COPT Defense Properties Q2 2025 Earnings Report

COPT Defense Properties EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $0.68
• Consensus EPS: $0.67
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$0.01
• One Year Ago EPS: $0.64

COPT Defense Properties Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $175.60 million
• Expected Revenue: $186.55 million
• Beat/Miss: Missed by -$10.96 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: +1.40%

COPT Defense Properties Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q2 2025
• Date: 7/28/2025
• Time: After Market Closes
• Conference Call Date: Tuesday, July 29, 2025
• Conference Call Time: 12:00PM ET

COPT Defense Properties (NYSE:CDP) is a real estate investment trust. It acquires, develops, manages, sells, and leases out office properties and data centers. The firm operates through the following segments: Defense/Information Technology Locations, Regional Office, Wholesale Data Center, and Other. The company was founded on January 22,1988 and is headquartered in Columbia, MD.

COPT Defense Properties Q2 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Positive Sentiment: Delivered Q2 FFO per share of $0.68, a 6.3% year-over-year increase and 2 cents above the midpoint of guidance, marking the 30th consecutive quarter of outperformance.
• Positive Sentiment: Raised full-year guidance across key metrics, including FFO per share midpoint by $0.01, same-property cash NOI growth by 50 basis points, tenant retention midpoint to 82.5%, and vacancy leasing target by 50,000 sq ft.
• Positive Sentiment: Record defense budget outlook with a nearly 13% increase to ~$950 billion in 2026—plus 14% boosts to intelligence and cybersecurity funding and a new $175 billion Golden Dome missile defense program—driving strong future demand.
• Positive Sentiment: Achieved a portfolio leasing rate of 95.6%—the highest in almost 20 years—with 353,000 sq ft of vacancy leasing in H1 (88% of the annual goal) and a 90% tenant retention rate in Q2.
• Negative Sentiment: Commencement of one pre-leased data center shell was delayed from Q3 to Q4 due to permitting challenges, introducing a slight timing risk to development income.

Presentation

[Operator]

Welcome to the Kop Defense Properties Second Quarter twenty twenty five Results Conference Call. As a reminder, today's call is being recorded. At this time, I will turn the call over to Venkat Komunini, Defense's Vice President of Investor Relations. Mr. Komunini, please go ahead.

[Venkat Kommineni, Vice President, Investor Relations at COPT Defense Properties]

Thank you, Lisa. Good afternoon, and welcome to COP Defense's conference call to discuss second quarter results. With me today are Steve Bedorek, President and CEO Britt Snyder, Executive Vice President and COO and Anthony Missed, Executive Vice President and CFO. Reconciliations of GAAP and non GAAP financial measures that management discusses are available on our website, in the results press release and presentation, and in our supplemental information package. As a reminder, forward looking statements made during today's call are subject to risks and uncertainties, which are discussed in our SEC filings.

[Venkat Kommineni, Vice President, Investor Relations at COPT Defense Properties]

Actual events and results can differ materially from these forward looking statements and the company does not undertake duty to update them. Steve?

[Stephen Budorick, President & Chief Executive Officer at COPT Defense Properties]

Hello, and thank you for joining us. The company delivered another strong performance in the second quarter, continuing our thirty quarter streak of achieving our outperforming our FFO per share guidance and allowing us to increase our outlook on several performance metrics. Moreover, the recent defense budget appropriation sets forth a record increase in defense spending, which provides a strong backdrop for future strength in our business. Turning to results for the quarter. FFO per share is adjusted for comparability was $0.68 $0.2 above the midpoint of guidance and a 6.3% increase year over year.

[Stephen Budorick, President & Chief Executive Officer at COPT Defense Properties]

Same property cash NOI for the quarter increased 2.2% year over year and 4.6% during the first half of the year. We've generated excellent results on the leasing front. We signed 353,000 square feet of vacancy leasing during the first half of the year, which is 88% of our initial full year target and represents 30% of the un leased space we had at the beginning of the year. Tenant retention was incredibly strong, 90% during the quarter and 82% year to date. The key metric that illustrates the strength of our strategy and performance is that our total portfolio is 95.6% leased, which is the highest level in nearly twenty years.

[Stephen Budorick, President & Chief Executive Officer at COPT Defense Properties]

Turning to guidance. Based on our strong performance during the first half of the year, we increased the midpoint of FFO per share by $01 We increased the midpoint of same property cash NOI growth by 50 basis points. We increased the midpoint for tenant retention to 82.5 and we increased the full year target for vacancy leasing by 50,000 square feet. Britt and Anthony will provide more details on these increases. Now I'd like to discuss the defense budget outlook.

