Rudy will then provide some operational highlights and some financials. Just before I turn the call over to Mitch, I would like to refer specifically to the cautionary language found at the front of our MD&A. This also applies to comments. Mitch, over to you.
As well as the needs of our tenants, as those needs evolve o f national retailers continue to generate high on-site customer traffic volumes and huge in-store sales volumes. That bodes well for future quarters as further solidifies with expansion of our value and b anking, quick service restaurants, and more. To see our position and resilience many years ago by convenience to all Canadians. The first quarter met NOI growth of 4.1% all in or 6.7% excluding anchors. Positive renewals for 4% n ear 70%, 98.4% occupancy for in-place and committed 99%.
Two weeks after the quarter end, Costco took possession of their premises at our 80-acre Winston Churchill and 401 Centre, formerly occupied by Rona. SmartCentres is the go-to for confidently moving forward with various projects, both the construction additional land use permissions across. This means that during the period we further secured mixed use. When the time comes, this lucrative inventory will be. Construction of the 224,000 sq ft Canadian Tire flagship in. Once open, that will bring the. At 100%. In that regard, we have improved our financial flexibility. Delivering high quality. Same property NOI continues its momentum with 4.1% growth overall and 6.7% excluding. By 2025, the REIT has already extended 6.4% rental spread of 8.4%. The current year initial is at 150,000 sq ft or 650,000 sq ft at. Also a 20-year term target space. And it is two plans that follow.
We believe we'll also accelerate our center, u pgrading uses. Our premium outlets continue to excel in driving traffic, including tenant sales, leading to strong growth in EBITDA and value to the REIT. Strong entry. Multiple 10. Turn our discussion. Times through strong rental lifts. Thank you, and I will now turn it over to Peter. March 31, 2025. From last year. In the quarter compared to CAD 0.48 in the comparable quarter last year. The increase was primarily due to higher NOI changes in the fair value adjustment on our investment properties with adjustments, which excludes the townhome profits, and the total return was $0.04 for the same period in 2024. We again maintained our. Compared to Q4, our unencumbered asset pool increased by over $100 million to CAD 9.6 billion as we used a portion of the proceeds from our Series AB debenture offering to repay some maturing mortgage debt.
Including our share counted with CAD 4.6 billion this month, slightly higher from the prior quarter and represents approximately 84% of our total debt of CAD 5.5 billion. From a liquidity of t he CAD 856 million includes both cash on hand and on credit facilities but excludes any accordion fees. The weighted average term to maturity of our debt, including debt on. Average interest rate is 3.93%, virtually unchanged from the prior quarter. Just before we open up the call to questions, I want to touch briefly on our development projects that are on. As in MD&A disclosure, 10 projects under construction at the end of the quarter. Three open during the quarter of 2025, two of them in Toronto and one in Dorval, and I believe one of them is already opened, just opened last month in fact. Of these 10 projects. CAD 2 million with our share of the estimate.
With that, we would be pleased to take your questions. Operator, can we have the first question on the line, please?
Absolutely. As a reminder, to ask a question, please dial star one on your phone's keypad. The first question is from Lorne Kalmar from Desjardins Capital Markets. Please go ahead, Lorne.
Thank you. Good afternoon, everybody. Why changes by segmenting with retail premium outlets, multi-res and self-storage. Same property line. Percentage by each of those categories. We do not look separate. The 4.1% overall same NOI growth, about 3%, which the other quarter comes from apartments and self-storage. Okay, fair enough. On what drove that quarter- over- quarter?
You mean the drop of the 98.4?
On the in-place, putting in place is down a little bit.
Yeah.
I did notice that Toys "R" Us were actually pulled out of their top tenants.
No. No, because those were pretty much leased immediately.
Two of the three I think we got should really move the needle, the toys. It was just the variety across very wide distributed across the portfolio related to the seed time of year.
Okay. Just last one for me. The premium outlets have been a standout, probably laughing some tough comps. Is there any concern about the impact that the broad to assets?
In terms of, I mean, Toronto is just a wonder child that. We know if we mention this in this or not, but we are looking at potentially expanding it just so you know. From the point of view of your question, not going to rise or fall over interest, it's going to rise and fall over getting the approvals. If there's really a recessionary type situation. Shop at ours [audio distortion] o f economic conditions.
We usually get a little bit more actually upside as people away from full, full price, sort of the beneficiaries of that. Hard to predict on that particular asset, but in general, we're not concerned about some tough macroeconomic conditions.
Next question from Sam Damiani from TD Securities. Please go ahead, sir.
Thanks. Good afternoon, everybody. Maybe just to follow along on the topic of the question, I think it was mentioned. It's a bit different than it was 15 years ago, but if you had to sort of economic year and compare it to what we saw in 2009, I mean, what would be the main differences as it relates to SmartCentres?
