Alexander's Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
August 4, 2026

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: Comparable FFO rose to $0.67 per share from $0.56 a year ago, beating consensus by $0.10. Management now expects full-year 2026 FFO to exceed 2025, with further significant growth anticipated in 2027.
  • Positive Sentiment: Manhattan leasing momentum continued, with 659,000 square feet leased in the first half at average starting rents of $105 per square foot and positive mark-to-market spreads. New York office occupancy increased to 92.2%, and management expects it to exceed 93% by year-end and return to the historical mid-90% range over the next few years.
  • Positive Sentiment: The company reported a robust pipeline of more than 2.2 million square feet of leases in negotiation, including the 1 million-square-foot Citadel commitment at 350 Park Avenue. Vornado also expects substantial future upside from Penn One, Penn Two, Park Avenue Plaza and 623 Fifth Avenue as rents and demand strengthen.
  • Neutral Sentiment: Vornado plans to proceed with its maximum 36% ownership stake in the 350 Park Avenue development, requiring approximately $300 million to $350 million of incremental capital over time, with meaningful funding expected mainly from 2029 onward. Management said leverage should trend into the 7s and potentially below 7x as earnings grow, while two non-core asset sales are being pursued to bolster liquidity.
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Earnings Conference Call
Alexander's Q2 2026
00:00 / 00:00

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Operator

Good morning, welcome to the Vornado Realty Trust second quarter 2026 earnings call. My name is Betsy, 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. Steven Borenstein, Executive Vice President and Corporation Counsel. Please go ahead.

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

Welcome to Vornado Realty Trust second quarter earnings call. Yesterday afternoon, we issued our second 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 package, are available on our website 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 Supplement. Please be aware that statements made during this call may be deemed forward-looking statements, actual results may differ materially from these statements due to a variety of risks, uncertainties and other factors.

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

Please refer to our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2025 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 for management for 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, good morning, everyone. We had another strong quarter with comparable FFO of $0.67, beating analyst consensus by $0.10 or 17.5%. Michael will review it all shortly. First, let me cover what we are seeing on the ground. New York is clearly the best, strongest, and most important real estate market in the country, and the most resilient. We are a Manhattan-centric office and street retail company with best-in-class assets which are benefiting from these dynamics. The stock market seems to appreciate this, given our stock price performance year-to-date and over the past two years and the past three years has been the best in our peer group. There is more to come. I believe our stock is still stupid cheap. For example, Green Street shows us at a 23% NAV discount, much deeper than our peers.

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

The landlord's market that we've been predicting for the past many quarters is here. It is broad-based, and it is strengthening. Office leasing volume in Manhattan is at its highest level in 25 years. Tenants are expanding all over the city. Available space and sublease space continues to evaporate, and office to residential conversions continue to remove square footage from the office inventory. There is a serious shortage of large block availability. Vacancies in the 180 million square foot class A better building market in which we compete is now down to 6.2%, clearly a landlord's market. Remember, new supply takes as long as five years to deliver and requires upwards of $300 rent to pencil. To add to all that, interest rates are rising. As a result of all this good stuff, rents are going up.

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

I couldn't be more constructive. In New York, tenant demand spans across all industries. Law firms alone leased 2.3 million square feet this quarter. Legal tech and media accounted for eight of the top 10 leases signed. This isn't one industry having a moment. All of our clients are growing. Interestingly, a real estate platform that tracks these kinds of things recently reported that AI companies are now leasing more space in New York than in San Francisco. All good. At Vornado, our singular focus is on executing our plan to deliver the highest growth in our sector based on our lineup of high quality assets and in process projects. Here is our 2026 scorecard. During the first half of 2026, we leased 978,000 sq ft overall.

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

For Manhattan office, we leased 659,000 sq ft at $105 per square foot average starting rents with mark-to-markets of positive 9.5% GAAP and positive 7.1% cash. I would note that these mark-to-market stats do not include our leasing PENN 2. we are following our transformation. We are achieving rents that are just about double the old rents. This is as good a place as any to take a victory lap for what we have accomplished at PENN 1 and PENN 2, financially, physically, and aesthetically. Think about that PENN 1, broadly speaking, we invested $200 per square foot to achieve a $50 a foot uptick in rents, which when all gets said and done, is a 25% return. Rents at PENN are now well above our underwriting and are now the best value in town. Plenty of room to grow here.

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

Our physical transformation is stunning and game changing and award-winning. Please go take a look. During the second quarter in Manhattan, we executed 29 office deals totaling 328,000 sq ft at industry leading $107 per square foot average starting rent with mark-to-markets of positive 7.7% GAAP and positive 5.0% cash. This quarter's leasing volume included 181,000 sq ft in the PENN District and 167,000 sq ft in our other Manhattan assets. We are now consistently achieving triple digit average starting rents I suggest that mark-to-markets is a squishy metric, which depends entirely upon which leases are included in the calculation and their rent. It's pretty random. Rather, I submitted it's better to look at starting rents for new leases as a much more fine-tuned metric, which would allow for better comparisons of buildings to buildings and companies to companies.