[Stephen Budorick, President & Chief Executive Officer at COPT Defense Properties]

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which was signed into law on July 4, appropriates an additional $150,000,000,000 to defense spending over four years. The majority of which are $113,000,000,000 is allocated to 2026. The president's 2026 budget request plus the appropriated funding in the big beautiful bill amounts to a defense budget of nearly $950,000,000,000 or a 13% year over year increase. This is equivalent on a percentage basis to the restorative increase we experienced in 2018 And it's the largest nominal increase in at least twenty five years. The 2026 budget request allocates $116,000,000,000 to intelligence.

[Stephen Budorick, President & Chief Executive Officer at COPT Defense Properties]

That's a $14,000,000,000 or 14% increase year over year. As a reminder, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance are key demand drivers for our Northern Virginia, Fort Meade and BWI portfolios. The request also includes over $16,000,000,000 for cybersecurity. That's a $2,000,000,000 increase or 14%. And recall, cybersecurity is a key demand driver for our Fort Meade BWI sub segment.

[Stephen Budorick, President & Chief Executive Officer at COPT Defense Properties]

A new priority for the Trump administration is the development of Golden Dome, a next generation missile defense shield for The United States. The total projected cost is $175,000,000,000 with a $25,000,000,000 down payment appropriated for 2026 in the big beautiful bill. And the system is expected to be operational by 2029. The $150,000,000,000 of remaining costs to complete the project implies a significant ramp up in funding over the next three years. Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville is the center of excellence of our country's missile and defense technology development.

[Stephen Budorick, President & Chief Executive Officer at COPT Defense Properties]

And we expect a significant increase in activity at the arsenal to develop and deploy Golden Dome. Recall that Redstone Arsenal has a seventy five year history of rocket missile research, development, testing and evaluation. It is supported by a well established defense contractor ecosystem. And the arsenal is home to the Missile Defense Agency, the Missile and Space Intelligence Center, Army Aviation and Missile Command, and the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center. These missions among others, service the demand drivers for our Redstone Gateway portfolio and the expected activity to create Golden Dome should present strong incremental opportunities.

[Stephen Budorick, President & Chief Executive Officer at COPT Defense Properties]

During the prior administration, our portfolio performed well given bipartisan support for defense spending as we produced FFO per share growth of 21% between 2020 and 2024. Looking forward, the current administration is significantly increasing defense investment to strengthen capability, capacity, and lethality to realize its foreign policy objective of peace through strength. We view this as an inflection point for defense spending overall, but more importantly for the priority missions we support, which include intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance, cyber security, missile defense, naval fleet and aviation activity, and unmanned autonomous vehicles among others. The administration's massive recommitment to defense investment should provide opportunities for us to create facility solutions for new and expand emissions in the near to medium term, following appropriations and contract awards, providing a runway to continue our highly successful record of creating shareholder value. And with that, I'll turn the call over to Brett.

[Britt Snider, EVP & COO at COPT Defense Properties]

Thank you, Steve. Overall, the company is executing its strategy and current year plan at very high levels, which is evidenced by the incredibly strong leasing performance in the first half of the year, as well as our sector leading retention. We finished the quarter with continued strong occupancy at 94% in our total portfolio, which increased 40 basis points over last quarter, and 95.6% in our defense IT portfolio, which increased 30 basis points over last quarter. Our Northern Virginia defense IT properties were a standout at 94% leased and 93% occupied, the highest levels for that portfolio in over a decade. And importantly, over 80% of the vacancy leasing over the past five years in Northern Virginia has been with defense IT tenants, many of which have invested in the construction of skip facilities for priority missions, strengthening the retention posture of this portfolio.

[Britt Snider, EVP & COO at COPT Defense Properties]

We outpaced our expected timing for vacancy leasing as we leased 233,000 square feet during the second quarter and 353,000 square feet during the first half of the year. Looking forward, we have another 120,000 square feet of deals in advanced negotiations, which led us to raise our full year target from 400,000 square feet to 450,000 square feet. We do expect volume to moderate in the back half of the year as the 2025 defense budget was just appropriated a few weeks ago, which has delayed the contract award process and many of the opportunities we're working on are awaiting those contract awards. Now that the 2025 budget has been appropriated, we expect enhanced leasing activity will resume in 2026. For context, since the appropriation of the 2024 defense budget in March 2024, we've executed nearly 750,000 square feet of vacancy and investment leasing in our defense IT portfolio, over half million of which was vacancy leasing.

