Donald C. Wood
Chief Executive Officer at Federal Realty Investment Trust
Thanks, Leah, and good morning, everybody. There's lots going right in Federal Realty these days. Demand for our products has outpaced even our raised expectations and 2022 first quarter was no exception. Yes, the reported -- the reported $1.50 per share, beat both the street and our internal forecast. And of course, last year's COVID impacted quarter by 28% but it's really the contributions from all parts of this multifaceted business plan that's at the heart of our optimism, starting with the enduring strength of leasing. Over the last decade, average first quarter production for comparable properties at Federal Realty meant doing about 80 deals or roughly 375,000 square feet. In the '22 first quarter, we did 119 deals for 444,000 square feet, 50% more than the average.
We've never come close to doing 119 deals in any quarter, never mind the normally weaker first quarter, before last year's record-setting COVID recovery demand. But the fact that, that demand has remained this huge with a deal pipeline that looks to stay strong, speaks volumes about our properties and the markets they're in. And naturally of our future earnings growth. Thanks, Leah, and good morning, everybody. There's lots going right in Federal Realty these days. Demand for our products has outpaced even our raised expectations and 2022 first quarter was no exemption. Yes, the reported -- the reported $1.50 per share, beat both the street and our internal forecast. And of course, last year's COVID impacted quarter by 28% but it's really the contributions from all parts of this multifaceted business plan that's at the heart of our optimism, starting with the enduring strength of leasing.
Over the last decade, average first quarter production for comparable properties at Federal Realty meant doing about 80 deals or roughly 375,000 square feet. In the '22 first quarter, we did 119 deals for 444,000 square feet, 50% more than the average. We've never come close to doing 119 deals in any quarter, never mind the normally weaker first quarter, before last year's record-setting COVID recovery demand. But the fact that, that demand has remained the sedan with a deal pipeline that looks to stay strong, speaks volumes about our properties and the markets they're in. and naturally of our future earnings growth. So one of the reasons Dan is raising annual earnings guidance, $0.10 at the midpoint of the first quarter, something we rarely, if ever, do.
That leasing demand is broad and has resulted in a 130 basis point increase in small shop lease percentage 88.7% sequentially over the fourth quarter, well ahead of expectations. That small shop lease rate is also a remarkable 490 basis points higher than a year ago. Now we did lose 40 basis points of EDGAR occupancy since the fourth quarter. That's just typical first quarter expirations of few boxes portfolio [Indecipherable]. The portfolio was there for overall 93.7% leased at the top at the end of the first quarter. Importantly, there's plenty of room to go. We expect continued small shop occupancy gains throughout 2022. So all of this commentary thus far relates to our core portfolio, and it doesn't speak to the multiple additional ways that we grow earnings and value. Selective acquisitions, development, redevelopment, all add incrementally to our best-in-class core portfolio. Here's a case in point.
We did 10 deals, both new and renewals in the first quarter at the four properties that we bought last year, Chesterbrook, Camelback Collonade, Hilton Village and Grossmont. The rent rolled up in every single one of those deals and overall up by 33%. And even though no redevelopment has started yet at any of those centers. The universal belief during those tenant negotiations was that federal would improve the productivity of those shopping centers, enabling them to afford higher rents. That reputation and credibility grounded in a long established track record is critical to all that we do and in my view, one of our key differentiators. When we tied up Fairfax County, Virginia Kingstowne Shopping Center for $200 million in a five cap some months back, we similarly expect to improve the productivity of that 410,000 square foot destination through better merchandising and operations and finding the inevitable opportunities that always seem to accompany big land parcels. This one is 45 acres in densely populated in affluent first-ring suburbs. As I assume you read in our press release a couple of weeks back, we closed on the first half of that parcel in late April and expect to close on the second half in late July. Northern Virginia is an important and a growing market for us.
Our stepped-up post-COVID redevelopment effort is another critical component to future growth. It's no news to anyone on this call that the traditional generic and homogenous shopping center business is cyclical in nature and not a high-growth business. So you have to stand out to outperform over cycles. You do that by picking the right markets and positioning and merchandising in those markets, but you also have to reinvest in those assets to continually find the edge. Reinvesting is more important post COVID than ever before. So why we have nearly two dozen active and meaningful development projects in planning are underway, totaling over $100 million this year and next, which will likely yield double-digit unlevered yields over the ensuing years through higher customer traffic and rents in line with our historically observed results following redevelopments. That reinvestment is one of the primary reasons we can continue to put push rents. Now as to our development business. At the Citi conference in March, we were able to tour live in person CocoWalk, our fully leased mixed-use development.
We had an impressive group of investors attend and our team was proud to showcase the unique approach that we take to real estate development and value creation. Consider that in its first stabilized year, the project will generate in excess of $11 million of NOI on a $190 million investment with rents that are already under marked. Our unlevered IRR is over 8%. CocoWalk is pretty special. At Santana West, while I don't have any specific announcement to make on this call as to the leasing of our newly constructed office building, interest in the product and negotiations are more active than they've been at any time during the COVID era. I'm hopeful that we'll be able to provide a positive update in the coming months. Office demand is back in Ernest in Silicon Valley given the Google and Apple back-to-office announcements in the past month or two and we have the only new fully amenitized state-of-the-art project in the market. We've updated costs and returns on the accompanying 8-K based on real negotiations and market conditions. Ensure higher costs, along with higher rents, thus maintaining yield expectations.
With residential base rents comprising 11% of our total rented base, the upward pressure on apartment rents in many U.S. markets is also benefiting our bottom line. A meaningful residential income stream in our fully amenitized properties is such a unique incremental benefit of Federal. At Assembly Row, lease-up of Miscela, our 500-unit apartment building continues faster than forecast and a higher net effective rents. We're currently 70% leased at 10% higher rents than forecast. Our office building, affectionately known as the PUMA building, as you can see the PUMA site from New Hampshire is now 88% leased with another 5% at lease. Assembly Row has really outperformed all of our expectations coming out of COVID. Nothing yet to announce with respect to the next phase of expansion here as we've yet to lockdown costs, but we are getting close to a go/no-go decision on a life science project here that complement the growing life science demand and adjacent Summerville projects. More to come. Pike & Rose, Darien construction both continue on time and on budget.
One thing that always strikes me about our mixed-use development pipeline is the extent to which we incorporate what we've learned over the years into our core portfolio. While mixed-use development is certainly a different business than operating four shopping centers, much of what makes our big development special can be seen throughout our portfolio. From a broader array of tenant relationships to state-of-the-art construction techniques relative to place making, storefronts, any coordination and environmental considerations to unseen but impactful operational efficiencies. Our 25-year experience building mixed-use communities adds and continues to benefit our core shopping centers far greater than most people realize. Expect to be more -- see more of our showcasing that in the coming quarters and years. When you think Federal Realty, think about the multifaceted ways that we've got to grow. Just as we did between 2010 and 2019, and just as we plan to do from 2021 on with assets in the team whose confidence is proven and time tested.