Jeez. I mean, our locations are more mature. We're surrounded by each of our vendors. We owned and existed. There's a lot of electric options. And still growing. I liked our positioning. I liked our positioning then, frankly.
Go to when people want to feel that they're being anything but. We're a go-to. Now they're on the majority of our list. I know that you're asking. We like our positioning now.
Brought as it relates to consider to reject? How would you sort of call it on a relative basis from 15 years ago? How much more insulated is the business from impacts, would you say?
In general, e nclosed fashion for fashion discretionary purchases in closed malls and v alue-oriented . Less retail per capita now than there would have been in 2009. I think we were somewhere in the 15 sq ft per capita, 12.5 or something like that. I think the industry for all kinds of reasons is okay in 2009. Like our positioning with Walmart and the value-oriented . I do think everyone's better off.
The industry is better off now than it was in 2009.
Those are helpful points. Thank you. The other question I had is just on the HBC spaces, thinking of the traditional large department store spaces that some of them. How do you think that will divert retailer attention away from pursuing newly constructed stores? Are you seeing the Walmarts and the Canadian Tires?
I mean, I don't want to be so absolute, but I would just say no. I think they're in most of the, a lot of them are in markets that they're not in, the majority of those retailers you named. So they were just entering. I don't know how much of that's going to actually happen. This is not a case of Target leaving and putting a huge amount of vacancy on the market or something like that.
This is very, a lot of those units are very much unique multi-level urban underground parking, if any. I do not see that, Sam, really being a particular in this particular case.
Thank you. All right. Coming back to the occupancy topic today, given the strength that you have seen in demand, are you envisioning occupancy trending back the next few quarters, maybe narrowing the gap to committed levels, or do you?
I will let Rudy join in a minute, but I think the potential number will be perhaps will be in this year. These have some large vacancies, some of which we have done and we have told you about. We are getting enticed on some of our properties for development, so they may end up maybe turning into retail for. It is not necessarily going to change. Why? Development interest is we have a lot of interest in new builds.
We'll be adding square footage. It will be 40,000-180,000 sq ft at a time because that's what the majority of the new builds are going to be. There'll be quite a bit of that. Yes, that will move occupancy, but slowly, obviously, because we're going to be adding square footage at the same time, but they'll be 100% leased. We do have quite a few things cooking. We feel that the occupancy of this quarter and last quarter, they're not that far apart, are probably where we're going to probably be over the next few quarters and more. Rudy, do you want to add anything?
I'd say it may be a little bit of an immediate future. Like we talked about the Saks OFF 5TH, which will get leased up, but there will be a lease.
If you're looking out to the end of the year, I think it will be an uptick. The amount of new builds from grocers and TJX mostly on. That land within our shopping centers is only going to drive us to or drive tenants' demand, whatever remaining long way to go, given that we're at 98.4% committed. We do see an uptick by the end of the year, yeah. To your comment, the tenant benchmark will be more confident in actually potentially. I just think it's by others to buy, to step up. Yeah, I mean, I think I do think it's I do feel that is a trend. Obviously, on the rent terms. Those deals got done. We liked them. They're in conditional period, so you never know. Anything happening in the market can spook the kind of people that are purchasing these.
Everyone's got their antenna pretty high. These could fall away, but we went this far because we don't think they're going to fall away. We think there's probably better than a 50-50 chance that these people will firm up and close on these transactions. I hope because I don't see a lineup for high density at the moment, but maybe some new density rental potentially at the right price. Maybe this year we'll see a little bit of that.
Can you expect on that project and just maybe in terms of how you underwrite, have you made some provisions or some assumptions on units maybe not closing or just?
We are absolutely analysts. The one is if we don't, if people do call.
With that analysis and that information, we are confidently going forward with the completion of the building because we feel that with the deposits that we could still sell. We sell any of the units and get out and pull. I do not know whether we mentioned this or not. For good reason, we did not do it exactly. It is not really that big a building at the end of the day. If people do come in, we do potentially, most people will close. If they do not, from various points of view. Long enough for you.
Sam, on the first part of your question, I discussed it is 340 units at ArtWalk, 93% pre-sold. The average sales price was a little north of CAD 1,100 a foot. That should give you some color around gross proceeds.
Okay. No, that is all alternative.
Thank you. I wanted you to know, Sammy, as well that. [audio distortion]Because. Okay. Still? Correct. No further questions at this point.
Just before we end the call, I wanted to let you know that we will be hosting our AGM next week, Thursday the 14th. We hope to reach back to any of us during the quarter. Thanks.
Q1 2025 conference call. Thank you for your participation. Have a nice.