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

I confess to talking my book here since our starting rents have led the New York office public peers for years now. In the PENN district and PENN 2, we have 67,000 sq ft of leases out for signature, and we expect to be fully leased here down to dribs and drabs by year at PENN 1, we have 246,000 sq ft of leases out for signature and an average mark-to-market of a whopping 44%. Company-wide, we are projecting third quarter mark-to-markets of over 20%. I guess you could call this all sort guidance. With all of this activity, we continue to review our pricing here on a biweekly basis. Importantly, given that roughly 10% of the space of PENN 1 rolls each year, we expect continued scorecard from PENN 1 as we keep marching old rents up to market.

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

We continue to be delighted with our two most recent acquisitions, 623 Fifth Avenue and Park Avenue Plaza. Thanks to Harrison for giving us a shout-out for these two deals on his call. 623 Fifth Avenue is our spectacularly well-located, and by that I mean in the center of everything, 383,000 sq ft asset, which sits on top of Saks Fifth Avenue that we are redeveloping to be the 220 Central Park South version of boutique office space. We were off to a great start here, receiving outstanding reaction from brokers and tenants. We are about to execute our first lease for two floors with a financial services firm at rents consistent with our underwriting. Of note, even at this early stage, market demand is telling us to increase our asking rents above original underwriting.

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

As you know, we recently acquired a half interest partnering with Fisher Brothers at Park Avenue Plaza, a 1.2 million square feet tower on 53rd Street. The deal was at a valuation of $950 a foot, which for prime Park Avenue is a third of replacement cost. The way I look at this, we are earning double the risk-free bond rate from risk-free Park Avenue triple A real estate. Better yet, the in-place leases at Park Avenue Plaza are at give or take half current market, so we expect very substantial capital appreciation here to go hand in hand with above market current earnings.

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

Our market leading signage business in the two most important and highest traffic locations in Manhattan, Times Square and the PENN District, continues to grow at a healthy rate. We love this business. It's capital light and has been growing at 5% per year. We intend to add more signage in the PENN District where we control almost all of the real estate around PENN Station and Madison Square Garden. If you drive or walk past Park Avenue and 52nd Street, you will see that our 350 Park Avenue site is now under construction, actually under demolition. We intend to shortly exercise our investment option to participate in this deal at our maximum ownership percentage of 36% alongside Ken Griffin as our 60% partner and with Citadel as our 1 million sq ft anchor tenant. Several commentators and analysts have suggested that we take the money and run.

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

No, no. That would be incredibly short-sighted. In our business, there is no better place to invest than prime Park Avenue with a million square foot tenant and a 60% partner already committed. We are contributing our existing land and 65-year-old building at a $900 million valuation. We have the balance sheet resources to support this deal and all of our other financial requirements as well. We have a $3.3 billion construction loan ready to go. I think $3.3 billion may be a record. The partnership, and by that I mean all partners, is contemplating selling down a 25% interest at a price which will give us an appropriate profit and also give the buyers an appropriate profit. We expect the joint venture closing will take place in September. We are extremely excited and bullish about the potential returns from this project.

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

The brokers and tenant community is buzzing. We are already getting incoming to available space, all of which is new space from 600 feet to 1,000 feet from clients seeking the very best and for whom our delivery date fits their needs. At Vornado, management of our balance sheet is the highest priority. Michael and his team have worked very hard to get our debt ratio down into the sevens. We keep gunpowder for offense and liquidity for defense in all cycles. We are in conversations to sell two non-essential assets, which will very substantially increase our liquidity profile. Here is the status of our stock buyback program. This quarter, we repurchased 1.8 million shares at $29.92 per share. Since we have started buying back shares in 2023, we have repurchased 8 million shares at $26.61 per share.

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

We will continue to take advantage of the stock as the opportunity presents itself. Just for kicks, on a final and interesting note, I recently heard an interview with Taylor Sheridan, the screenwriter, director, producer, and actor best known for creating the massively successful Yellowstone universe. I confess that I'm addicted to his stuff. Here's what he said about New York, quote I leaping love New York. It's the first place I lived after Chicago. It's a phenomenal city. It's a city that I feel is much tougher. It endures a bad politician or two, and you can't tank it. New York just shakes off this stuff like a case of bad fleas and keeps going. It doesn't matter the industry you're in in New York.

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

If you're successful here, if you're a bricklayer, you're one of the best frigging bricklayers on the planet because there are 8 million people competing for your job. New York just mandates excellence from everybody in every way and in every field." End quote. By the way, when somebody asks who doesn't know me what I do for a living, I say I'm a bricklayer. Now off to Michael.

