caitlin Burrows
Caitlin Burrows
Analyst at Goldman Sachs

Got it. Okay. You guys did talk about how all of this kind of NOI and earnings will come on over the next couple of years, and you have great visibility, but there will also be some refi headwinds. I was just wondering, as it relates to maybe even the remaining 2025 and early 2026 maturities, if there are any guideposts or how you think about the amount of refi headwinds that it could be. Would you assume similar spreads that are in place, or those go up as well? Anything on that topic?

Michael Franco
Michael Franco
President and CFO at Vornado Realty Trust

Yeah. I mean, look, the team is hard at work on everything that's maturing. We were feeling great about the pricing about 45 days ago. Obviously, that's gapped out a little bit. The market's definitely open, and you can execute. We have a number of things in process that we hope to get done over the course of this quarter. We feel pretty good about executing everything. I think in terms—I'm just looking through the list right now in terms of pricing and amounts. I think generally, and I think reflective of the market, all these can be refinanced at par. Now, whether we choose to do that or not based on pricing, we'll make that decision as we get closer. The market is supportive of the proceeds level because, again, they've got high leverage to start with.

Michael Franco
Michael Franco
President and CFO at Vornado Realty Trust

I think you have to go asset by asset. In some cases, we'll roll those over pretty close to where they are today. In other cases, for example, like an Independence Plaza, we're coming off a 4.25% fixed rate loan. That's not going to hold given that Treasuries themselves are at 4% today. We'll have some coupon expansion there. In other cases, I think it'll roll over pretty close to flat. All that's sort of baked in the guidance that we sort of talked about in terms of where we thought we'd be this year and where we think we'll be in the next couple of years. Look, we'll have to see where the markets are when we actually price the assets. The market's open. We expect to tackle these over the next couple of quarters.

Michael Franco
Michael Franco
President and CFO at Vornado Realty Trust

In total, I think there'll be a little bit of increase in terms of interest, but not dramatic.

Caitlin Burrows
Caitlin Burrows
Analyst at Goldman Sachs

Thank you.

Operator

Your next question today will come from Ronald Kamden with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Ronald Kamdem
Ronald Kamdem
Managing Director at Morgan Stanley

Hey, just two quick ones. The first is just the occupancy trajectory was really helpful. Just wondering if we could sort of take that a step further. Should we be expecting sort of the same store NOI and so forth to also be sort of accelerating through to 2027, or are there sort of other considerations? Thanks.

Michael Franco
Michael Franco
President and CFO at Vornado Realty Trust

Yeah. I think in terms of 2027, absolutely. This year, we'll see. I think, again, it's flattish as we talked about. I don't think you'll see it this year. I think as we get—as the assets get leased up, will it follow that same trajectory? Yes.

Ronald Kamdem
Ronald Kamdem
Managing Director at Morgan Stanley

Great. My second one is just on capital allocation, if you could just remind us what sort of the waterfall is now between development, redevelopment, buying back stock, and so forth, and any update on sort of the Hotel PENN site and that potential sale. Thanks.

Michael Franco
Michael Franco
President and CFO at Vornado Realty Trust

We look at the answer is we look at all opportunities and decide where we can best deploy that capital. Obviously, we do not want to sort of spend down to our last dollar. Development is a long process, right? Some things we are talking about today, you may perceive, but that capital does not get spent for really several years as you ramp that up. I think in terms of stock buybacks, not front of mind today. We still see good value there, but it was obviously when it was back in the teens when we started the program, that was more dramatic. I would say today the focus is on investing in our existing business, whether that is new development or paying down some debt.

Michael Franco
Michael Franco
President and CFO at Vornado Realty Trust

As I said, we are looking at some external opportunities and just hard to put the odds on whether any of those move forward or not yet.

Ronald Kamdem
Ronald Kamdem
Managing Director at Morgan Stanley

Great. Thanks so much.

Operator

Your next question today will come from Nick Yulico with Scotiabank. Please go ahead.