[Britt Snider, EVP & COO at COPT Defense Properties]

Our leasing activity was distributed throughout our defense IT markets and we had notable success in our other segment in which we leased 94,000 square feet of vacancy during the quarter and 105,000 square feet during the first half of the year. This activity is important as this segment accounted for over 35% of the unleased space in our total portfolio at the beginning of the year and represents a significant rent growth opportunity. Over the past year at these properties, we have increased the occupancy rate by over 300 basis points to 76% and increased the leased rate by nearly four fifty basis points to 81%. Following this success, the bulk of our other segment vacancy is concentrated in a single property, 100 Light Street in Baltimore with nearly 170,000 square feet. Excluding 100 Light, this segment is 86% leased and 100 Light accounts for 15% of the unleased space in our entire 24,000,000 square foot portfolio.

[Britt Snider, EVP & COO at COPT Defense Properties]

We still have wood to chop in this segment, but we are laser focused on continuing this momentum to drive occupancy and eventually position these assets for sale. Moving on to renewal leasing, we executed 477,000 square feet in the second quarter, achieving a phenomenal tenant retention rate of 90%. We narrowed the range and increased the midpoint of full year retention by two fifty basis points to 82.5%. On slide 18 of the flip book, we provided additional detail on our lease expirations for the remainder of 2025. We have 2,200,000 square feet expiring in our defense IT portfolio over the next two quarters.

[Britt Snider, EVP & COO at COPT Defense Properties]

One and a half million square feet or nearly 70 of these expirations are in secure full building leases to the US government, and we expect 100% retention on these leases. Our retention rate guidance assumes that we renew 735,000 square feet of this US government space by year end and renew the remaining 750,000 square feet in 2026. As a reminder, each year we have a certain number of US government leases where the renewal process is delayed. And when this occurs, we sign a standstill agreement with the government, which requires rent payments to continue at the current rate until a formal lease renewal is signed and rents are reconciled for the delay. Turning to large leases expiring through 2026, as shown on slide 19 of the flipbook, we renewed four large leases in the quarter, totaling 270,000 square feet at a 91% retention rate caused by a small contraction by Leidos, which I'll touch on in just a moment.

[Britt Snider, EVP & COO at COPT Defense Properties]

Over the last four quarters, we've renewed 1,300,000 square feet of large leases at a 96% retention rate. That leaves 2,600,000 square feet of large leases expiring over the next six quarters. And we continue to expect a 95% retention rate on the full set of large lease expirations. Now stepping back over the past three years, we've renewed 34 large leases totaling 3,400,000 square feet at a 98% retention rate. And importantly, we have renewed every single tenant with only three small downsizes totaling 75,000 square feet.

[Britt Snider, EVP & COO at COPT Defense Properties]

And now I want to address our cash rent spreads during the quarter and illustrate how this statistic is not the best indicator of an economic outcome in our business. Cash rent spreads on renewal leasing were down 3.1% during the quarter, influenced primarily by just two leases. First, we executed an early renewal and small downsize with Leidos of Franklin Center. We acquired the building last spring and it was generating an 11.2% initial cash NOI yield from a 110,000 square foot lease to Leidos, which was nearing the end of its ten year term. We underwrote a rent roll down and contraction upon expiration of the single lease in the property.

[Britt Snider, EVP & COO at COPT Defense Properties]

This quarter, we executed an early renewal of 84,000 square feet and extended the lease term to 2033 with rent rolling down by nearly 8%. But the rent achieved is still one of the strongest rental rates attained in this market. Importantly, both the roll down and the 26,000 square foot contraction were more favorable than our underwriting. Since the acquisition, we've invested capital to reposition the building and executed a 48,000 square foot lease with a top 20 defense contractor. Following this activity, the cash NOI yield still remains at a very strong 11% with 45,000 square feet still left to lease.

[Britt Snider, EVP & COO at COPT Defense Properties]

So we have a great opportunity to drive that yield even higher as we fill the building. Second, our initial forecasts assume that Pandora, which moved its US headquarters to New York, would vacate their last 18,000 square feet at 250 West Pratt in Baltimore in our other segment upon expiration of their eleven year lease. We were able to early renew the lease for two years with cash rent rolling down 25%. This was also a better than expected outcome as we ended up with 75% of the rent instead of zero and reflecting almost $1,000,000 of rent over the renewal period, which we had not anticipated. Excluding these two leases, cash rent spreads were only down 40 basis points during the quarter and 70 basis points during the first half of the year.