Michael Franco
Michael Franco
President and CFO at Vornado Realty Trust

Thank you, Steve, and good morning, everyone. Second quarter comparable FFO was $0.67 per share compared to $0.56 per share for last year's second quarter, an increase of $0.11. This significant increase was primarily due to higher FFO resulting from rent PENN 2, the impact from the New York University master lease at 770 Broadway being in the prior year, and higher NOI from signage revenue, partially offset by higher net interest expense. We have provided a quarter-over-quarter bridge on page two of our earnings release and on page six of our financial supplement. Our core office and retail businesses are performing increasingly well and are now beginning to reflect the growth from leasing at PENN as well as our other vacancies. Our N.Y. office same store NOI was up 13.7% for GAAP and 11.9% for cash.

Michael Franco
Michael Franco
President and CFO at Vornado Realty Trust

Our N.Y. retail same store NOI was up 7.3% for GAAP and 5.7% for cash. Our N.Y. business overall was up 11.9% for GAAP and 6.2% for cash. We now clearly expect full year 2026 comparable FFO to be higher than 2025, with second quarter comparable FFO being a decent average run rate for the rest of the year. As previously indicated, we expect there to be significant earnings growth in 2027 as the positive impact and the lease off for PENN 1, PENN 2, and our other vacancies continues to take effect, as well as the positive impact of the recent acquisition of Park Avenue Plaza. Turning to occupancy. N.Y. office occupancy increased 60 basis points this quarter to 92.2% from last quarter, and up significantly from the trough of 84.4% in the first quarter of 2025.

Michael Franco
Michael Franco
President and CFO at Vornado Realty Trust

This significant pickup is reflective of the successful execution of our plans and the Manhattan Class A office market dynamics that we've been talking about over the past couple of years. Our N.Y. office pipeline is robust and has over 2.2 million square feet of leases in negotiation in various stages of proposal, including the 1 million square feet Citadel lease at 350 Park Avenue and over 500,000 sq ft in the PENN District. Based on our strong leasing pipeline, we anticipate that our occupancy will grow to north of 93% by year-end with further gains thereafter. Demand for our retail assets also continues to pick up. We are seeing new retailers, including many international ones, enter the market, as well as retailers in prime locations looking to renew their spaces early so as not to lose them upon expiry. Finally, turning to our balance sheet.

Michael Franco
Michael Franco
President and CFO at Vornado Realty Trust

Our liquidity remains strong at $2 billion, which is comprised of cash of $789 million and our undrawn credit lines of $1.2 billion. We hope to bolster this further with the asset sales Steve referenced earlier. 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. The first question today comes from Floris van Dijkum with Ladenburg. Please go ahead.

Floris van Dijkum
Floris van Dijkum
Analyst at Ladenburg

Hey, thanks, guys. Obviously, we're starting to see some growth, which is very encouraging. Maybe could you talk a little bit about the gap between leased and economic occupancy today and where your peak physical or economic occupancy was in the past, and how much more of a runway there is?

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

Michael.

Michael Franco
Michael Franco
President and CFO at Vornado Realty Trust

Good morning, Floris. Historically we ran at 95%-96% occupancy on a physical basis. I think maybe touched a little bit higher occasionally, but I would say that was a pretty consistent run rate. Today we're at a little over 92%. We expect we'll get back to our historical run rate in the next couple of years. Given the pace of the market, it could happen sooner than that. We're pretty confident about that. From an economic perspective, just given the signed that commenced leases, obviously that number is lower, I think on a, let's call it on a GAAP basis, which probably relates most directly to earnings. We're probably 83%-84% relative to the 92%. Physically we should get back into the mid-90s and obviously on a GAAP basis that'll close up as those leases come online.

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

Floris, I'll put a little more meat on that. These are signed, but not in occupancy and not in our earnings number. The revenue side of that rents are $180 million, which is probably somewhere around $150 million, a little bit more than that of FFO. That'll give you the number as to where we stand now. That number, obviously, signed leases haven't commenced yet, so that's in the bag.

Floris van Dijkum
Floris van Dijkum
Analyst at Ladenburg

Thanks, Steve. Thanks, Michael. My follow-up question, this is more of a broad question, because if you do the math, the rents required to make 350 Park Avenue pencil out, suggests that you're going to rent that building at around $350 a square foot. What kind of impacts will having these really high-end properties do to adjacent or nearby buildings? I'm thinking also potentially about the potential upside of your recent acquisition at Park Avenue Plaza.

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

The rents on the new buildings, your number is approximately correct, will create an umbrella at all of the older buildings which have in place rents of less than that. Park Avenue Plaza has rents of about a third of what you just mentioned. It will all suck them all up. That what's going to happen is, the combination of scarcity, the combination of everybody in New York expanding and looking for space, and the fact that there's a scarcity of new supply, and the combination of construction costs, interest rates, et cetera, require a very high rent for a new building. That'll cause the well-located older buildings to go up in value enormously. Obviously, that's the reason we bought Park Avenue Plaza.

Operator

The next question comes from Alexander Goldfarb with Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.