Nick Yulico
Nick Yulico
Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst at Scotiabank

Hi. Thanks. Just going back to the NYU transaction, I think you said it's accretive by $25 million annually. Paying off the mortgage, it looks like, is a $35 million benefit. Can you just walk us through what's the offset from that? Also, on the NOI side, how we should think about if there's any difference on the cash versus GAAP treatment going forward there?

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

That sounds like a ton.

Steve Sakwa
Steve Sakwa
Senior Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Evercore ISI

Sure. I think your 35, you're including the swap that we have. That's at the corporate level. We're moving that swap. If you exclude the swap, the interest expense on that asset is 47. The current NOI is around 49.50. That gets you the current NOI at about flat. When you look forward and you include the payment that we're going to get from NYU plus the Wegmans deal plus the interest on the 200-plus that we're retaining, that gets you to about, quote, $29 million. That's the $25-$26 million Steve referenced in the prepared remarks.

Nick Yulico
Nick Yulico
Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst at Scotiabank

Okay. Thanks. That's very helpful. Just second question is on I think you gave the lease number for PENN 2 at around 50%. Is it possible to get the lease number for PENN 1? I know it's 88% occupied. Is the lease number higher than that?

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

It's the same number.

Nick Yulico
Nick Yulico
Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst at Scotiabank

Great. Thank you.

Operator

Your final question today will come from Alexander Goldfarb of Piper Sandler with a follow-up. Please go ahead.

Alexander Goldfarb
Alexander Goldfarb
Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst at Piper Sandler

Hey, thank you for taking the follow-up. Steve, I realize you're probably not going to give the intimate details of the ground rent litigation. From a big-picture perspective, the arbitration panel agreed to $15 million, but now there's litigation pursuing $20 million. From a big-picture perspective, can you help us understand how this works? I would have thought the arbitration panel was the final determinant.

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

Alex, it is. The arbitration, there's litigation pending. That litigation will extend through appeals for who knows how much longer. By the way, we think we have a very good position there, but be that as it may, the arbitration panel handled the eventuality as to whether the landlord or the tenant wins that arbitration. So the $15 million is set for the base case. If we win the litigation, the $15 million continues for the 25 years. If we lose the litigation, the $15 million becomes $20 million. We're in a pretty good spot. We have established the values have been established in whichever way the litigation goes. It's as simple as that, Alex.

Alexander Goldfarb
Alexander Goldfarb
Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst at Piper Sandler

Okay. That's helpful. Thank you.

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

Yep.

Operator

Concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Steven Roth for any closing remarks.

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

Thank you, everyone. We've had a very robust conversation this morning. The first quarter was very active, very constructive, with lots of good stuff. We look forward to seeing you at the next call, which will be when?

Steven Borenstein
Steven Borenstein
EVP, Corporation Counsel, and Secretary at Vornado Realty Trust

August 5th.

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

The next call is August 5th. We look forward to that. Have a good summer so far.

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.

Analysts
    • Dylan Berzinski
      Senior Analyst at Green Street
    • Glen Weiss
      EVP at Vornado Realty Trust
    • Nick Yulico
      Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst at Scotiabank
    • Barry Langer
      EVP of Development and Co-Head of Real Estate at Vornado Realty Trust
    • Steven Roth
      Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust
    • Caitlin Burrows
      Analyst at Goldman Sachs
    • Floris van Dijkum
      Managing Director and Senior Analyst at Compass Point
    • Anthony Paolone
      VP and Senior Analyst at J.P. Morgan
    • Ronald Kamdem
      Managing Director at Morgan Stanley
    • Steven Borenstein
      EVP, Corporation Counsel, and Secretary at Vornado Realty Trust
    • John Kim
      Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst at BMO Capital Markets
    • Michael Franco
      President and CFO at Vornado Realty Trust
    • Steve Sakwa
      Senior Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Evercore ISI
    • Seth Bergey
      Analyst at Citi
    • Alexander Goldfarb
      Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst at Piper Sandler
    • Ianna Gallen
      VP and Equity Research Analyst at Bank of America
Powered by Quartr