[Britt Snider, EVP & COO at COPT Defense Properties]

We expect cash rent spreads will improve in the back half of the year and are maintaining our full year guidance range of down 1% to up 1%. Turning to new opportunities, we're maintaining our full year guidance for capital commitment to new investments at 200,000,000 to $250,000,000 In the first quarter, we commenced development of 8500 Advanced Gateway, which is a $52,000,000 project in Huntsville. Additionally, we are in the advanced stages of negotiations on multiple build to suit opportunities And we expect to execute several leases over the next twelve months. Supporting this capital commitment guidance is our 1,300,000 square foot development leasing pipeline, which we define as opportunities we consider 50% likely to win or better within two years or less. Beyond that, we're tracking another 1,100,000 square feet of potential development opportunities.

[Britt Snider, EVP & COO at COPT Defense Properties]

100% of this 2,400,000 square foot square feet of development demand is at our Depend Site T location. Looking forward, we are well positioned to capture additional leasing demand and capitalize on external growth opportunities, given the strong growth outlook for defense spending, which Steve outlined. And with that, I'll turn it over to Anthony.

[Anthony Mifsud, EVP & CFO at COPT Defense Properties]

Thank you, Britt. We reported second quarter FFO per share as adjusted for comparability of $0.68 which was $02 above the midpoint of guidance and represents a year over year increase of 6.3%. The outperformance versus the midpoint of our guidance was driven by the commencement of rent earlier than forecasted on several leases and the benefit from lower than anticipated net operating expenses. During the quarter, our same property cash NOI increased 2.2%.

[Anthony Mifsud, EVP & CFO at COPT Defense Properties]

This growth was driven primarily by the benefit from the 50 basis point increase in average occupancy in the same property portfolio, the impact of the items that resulted in the outperformance in FFO per share, combined with the burn off of free rent on development leases placed into service in 2023 and on leases that commenced later in 2024. These favorable items were partially offset by the net impact of over $1,000,000 of non recurring real estate tax refunds in the 2024. We are increasing the midpoint of our full year guidance for same property cash NOI by 50 basis points to 3.25%. This is based on our achievement year to date, with 4.6% growth during the first half of the year and our expectation that growth will moderate during the back half of the year due to two factors. The first relates to the non recurring receipt of nearly $2,000,000 of real estate tax refunds in the second half of last year.

[Anthony Mifsud, EVP & CFO at COPT Defense Properties]

For the full year, the refunds from successful appeals will approximate the amount received in 2024 and therefore have no impact on full year growth, but does impact quarterly noise from timing differences. The second relates to a decline in NOI from a few known non renewals in the fourth quarter in the Fourth MeadeBW corridor, all of which are under 30,000 square feet. These nonrenewals will also slightly impact same property occupancy at year end. Same property occupancy ended the quarter at 94.5% and is expected to stay relatively flat during the quarter, but then ticked down during the fourth quarter as a result of these expected nonrenewals. Our line of sight on year end occupancy is pretty clear at this point, which led us to narrow the guidance range for year end same property occupancy by 25 basis points at the low and high end and maintain the midpoint at 94%.

[Anthony Mifsud, EVP & CFO at COPT Defense Properties]

Our balance sheet remains strong and well positioned to take advantage of investment opportunities, and at quarter end, 97% of our debt remained at fixed rates. We have been funding, and expect to continue to fund, the equity component of our investments with cash flow from operations after the dividend on a leverage neutral basis, and we'll continue to draw on the line of credit to fund the debt component. With respect to debt maturities, we continue to plan on prefunding the capital required to refinance our $400,000,000 2.25% bond, which matures in March 2026. Our guidance continues to assume a $400,000,000 bond issuance in the fourth quarter in the public fixed income market, where our bonds continue to trade at one of the tightest spreads to treasuries of any equal or higher rated office peer. We plan on using the proceeds to temporarily pay down the outstanding balance on our line of credit and hold the excess proceeds as cash until the March maturity.