Alexander Goldfarb
Alexander Goldfarb
Analyst at Piper Sandler

Hey, morning Steve, thank you for the update on 350. I guess a question there around rents. A few quarters ago, we were talking about sort of 250 gross to make new deals pencil, I think, when we talked about PENN 15. now you're talking about 300, 350 to make new deals pencil, clearly at 350 you have legacy basis. The increase in rents to make deals pencil, is that sort of on a new market basis? Meaning if you were to buy land today and given where interest rates are? What's caused sort of the target construction rents to go from sort of the 250 we talked a few quarters ago to now sort of the three to 350?

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

Oh, boy. Complicated. I'm not sure I understand the question. None of these numbers are written in stone, Alex. They're sort of like ranges. The market doesn't really need $350 a foot to start a new building. The market and our competitors would want a new building somewhere in the probably mid to high twos. What the market is doing is, giving a bargain rent to the anchor tenant with the hopes and aspirations that the follow-on smaller tenants at higher rents will make the whole thing pencil. In the whole, if you think about it, if a new building on Park Avenue costs $3,000 a foot, you can do the math.

Alexander Goldfarb
Alexander Goldfarb
Analyst at Piper Sandler

Okay. The second question for Glen. Year to date, you've done about 660 sq ft gross in New York. There are a lot of tenants that are talking about early renewals. Can you talk about the level of conversation and presumably there's some acceleration in the back half, or just what we should expect as far as leasing goes compared to the 660 so far?

Glen Weiss
Glen Weiss
EVP and Co-Head of Real Estate & Office Leasing at Vornado Realty Trust

As Michael said in our script, the remarks, putting aside Citadel, we have about 1.2 million in our pipeline, which is a really strong mix of new expansion renewal. We're strategic about renewals. We're not going to do a renewal unless we like the terms. While we're talking to a lot of tenants expiring next year, the year after, et cetera, as the market continues to quicken in strength and pace, and as we feel better and better every week with what's happening, we're being very careful in terms of locking in too quickly. Our tenants generally want to stay. We're in a lot of discussions in that regard, but we're being careful and smart about it.

Operator

The next question comes from Dylan Burzinski with Green Street. Please go ahead.

Dylan Burzinski
Dylan Burzinski
Analyst at Green Street

Hey, guys. Good morning. Thanks for taking the question. Steve, maybe going back to your comments at the outset of your prepared remarks, talking about how the stock remains cheap, how it remains well below sort of our NAV estimate. Can you kind of just talk about, I think you alluded to in the past, just being interested in taking assets to market and testing where private market bids are at. Can I just talk about that? Is that still something you guys are interested in? Maybe, obviously using those funds to continue to take advantage of the disconnect between where shares are at today and where you guys perceive value to be.

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

I think what you're saying is that we should sell buildings at the private market value and buy stock, which is Green Street's formula for success. We sort of believe in that. We sort of also believe that our buildings are going to appreciate in value. We are actually in conversations with selling two buildings, the proceeds of which would be a very significant cash amount, which accomplishes our financial objectives in the short term. The history in New York has been that almost every time you sell a building, in almost any cycle, you've been wrong. That goes for our street retail assets and our office assets. We do have a handful of assets that we are happy to sell and want to sell.

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

We have a couple of assets that we are actively in conversations to sell, and we're very happy owning the rest of them until, at some point, they become more valuable, and then maybe we would sell them. With respect to our stock, we still think our stock is extremely cheap. As you know, the NAV calculations are basically based upon what is in place now and what assets we own now. It doesn't give any credit for what will happen in the future. For example, there's no credit for the 350 Park Avenue deal, and the profit that will undoubtedly come from that, or the Park Avenue Plaza uptick in rents or the 623 development that we're doing. The NAV number is a static number which is backwards looking.

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

When we sit in our council room, we look at that number very hard, but we also look at the future value. That's my answer, sir.

Dylan Burzinski
Dylan Burzinski
Analyst at Green Street

No, that's very helpful. Appreciate that commentary, Steve. Maybe just one on, I think it was announced yesterday that Snap was subleasing some of Verizon's space. Are you guys involved in that at all? I know when Verizon starts that lease, rents are probably higher today than where Verizon's lease is at. Is there any upside that you guys are able to get, or is that sort of solely Verizon's economics?

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

We didn't participate in that deal. That was a deal between Verizon and the subtenant. We did, however, decline a recapture option, choosing instead to keep the Verizon credit for the 20-year term.

Operator

The next question comes from Steve Sakwa with Evercore ISI. Please go ahead.

Steve Sakwa
Steve Sakwa
Analyst at Evercore ISI

Yeah, thanks. Good morning. I think on the last couple of calls, you guys have talked about this kind of $0.40 FFO uplift in 2027. I know you don't give formal guidance, there was a bridge there just given the strong signed but not occupied pipeline. Obviously, you've had good growth in Q2 and talking about a good second half. I guess, does that $0.40 number still apply, or has some of that FFO maybe shifted into 2026 and it dampens the growth a little bit into 2027?

