Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Morguard REIT conference call. At this time, all lines are in listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. If at any time during this call you require immediate assistance, please press star zero for the operator. This call is being recorded on Thursday, April 28th, 2022. I would now like to turn the conference over to Andrew Tamlin. Please go ahead.
Thank you, and good afternoon, everyone. My name is Andrew Tamlin, Chief Financial Officer of Morguard REIT. Welcome to the Morguard REIT first quarter 2022 earnings conference call. I am joined this afternoon by John Ginis, Assistant Vice President of Retail Asset Management, Tom Johnston, Vice President of Western Asset Management, along with Tullio Capulli, Vice President of Eastern Asset Management. Thank you all for taking the time to join the call. Before we jump into the call, I'd like to point out that our comments will mostly refer to the first quarter 2022 MD&A and financial statements, which have been posted to our website. I refer you specifically to the cautionary language at the front of the MD&A, which would also apply to any comments that we would make on this call.
Overall, we were pleased with the first quarter results, which showed improved same asset metrics over the first quarter of 2021. Net operating income for the quarter declined to CAD 28.5 million in 2022 from CAD 31.1 million in 2021. However, the decline was due to the CAD 2.3 million in non-recurring lease cancellation fees recorded last year from Lowe's at Pine Centre in order to help facilitate the Save-On-Foods deal. FFO decreased to CAD 15 million in 2022 from CAD 19.3 million last year due to the recording of CAD 4.3 million in non-recurring items in 2021, which includes the lease cancellation fees and also includes CAD 2 million in Sears settlement funds collected last year. After considering the non-recurring items from a year ago, this year's results are very comparable.
Same asset net operating income across all asset classes for the first quarter improved once again from a year ago. A decline in the same asset single-tenant office class is attributed to a one-time bad debt recovery recorded last year. Same asset net operating income for the enclosed mall segment improved a healthy 12% over last year. We have seen continued declines in interest expense, which declined another CAD 300,000 this quarter, due primarily to the decline in debt on a year-over-year basis. Turning to operations, we are seeing growth in traffic and sales numbers in our Western enclosed malls, which are not as susceptible to lockdowns and are also typically the premier mall in their catchment area. It is still a challenging environment for our two Ontario enclosed malls, which have been susceptible to the lockdowns over the last couple of years.
Rent collections are, for the most part, back to normal, with the exception of the two Ontario enclosed malls, which have been running recently at approximately 95%. We did see a pause in being able to continue the trend of resolving outstanding receivable issues due to the Omicron variant from earlier in the quarter. Consequently, our net receivable balance remained relatively unchanged at approximately CAD 4 million from year-end. We expect to continue to make progress on these amounts as we move forward into the year. A sizable portion of this balance relates to accounts from the two Ontario enclosed malls. The REIT's PCME or operating capital reserve was established to be CAD 6.3 million for the quarter or CAD 25 million annually, which is back to our normal levels pre-COVID.
We spend only CAD 2.6 million of the reserve, mainly due to the fact that we typically spend less capital dollars in the first quarter as compared to other quarters. The trust is continuing with the Save-On-Foods development job at Pine Centre, which entails the retenanting of the empty Lowe's premises into a new 38,050-sq-ft Save-On-Foods grocery store. There's a former Lowe's premises in Alberta, and we arranged to sublet the premises and they expect to be completed in July 2023. Additional groceries that are complements from anchor tenants in the mall. As it is, these discussions with the grocery tenants seem to come into this marketplace. Overall occupancy levels at March 31st, 2022 are slightly higher than both year-end and the year before. Our current occupancy level for all asset classes is 21%.
The only change slightly from the pre-pandemic, which was at 23%. The grocery anchor is the most capable of being able to keep their tenants safe and current. Our forecast at least the average. The 40 areas representing 236,000-367,000 retail GLA coming through this year with the anchor tenants as priority, which are all expected to renew or expand. There is about a majority of our lease-up and expansion spaces that are for rent today. There are more than 1,230,000 office GLA coming up for renewal in 2022.
Okay, ladies and gentlemen, this is the last in-depth question we have in this session. If you have a question, press star then number one on your telephone keypad. If it's a driver question, press the number two. I'll go with your first question. Your first question will be coming from Jonathan Kelcher with TD Securities. Go ahead.
Thanks. Good afternoon. Question, just on, I know it's pretty color on the retail IRs, but I noticed that the month-to-month has ticked up and it is now over 4,000. Can you maybe give a little bit of color on that and how you expect it to trend and maybe how that compares to what had been pre-COVID?
Jonathan, sure. This is Ronnie. Typically in a quarter, what we see is lower leasing in Christmas 50, especially calendar year. This year it's been a little bit different because negative news caused a little bit of occupancy release even closer to full occupancy on the quarter. Transitioning out of the pandemic, most retailers are launching across our portfolio. Every asset is different. Leasing is different than this. Overall, I think you're going to see a business that can keep and respond, which will create a lot of demand as we kind of look for permanent solutions. This year, I would say it was a little bit more challenging, technically along with that than we've ever seen in this commerce.
If we keep occupancy there, you know, we'll have to work out any kind of transitional tenants because we've grown a lot of new house niches and all those things that happen.
Okay. Normally the months would normally tick up in Q1.
Properly solving requests with best solutions that are made with respect to the owner and our tenants. A lot of leasable space and a lot of discretion we have is like this.
Okay. That's helpful. Just on the fair value gains, or maybe a little bit of color on those. Is that more future expectations on cash flow that the cap rate didn't move a lot significantly?
There's a few tweaks to some of the cap rates. Sounds like a lot of the new overall numbers. Positive aspects for office in Vancouver and in Southern Alberta and made marked improvements.
Okay. Just lastly, what do you expect for bad debts over the balance this year?
We're not seeing any unique variance. I think our pandemic debt is, you know, more or less normal at this point. There may be a little bit of pandemic debt throughout the year, but certainly not at the levels that we saw in the first eight years of the pandemic.
Q2 economy quarter.
Can you hear me?
Okay. Thanks a lot. I'll put it back.
Okay. As a reminder, should you have a question, press star then the number one. Next question will be coming from Carlo Calandra from RBC Capital Markets. Go ahead.
Good afternoon. I was really curious how high levels case in the background. Interested in any thoughts around anyone to pre-priority shift to this, in that so?
Well, if we're anxious to get beyond pandemic and get to a properly recovered. I think that's been phenomenal. Whether it's office or retail, I think there's been a lot of helpful starts to relationships and conversations. I think we're looking forward to kinda getting a little confidence in the market and continuing on with those kind of conversations. I think that's. I'm sure things pop up.
Great. That's it. Maybe shifting gears just one last one from you. On the lease cancellation fees, it's quite interesting to see over many years, CAD 500,000. Just curious, is that related to any one tenant in particular or a more itemized collection of some more tenants?
I think it's more a collection of a lot of tenants.
Okay. Looking ahead, do you think that rates are for the rest of the year or do you think that they even out?
I think the same carryover was occurring, like, two and three years ago we had last year that we kept running all this stuff. That was definitely in that layer.
Absolutely. I will turn back. Thanks.
No further questions at this time. Please go ahead. Thank you for attending the call and we'll look forward to talking to everybody again soon. Thank you. That concludes our client call for today. You may disconnect your lines.