[Anthony Mifsud, EVP & CFO at COPT Defense Properties]

With respect to guidance, we are increasing the midpoint of $20.25 FFO per share by $01 to $2.67 while narrowing the overall range. This increase is the result of our improved same property cash NOI growth outlook, partially offset by the expected delay in the commencement of one of our pre leased data center shells from Q3 to Q4. We are establishing third quarter guidance for FFO per share as adjusted for comparability in a range of $0.66 to $0.68 With that, I'll turn the call back to Steve.

[Stephen Budorick, President & Chief Executive Officer at COPT Defense Properties]

Thanks. I'll close by summarizing our key accomplishments and messages. We achieved excellent results in the second quarter, highlighted by our strong leasing. We delivered FFO per share growth of 6.3% year over year, marking our twentieth consecutive quarter of year over year growth. We expect 2025 to be our seventh consecutive year of FFO per share growth and our revised guidance implies an annual increase of 3.9%.

[Stephen Budorick, President & Chief Executive Officer at COPT Defense Properties]

We increased the midpoint of 2025 guidance for four key metrics. We completed 103,000 square feet of investment leasing year to date and we expect strong activity during the second half of the year. We continue to anticipate compound annual FFO per share growth of 4% between 2023 and 2026. And lastly, the president's 2026 defense budget request combined with the appropriated funding in the One Big Beautiful Bill represents the largest year over year increase in recent history and demonstrates the substantial recommitment by this administration to achieve peace through strength. Our demand typically lags appropriation by up to twelve to eighteen months, which sets up a strong tailwind for our business in the years ahead.

[Stephen Budorick, President & Chief Executive Officer at COPT Defense Properties]

So we're well on track to deliver another successful year. And with that operator, please open the call for questions.

[Operator]

Thank you, Mr. Bedorek. At this time, if you would like to ask a question, please press 11 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. If you would like to remove yourself from the queue, please press 11 again.

[Operator]

We also ask that you please wait for your name and company to be announced before proceeding with your question. One moment while we can pile the Q and A roster. And our first question today will be coming from the line of Manasseh Ebeki of Evercore. Your line is open.

[Manus E, Senior Associate at Evercore]

Yeah, thanks for taking the question. You talked about multiple build to suits that you are in negotiations with tenants that are ongoing. Can you talk maybe a little bit more on which type of submarkets maybe are contemplated? What kind of like returns you're solving for there? Just kind of like how those discussions are trending with tenants right now, that would be super helpful.

[Stephen Budorick, President & Chief Executive Officer at COPT Defense Properties]

Well, we have multiple discussions that are ongoing. They're in three separate sub markets. They are sub segments. They include Alabama and several locations in the BWI Corridor and one more that I won't mention. Discussions are going very well.

[Stephen Budorick, President & Chief Executive Officer at COPT Defense Properties]

Returns are targeted in our usual range, which is at this point in time, 8.5% cash yield on initial development costs. And we expect to have some good news in the second half of the year.

[Manus E, Senior Associate at Evercore]

Awesome. That's great. And could you talk maybe about immediate on the ground impacts that you felt already maybe from the new legislation passing? So after that bill passed, have you seen more, like, optimism from your tenant side in terms of wanting to expand the footprint, or is it still too early for that? Just trying to size up, like, how much of an immediate impact you've already felt with the tenants and discussions that you're having, and just maybe, like, share the sentiment that the tenants had as a reaction to that legislation being passed.

[Stephen Budorick, President & Chief Executive Officer at COPT Defense Properties]

Frankly, we felt an increase in optimism and activity after the election. And it's remained pretty strong through the first half of the year. I can't honestly say there's been an inflection in the two weeks since the or three weeks since the big beautiful bill passed. But I would say, our outlook is very positive.

[Manus E, Senior Associate at Evercore]

Right, I appreciate that's it for me. Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. One moment for the next question. And the next question will be coming from the line of Seth Berge of Citi. Your line is open.

[Seth Bergey, Senior Analyst at Citi]

Thanks for taking my question. I guess just following up on the big beautiful bill comments. How do you expect that to translate kind of directly to you? Is that do you expect to make more progress on the vacancy leasing or that to translate into additional investment opportunities? And can you kind of provide us some context around how much the bill increases in the past have translated into past opportunities?