Michael Franco
Michael Franco
President and CFO at Vornado Realty Trust

Morning, Steve. We're not going to get too much into guidance given we don't give it. If you remember, when we made that comment, I think we started off talking about the year being flattish relative to last year. Obviously, we're significantly outperforming that. The $0.40 was relative to that flattish comment. I think we were at $2.35 last year, $0.40 on top of that, $2.75. Some of the growth is occurring earlier this year than expected. At the same time, we still think we have meaningful growth next year. Our comment on sort of significant growth still to come in 2027 remains intact. Some of that $0.40 got started flowing through this year, but certainly relative to where we started, the beginning of the year is still intact. Given the dynamics, hopefully it'll be in excess of that.

Steve Sakwa
Steve Sakwa
Analyst at Evercore ISI

Great. As my follow-up, Steve, I guess your comments around doing a JV at $350 million is interesting given the Citadel lease. I guess, how did you sort of weigh doing that JV now versus leasing that building up further and doing something down the road, given that it's not being delivered for four to five years?

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

We made a decision to do the deal with Ken Griffin and Citadel years ago. Our deal with Ken was signed probably, I don't know, three years ago, something like that. This is just the continuation of that path, which was decided three years ago. During that time, between now and then, Barry and his team and the Citadel team have designed the building with the Foster+ Partners architectural firm and done the drawings, and we're now under construction. These decisions were made three years ago, maybe even four years ago.

Operator

The next question comes from Jana Galan with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

By the way, before I get into that, let me finish the last question a little bit more. If you do the math, and we do the math, we really groove on math around here. If you do the math, notwithstanding the fact that there is a time delay from the time that you demolish the old building and give up the income on the old building to the time you get the new building, the new building, which will have rents in the stratosphere, so to speak, which is the market, and which is required, are substantially, enormously more profitable than keeping the old 65-year-old building, dumping money into that building, because in 10 years, that's going to be a 75-year-old building, and you know what that means. Anyway, the decision really was not that difficult to make to demolish and build a new building. I'm sorry.

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

Now to the next question.

Operator

The next question comes from Jana Galan with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Jana Galan
Jana Galan
Analyst at Bank of America

Thank you. Good morning, and congrats on the quarter. The retail leasing had a nice pickup, but the lease term I noticed was pretty short. Curious if that's just a strategy to do more short-term activation as you plan some of the larger retail redevelopment, or if something else drove that.

Michael Franco
Michael Franco
President and CFO at Vornado Realty Trust

Morning, Jana. In general, yeah, a number of short-term deals, some in-place tenants that we extended, some short-term deals that we don't want to lock up the space. We continue to view the market as getting stronger. We don't want to commit to space long term until we get to an appropriate level. In some cases, tenants need more time to make decisions on how long they want to commit for, et cetera. A mix of those. I think, most of those, as we said, short term in nature.

Jana Galan
Jana Galan
Analyst at Bank of America

Thank you. Maybe just, I noticed the Pier 94 occupancy dropped quarter-over-quarter. Anything you can share that, or prospects for new leasing there?

Glen Weiss
Glen Weiss
EVP and Co-Head of Real Estate & Office Leasing at Vornado Realty Trust

It's Glen. I'll take this one. The occupancy's already up into the high 80s by the end of July. We had a couple vacates at the end of June, which is why you see the number you're seeing, and we're already back up to where we were with a lot more activity in the pipeline.

Michael Franco
Michael Franco
President and CFO at Vornado Realty Trust

Glen, why don't you just comment on the users' experience and their reaction to the pier?

Glen Weiss
Glen Weiss
EVP and Co-Head of Real Estate & Office Leasing at Vornado Realty Trust

The activity has been excellent. The users are all top of class, head of class, Google, Netflix, Paramount, Apple, all the names we want. As they go on and on, the experience has been A plus. The reports back from them have been excellent. We're feeling very good as we head into the second half of this year into 2027, that really great things are going to happen, and the project's really the best in town. Certainly the users coming in are recognizing that as they use it.

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

You have to remember, this asset, which we are partners with Blackstone and Hudson Pacific, is kind of analogous to a long-stay hotel. This is not an office building which has 10 and 20 and 30-year leases. The tenants that come into this building and use it as a production facility for shows that are in process, so that can be three months or a year, or what have you. The occupancy will fluctuate. We do feel we have a unique asset. It's the only asset in Manhattan. It's very well located, and it's being extremely well received, even at these early stages, by all of the, might I say, all of the big boys.

Operator

The next question comes from Anthony Paolone with JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Anthony Paolone
Anthony Paolone
Analyst at JPMorgan

Thanks. On 350 Park, you mentioned going to the maximum 36% stake in the project. Can you talk about what that means in terms of any incremental outlays for Vornado or just how that works?

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

Michael.

Michael Franco
Michael Franco
President and CFO at Vornado Realty Trust

Good morning, Tony. We'll lay out all the details when we close the venture in terms of cost, financing, et cetera. Steve referenced the construction financing that we've lined up. We're contributing our land in at the $900 million value. Incremental capital requirements from us over time are in the $300 million-$350 million neighborhood. That doesn't really start for probably two and a half, maybe even three years in any significant scale, given that Ken has to true up his equity with ours, and then the bank wants to get money out. We like that environment. The banks want to start putting money out. Our equity is back ended, and really won't come, I would say, meaningfully until 2029, and then thereafter.

Anthony Paolone
Anthony Paolone
Analyst at JPMorgan

Okay. Got it. Just on in terms of just, you mentioned, I think, Steve, just that kind of a project putting an umbrella over the rest of the assets around there over time. It seems like your base is going to probably be over $3,000 a foot, and the presumption is you lease it up and it's worth, I guess, something north of $4,000 plus a square foot. How do you think about just that gap between a number like that and buying something around the corner effectively at $950 a foot? Is that dispersion, does it make sense? I get the difference in age and asset, is carried land just as interesting an investment at this point than the built at $4,000-plus a foot on a pro forma stabilized basis?

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

We would buy 100% of Park Avenue at $1,000 a foot if we could.

Michael Franco
Michael Franco
President and CFO at Vornado Realty Trust

Tony, you're making the case for exactly what Steve said earlier, right? That dispersion is very wide, that buildings like Park Avenue Plaza, if the market continues to hold its strength, and we know there's not going to be a lot of supply, those buildings have to appreciate significantly. We own many of those buildings, which is why we're bullish on our stock and the value that we have and where it's going. 100%. Rents have to rise there. Values have to appreciate meaningfully because they're basically trading at land value in a lot of cases.

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

Don't get the impression that the people who are paying $250 or $75 or $300 a foot are stupid. They are not stupid. They are the most important and largest and major companies in the country. There is a difference in the value of a brand-new building, in its design, in its function. The answer is, it's not the difference between $100 a foot and $300 a foot. The $100 a foot buildings are going to go up in value substantially, but not to the same rental rate as a new building would command.

Operator

The next question comes from Vikram Malhotra with Mizuho. Please go ahead.

Vikram Malhotra
Vikram Malhotra
Analyst at Mizuho

Morning. Congrats on a strong quarter. This first question, given the strength in the future direction in terms of FFO and the pickup you mentioned, some of it as though coming in 2026. I'm wondering if you can give us a little bit more color on how that translates into cash earnings, like relative to this year's TI bill. What could their TI maintenance CapEx bill look like for next year, just high level? Related to that, any sense of where we are in terms of TIs coming in after the market has strengthened?

Michael Franco
Michael Franco
President and CFO at Vornado Realty Trust

I'll hit the first one. Glen can hit the second. In terms of TIs this year versus next year, again, given we're in that lease-up mode, given frankly when the tenants call for the money. I don't have the numbers right in front of me, Vikram, but it's pretty comparable year-over-year. Not meaningfully different enough that I would change. In 2028 is when that starts to tail down as we're through that big lease-up. Again, depends on when tenants call for the money. It tends to be a little bit later than when we normally expect. That's my commentary on the capital side. Glen, you want to just talk about TI trends?

Glen Weiss
Glen Weiss
EVP and Co-Head of Real Estate & Office Leasing at Vornado Realty Trust

Yeah. Hi, Vikram. We're seeing concessions come down. Rents are going up. We're tightening concessions. I've sat on a couple calls in a row now, free rents coming down, and we're now seeing tightening on the TIs. Certainly anything we're turning now has a cap on the tenant funds. Overall, I would tell you all the metrics are trending absolutely in the landlord's direction, which is very good for us. We continue that, and we expect that to continue as we go, as the market continues to get better and better.

Vikram Malhotra
Vikram Malhotra
Analyst at Mizuho

Thanks. Maybe just a bigger, broader question. Clearly, New York is at a place where we're all talking upside to rents and mark-to-market positive. San Fran is still sort of in maybe perhaps occupancy recovery mode. I'm just wondering, future capital allocation for Vornado, if you were putting in new capital today, how do you differentiate and assess sort of opportunities in New York versus San Fran? Where should we expect kind of a better risk-reward at this point?

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

We love San Francisco. It's a recovering market. The interesting thing about it is we own the best building in San Francisco, differentiated. It's not a tech building per se, although we do have a few tech tenants. It's a financial services building. All of the major financial services players are in that building. Notwithstanding the fact that vacancies grew to very high numbers in San Francisco and rents plummeted, that building, 555 California, the rents went up and occupancy stayed by and large pretty high. Now, with respect to New York and capital allocation, look at what we've done in the past as a prelude to what we'll do in the future. We have invested in two or three new acquisitions. We invest in our existing buildings by leasing them up in the TI and in keeping them modern and pristine and ahead of the market.

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

We invest in our buildings in terms of amenities. We invest in our stock. We're investing in new acquisitions, our existing assets, our common stock, and of course, the PENN district. We have a very full plate.

Michael Franco
Michael Franco
President and CFO at Vornado Realty Trust

At the same time, bringing down leverage while doing that.

Vikram Malhotra
Vikram Malhotra
Analyst at Mizuho

Yeah. How did you do that?

Michael Franco
Michael Franco
President and CFO at Vornado Realty Trust

Little sleight of hand. No. Asset sales, et cetera. We're growing income.