[Stephen Budorick, President & Chief Executive Officer at COPT Defense Properties]

Yeah, so always hard to answer that question. In particular, as we pointed out in our written comments, the big beautiful bill puts a down payment on the golden dome program, which contemplates developing the next generation defense shield over the full United States. And with the Center of Excellence for Missile and Defense Technology being a Redstone Gateway, we have very high expectations that there'll be mission expansions both in research and development and program creation and administration in Huntsville. We mentioned that the big beautiful bill as well as the budget request put a significant increase in the intelligence budget of I believe it was 14% in many components of our portfolio. Serve contractors indirectly the activities in the intelligence community.

[Stephen Budorick, President & Chief Executive Officer at COPT Defense Properties]

And then beyond that, just more money flowing to programs to enhance capability, capacity and lethality. And that should flow through throughout our portfolio. There's no particular algebra we can give you that says an increase in spending generates X amount of square footage of leasing. But we gave you a hint after the 2024 bill was passed with a modest 3% increase. We generated about 750,000 square feet of new leasing in over a half a million of that was in our vacancy.

[Stephen Budorick, President & Chief Executive Officer at COPT Defense Properties]

So the trend in the pattern is pretty clear. There's no particular math I can share with you that is predictive.

[Seth Bergey, Senior Analyst at Citi]

Thanks, that's helpful. And just, on the $400,000,000 bond issuance you have contemplating guidance, where do you think you could issue that today?

[Stephen Budorick, President & Chief Executive Officer at COPT Defense Properties]

The answer is.

[Anthony Mifsud, EVP & CFO at COPT Defense Properties]

Today, our spreads are on a 10 deal, was trading at about and 40 basis points over the ten year. On a five year, it's about 115 to 120. So we're still looking at the term of that bond issuance and the alternatives there because we have openings in our debt maturity ladder, but in five, seven and ten year windows.

[Seth Bergey, Senior Analyst at Citi]

Great, thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. One moment for the next question. And the next question will be coming from the line of Anthony Paolone of JPMorgan. Your line is open.

[Anthony Paolone, Executive Director at J.P. Morgan]

Yeah, thank you. Steve, you mentioned several build to suit opportunities that you're evaluating right now. Are any of those tied to Golden Dome or perhaps Space Command moving to Huntsville or would Golden Dome Space Command be incremental to those conversations?

[Stephen Budorick, President & Chief Executive Officer at COPT Defense Properties]

None of those involve either one of those programs. So, sidebar, the market expects the announcement at Space Command to be imminent. So that'll be exciting. We've provided a variety of solutions to the authorities at Reston Gateway on how we can serve them if we're needed. So that could be an additive opportunity.

[Stephen Budorick, President & Chief Executive Officer at COPT Defense Properties]

It's too early for Golden Dump. There's a lot of activity in Redstone or Huntsville with agencies having symposiums with the defense contractors to envision and start to formulate their plan to create it. But the ones that we're talking to now are not part of either program.

[Anthony Paolone, Executive Director at J.P. Morgan]

Okay. And then, I mean, if we take all that together, I know you're not going to give guidance for 2026, but I mean, just seems like the arrows are pointing to having a bigger year spending and potential starts. Is that the way things are shaping up at this point a fair way to start thinking about it?

[Stephen Budorick, President & Chief Executive Officer at COPT Defense Properties]

Yeah. I would say my expectations are high for '26.

[Anthony Paolone, Executive Director at J.P. Morgan]

Okay. And then just last one, if I could just sneak it in. You guys had called out the the MP three getting pushed out a quarter. Anything to think about more broadly on that, or was that just more specific to the project something happened?

[Stephen Budorick, President & Chief Executive Officer at COPT Defense Properties]

It's just getting permits in a county that's become very cumbersome. Our team is they are really, really well prepared to bang this thing up when they get the final permit, which I think we're supposed to get this week.

[Britt Snider, EVP & COO at COPT Defense Properties]

Yeah, we can see everything on the website that everything's approved. It's literally just getting the piece of paper.

[Anthony Paolone, Executive Director at J.P. Morgan]

Okay, gotcha. Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. One moment for the next question. And the next question will be coming from the line of Blaine Heck of Wells Fargo. Your line is open.

[Blaine Heck, ED & Senior Equity Research Analyst at Wells Fargo Securities]

Great. Thanks. Good afternoon. Can you just talk a little bit more about the current leasing environment and where you're seeing stronger or softer demand in any specific markets or tenant industries across the portfolio today?

[Britt Snider, EVP & COO at COPT Defense Properties]

Hey, Blaine, it's Britt. Yeah, I mean, I think it's still very strong and very optimistic. I think the contractors have a lot of clarity now, especially after the budget passing. So I think there's a little bit of waiting on that. But for now, I mean, I think we're seeing and I think a good example is MVP 400, which, we have 420,000 square feet of demand on that 138,000 square foot building.

[Britt Snider, EVP & COO at COPT Defense Properties]

And that's an increase of 60,000 square feet with a new defense contractor taking a look at that. We had a tour of 30 people on Friday with our primary customer. So, I think we're very optimistic about what we're seeing. There might've been a brief pause there, but no one's holding back at this point. I think it's we're very optimistic and that goes for all of our sub markets.

[Blaine Heck, ED & Senior Equity Research Analyst at Wells Fargo Securities]

Okay, great. That's helpful. Sorry if I missed this, but wanted to touch on the Des Moines land parcel. Any update on the power procurement for the initial phases of that project and what that might mean with respect to the timing of construction?

[Stephen Budorick, President & Chief Executive Officer at COPT Defense Properties]

We're still engaged with the power company in the region. We're working through alternative scenarios to see if we can find an optimal fit between initial capacity, total capacity and timing. It's not clear, but I will say given the backlog of demand for expanded power around the world, we're led to believe it'll be plus or minus four years before we get new capacity that we can tap into. And so I think, have to look at that project as a future. It's an investment in our future development opportunity set.

[Stephen Budorick, President & Chief Executive Officer at COPT Defense Properties]

I think it'd be a couple of years before we start actually building infrastructure.

[Blaine Heck, ED & Senior Equity Research Analyst at Wells Fargo Securities]

I guess would that ever potentially be a candidate for disposition if you have other opportunities that might be a little bit more near term?

[Stephen Budorick, President & Chief Executive Officer at COPT Defense Properties]

Well, in the big picture of things, it's about, we bought the land for $32,000,000 It's hard for me to believe that we'll be in a position where we need to sell that $32,000,000 piece of land to grab the incremental opportunities we expect. We got a very favorable land price on a per square foot basis. We believe it's a great opportunity for the shareholders long term. It's just not that much money that we feel like we've constrained the company.

[Anthony Mifsud, EVP & CFO at COPT Defense Properties]

And Blaine, just for some context, the land on our balance sheet for future development, excluding Iowa, we've owned on average for seventeen years. So when we invest in land, it's for the long term investment opportunities for those at those parcels. So it's not unlike any other things that we've done within our portfolio.

[Blaine Heck, ED & Senior Equity Research Analyst at Wells Fargo Securities]

Got it. Very helpful. Thanks, guys.

[Stephen Budorick, President & Chief Executive Officer at COPT Defense Properties]

Thanks, Blaine.

[Operator]

Thank you. One moment for the next question. And the next question will be coming from the line of Tom Catherwood of BTIG. Your line is open.

[Thomas Catherwood, MD & Analyst - REIT at BTIG]

Thank you and good afternoon everybody. Maybe Steve or Britt, with vacancy leasing continuing to improve and higher retention rates, at what point does space availability become a challenge for your tenants and how would you address that issue if it arises?

[Stephen Budorick, President & Chief Executive Officer at COPT Defense Properties]

Well, to some extent you can see it in our overall volumes. As our portfolio occupancies increased, our objective for the year was 400,000 because we don't have that much space to lease. But what that has done is allowed us to sequentially develop inventory buildings in Redstone. We just started RG 8,500 after finishing RG 8,100 and the NBP NBP 400 being constructed. At the time we started that, we were 99.7% leased across our 4,300,000 square feet.

[Stephen Budorick, President & Chief Executive Officer at COPT Defense Properties]

And so the continued demand opportunities at the priority missions we serve will translate into new development.

[Thomas Catherwood, MD & Analyst - REIT at BTIG]

Got it. And then for the higher attention specifically, is that the result of an improved outlook for certain tenants so they're not downsizing? Or is this tenants that might have gone elsewhere but aren't finding the space they need in the market?

[Stephen Budorick, President & Chief Executive Officer at COPT Defense Properties]

Well, first of all, our locations are the best in these markets. I think it's also a recognition of the kind of co investment that our tenants have made into the space that they occupy. Once you create a skiff, it's very expensive and time consuming to build one. They can't be moved. So that helps contribute to our kind of market leading retention.

[Stephen Budorick, President & Chief Executive Officer at COPT Defense Properties]

And I think it's also over the longer analysis, a reflection of how we have reduced the non defense part of the company to just five buildings. And so the true strength of the defense investment strategy is manifesting it in the better statistics.