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

By the way, our budgets show that after the bubble, the good bubble of this very large leasing period is over, and the free rent burns off and the TIs are paid, our financials become extraordinary. Our cash flow becomes positive and grows fairly significantly. There's a one or two-year period, then there's a very, very constructive about our company in the future years. That's why when I say we look at the future NAV harder even than we look at the current NAV.

Operator

The next question comes from Seth Bergey with Citi. Please go ahead.

Seth Bergey
Seth Bergey
Analyst at Citi

Hi, thanks for taking my question. Just wanted to circle back on 350 Park Avenue. You mentioned the partial sale. Could you just broadly talk about, given kind of the improvement in New York fundamentals, what the buyer pool looks like for that? What type of money is interested in investing in New York office today?

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

Hang on. Michael's going to start with that for me. I think you asked about the mention that I made that we were contemplating selling down 25% of the ownership of the building and inviting a new group of investors to come into the asset now. What's your question about that?

Seth Bergey
Seth Bergey
Analyst at Citi

Yeah. Is it core money that's interested in office opportunistic, sovereign? Just talk about kind of the interest from the different buyer pools, in New York office real estate.

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

We're basically targeting high net worth family offices. It would be a club deal, people investing $100 million or maybe $200 million, not $1 billion. That's our current target.

Seth Bergey
Seth Bergey
Analyst at Citi

Great. Maybe just to follow up, with kind of the new pied-à-terre tax in New York, are you seeing any impact on that for high street retail leasing?

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

Not at all. We don't expect that that's going to affect shopping or tourism or domestic spending or whatever. The answer to that is not at all. By the way, we're not really in that business. I mean, we don't have a current condo job under construction. Although we have developed the most successful one in history, that's in the past. That's sold out, by the way. We do hear from the marketplace that the tax has affected the interest of buyers in the over $10 million category. That's not firsthand. That's second and thirdhand from just gossip that I'm hearing from the marketplace.

Operator

The next question comes from Ronald Kamdem with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Ronald Kamdem
Ronald Kamdem
Analyst at Morgan Stanley

Hey, great. Just two quick ones. One, this came up earlier, just on high level, I think you've touched on just maintaining leverage. You've touched on sort of CapEx. Was just wondering if you could just put a point on it in terms of what the model says leverage looks like as sort of EBITDA comes on, as well as what the CapEx trajectory looks like. Thanks.

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

Michael.

Michael Franco
Michael Franco
President and CFO at Vornado Realty Trust

Morning, Ronald. From the quick reading of your report, sounds like we have a fairly wide disparity on any view book viewpoints. CapEx, I think I said earlier, I think it's going to be fairly consistent this year to next year, just as the large amount of leases, particularly PENN 2 and the remainder PENN 1 get funded. Even a lot of the leases that get signed this year, that won't get funded till next year and maybe even slobbers over a little bit to 2028. I think fairly consistent year-over-year. On the leverage side, I think it will continue to trend down into the sevens over the course of this year. As the income comes online in the out years, obviously there's a lot that's going to happen between now and then, but that number could go sub-seven.

Michael Franco
Michael Franco
President and CFO at Vornado Realty Trust

I think it probably will go sub-seven absent other investing, et cetera.

Ronald Kamdem
Ronald Kamdem
Analyst at Morgan Stanley

Great, helpful. Then, I think you mentioned sort of two non-essential sales. I was just wondering, I think in the past, whether it was Hotel Penn or some other retail assets, just any thoughts on transacting on those? Thanks so much.

Michael Franco
Michael Franco
President and CFO at Vornado Realty Trust

Hotel Penn.

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

No, it's not Hotel Penn. Hotel Penn doesn't exist anymore, by the way. It's a piece of land which we consider to be the best development site in the West Side of Manhattan, that's not for sale.

Operator

The next question comes from Caitlin Burrows with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Caitlin Burrows
Caitlin Burrows
Analyst at Goldman Sachs

Hi, good morning. Maybe a follow-up to that last one, just on the planned asset sales, whatever they may be, as we try to figure out the impact of those two properties. Would you say they're more in the non-core bucket, i.e., potentially higher cap rate, or in the bucket of crystallizing private market valuations, i.e., lower cap rate or some combination?

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

One and one.

Caitlin Burrows
Caitlin Burrows
Analyst at Goldman Sachs

Got it. Okay. You mentioned earlier that part of the intent is then you can keep that dry powder for offense. Could you talk about your outlook for those opportunities to come up? I realize you don't have a crystal ball, but is there reason to think that more acquisition opportunities could continue to come up, or is it too hard to tell at this point?

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

The answer is we react to everything that's available in the marketplace, and we move quickly to acquire an asset that we like. The assets that we like have to be basically in our core. They have to be on the best locations. They have to be part of the 180 million square feet that we feel is our target market, the market in which our clients want to rent space. They have to be money makers. When we see it, we act. We can't predict. We don't have a crystal ball, but we do know that there are cycles. There are cycles in when to invest heavily, and there are cycles in when to pull back. We've been doing this for a long time, and that's our outlook on acquisitions.