[Britt Snider, EVP & COO at COPT Defense Properties]

And consistent with that, I would say, other landlords that do have some secure space, but they're burdened with heavy traditional office in their portfolio. They're having a really tough time funding these deals. And so they know they can stick with us and they're not gonna go anywhere because they know we can help fund their deals and co invest with them. So it's a really important point.

[Thomas Catherwood, MD & Analyst - REIT at BTIG]

Got it. Appreciate all the answers. Thanks, everyone.

[Stephen Budorick, President & Chief Executive Officer at COPT Defense Properties]

Thanks, Tom.

[Operator]

Thank you. And our next question will be coming from the line of Peter Abramowitz of Jefferies. Your line is open.

[Peter Abramowitz, SVP - Equity Research at Jefferies]

Yes. Thank you for taking the questions. Just to follow-up on Steve's comments about Space Command and that announcement should be coming soon here. Just curious, what would be sort of the timing and potential magnitude of development leasing there? I know you talked in the past, think about up to 400,000 square feet of potential development leasing.

[Peter Abramowitz, SVP - Equity Research at Jefferies]

Is that sort of still something that you have the potential for? And then would that be 2026 development leasing or could it take longer than that?

[Stephen Budorick, President & Chief Executive Officer at COPT Defense Properties]

So I can't answer the question with any specificity. What I can tell you is we have space available immediately for the advanced groups if needed in our operating portfolio. We've delivered development solutions ranging from 150,000 square feet, a single building to 450,000 square feet, a three building campus. Beyond that campus, we can literally double that capacity if needed, But the needs and decisions of space command are unknown to us. We just stand ready to step into the breach and serve the command if needed.

[Peter Abramowitz, SVP - Equity Research at Jefferies]

Okay, that's helpful. And apologies if I missed this, but could you just provide a little bit more color on the expense savings in the quarter, kind of where that came from and if any of that will be recurring?

[Anthony Mifsud, EVP & CFO at COPT Defense Properties]

So about half of the expense savings came from a variety of different kinds of utilities. The other half was some timing of repairs and maintenance projects that the cost of which were not incurred in the second quarter, but will shift into the third quarter.

[Peter Abramowitz, SVP - Equity Research at Jefferies]

All right, thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. And one moment for the next question. And the next question is coming from the line of Dylan Brzezinski of Green Street. Your line is open.

[Dylan Burzinski, Senior Analyst at Green Street Advisors, LLC]

Hi, guys. Just one quick one for me. Steve, I think you mentioned that excluding one hundred Light, the office portfolio or I guess the traditional office portfolio is 86% leased. Any appetite to start testing the capital markets in terms of bringing some assets to market? Or you guys still waiting for the interest rate environment to improve?

[Stephen Budorick, President & Chief Executive Officer at COPT Defense Properties]

We're anxious to bring them to market, but we are waiting for the interest rate to improve. The likelihood of a sale capturing good strong shareholder value in this current financing environment is low.

[Dylan Burzinski, Senior Analyst at Green Street Advisors, LLC]

That's all I have. Thanks guys.

[Stephen Budorick, President & Chief Executive Officer at COPT Defense Properties]

All right. Thanks, Dylan.

[Operator]

Thank you. And now I would like to turn the call back to Mr. Pedoric for closing remarks. Please go ahead.

[Stephen Budorick, President & Chief Executive Officer at COPT Defense Properties]

So thank you all for joining our call today. We are in our offices this afternoon, so please coordinate any follow-up questions through VENCAT if you're interested. Thank you again.

[Operator]

Thank you for participation today in CompDefense's property second quarter twenty twenty five results conference call. This concludes this presentation. You may now disconnect. Good day.

Participants

Executives

• Venkat Kommineni, Vice President, Investor Relations
• Stephen Budorick, President & Chief Executive Officer
• Britt Snider, EVP & COO
• Anthony Mifsud, EVP & CFO

Analysts

• Manus E, Senior Associate at Evercore
• Seth Bergey, Senior Analyst at Citi
• Anthony Paolone, Executive Director at J.P. Morgan
• Blaine Heck, ED & Senior Equity Research Analyst at Wells Fargo Securities
• Thomas Catherwood, MD & Analyst - REIT at BTIG
• Peter Abramowitz, SVP - Equity Research at Jefferies
• Dylan Burzinski, Senior Analyst at Green Street Advisors, LLC