Operator

The next question comes.

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

By the way, the other side of that is that trees don't grow to the sky. We do have business cycles. I don't know whether we're going to have another pardon me, another recession or downturn. I guess we will. It's been a long time since we've had a downturn. There will be a downturn in the future, and we have to be prepared for it. You can't prepare for it. When the downturn starts, it's too late. You have to be prepared for it ahead. That's what we try to do, and we've had to, as we always try to do. Keeping a very strong balance sheet with a ton of cash is part of our longtime business strategy.

Operator

The next question comes from Brendan Lynch with Barclays. Please go ahead.

Brendan Lynch
Brendan Lynch
Analyst at Barclays

Great. Thanks for taking my questions. Steve, in the past, you mentioned that you were open to selling 555 California and The Mart. Can you give us an update on where your considerations currently stand, and are those the two assets that you referenced earlier about being for sale?

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

Those two assets are not the two assets. Might be one of them. I can tell you that right now, 555 California is a strong recovery market, and Glen has done a spectacular job of leasing this market at the top stick prices in San Francisco, in the high $100s a foot in the tower. That asset has plenty of room to go and is extremely strong. That asset is only for sale at the right time and at the right price.

Brendan Lynch
Brendan Lynch
Analyst at Barclays

Any commentary on The Mart?

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

No.

Brendan Lynch
Brendan Lynch
Analyst at Barclays

Okay. Maybe just another topic on signage. Is there a limit to how much signage you can add to the PENN District? I see that signage is up 5%. Is that mostly volume, or are you pushing price more aggressively?

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

I'll start and then Michael can finish. Basically, the thing that differentiates our signage business is that our signs go with the buildings that we own. We are almost all of the people in this sector, the signage companies, they rent space to put their signs. We don't. We own the space. Our margins obviously are much higher. Since we own the prime space in Times Square, and we own everything in the PENN District, where there's enormous traffic, both from Madison Square Garden and the retail at Macy's, and PENN Station. We own those assets. As we continue to develop in the PENN District, we will build more buildings. We're now totally changing the entrance of the PENN District on 7th Avenue and 34th Street. We're going to tear down the older buildings. We're going to build new buildings.

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

Those are signage opportunities. We're going to build a power on PENN 15. that's another signage opportunity, et cetera. The answer is that we love the business. It's asset light. New signs go along with our new developments.

Michael Franco
Michael Franco
President and CFO at Vornado Realty Trust

Just to tack on, Brendan, yes, volume or price, both. The pricing has continued to go up year-over-year for the last several years. Part of what we do, by having digital signs is we slice and dice those, and it's like revenue management, right? We're optimizing how many slots we can sell, and how much we can sell those for. We have both dynamics working, which is helping to propel the business. You saw that come through this quarter.

Operator

The next question comes from Steve Sakwa with Evercore ISI. Please go ahead.

Steve Sakwa
Steve Sakwa
Analyst at Evercore ISI

Yeah, thanks. Just one quick follow-up. On that SNO pipeline number that you gave of $180 million, is there a way to bifurcate that between PENN 2 and what's the rest of the portfolio?

Michael Franco
Michael Franco
President and CFO at Vornado Realty Trust

I knew you weren't going to let us off so easy, Steve, without a numbers question. I would say, I'm going to guess here because I don't have the exact numbers in front of me. Obviously like PENN 2 is a huge development that we're completing and that income's coming online. If I had to guess, I would say probably 60% of it is PENN 2. rough cut.

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

Yeah, that guess better be right.

Michael Franco
Michael Franco
President and CFO at Vornado Realty Trust

Yeah, I think it's pretty close.

Operator

There are no further questions at this time.

Steven Roth
Steven Roth
Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust

Okay. Well, thank you everybody. We're happy with this quarter. We hope you all appreciate it. We're even more happy with our future prospects. With having said that, thank you all for attending, and we'll see you next quarter.

Analysts
    • Steven Borenstein
      EVP and Corporation Counsel at Vornado Realty Trust
    • Steven Roth
      Chairman and CEO at Vornado Realty Trust
    • Michael Franco
      President and CFO at Vornado Realty Trust
    • Floris van Dijkum
      Analyst at Ladenburg
    • Alexander Goldfarb
      Analyst at Piper Sandler
    • Glen Weiss
      EVP and Co-Head of Real Estate & Office Leasing at Vornado Realty Trust
    • Dylan Burzinski
      Analyst at Green Street
    • Steve Sakwa
      Analyst at Evercore ISI
    • Jana Galan
      Analyst at Bank of America
    • Anthony Paolone
      Analyst at JPMorgan
    • Vikram Malhotra
      Analyst at Mizuho
    • Seth Bergey
      Analyst at Citi
    • Ronald Kamdem
      Analyst at Morgan Stanley
    • Caitlin Burrows
      Analyst at Goldman Sachs
    • Brendan Lynch
      Analyst at Barclays
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