First Industrial Realty Trust, Inc. (FR)
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Earnings Call: Q3 2016

Oct 28, 2016

Operator

Good morning. My name is Nicole, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the First Industrial third quarter results call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question at that time, simply press star and the number one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw the question, press the pound key. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Art Harmon, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Art Harmon
VP of Investor Relations, First Industrial Realty Trust

Thanks, Nicole. Hello, everyone, and welcome to our call. Before we discuss our third quarter 2016 results, let me remind everyone that our call may include forward-looking statements as defined by federal securities laws. These statements are based on management's expectations, plans, and estimates of our prospects. Today's statements may be time-sensitive and accurate only as of today's date, Friday, October 28, 2016. We assume no obligation to update our statements or the other information we provide. Actual results may differ materially from our forward-looking statements, and factors which could cause this are described in our 10-K and other SEC filings. You can find a reconciliation of non-GAAP financial measures discussed in today's call in our supplemental report and our earnings release. The supplemental report, earnings release, and our SEC filings are available at firstindustrial.com under the Investors tab.

Our call will begin with remarks by Bruce Duncan, our Chairman and CEO, our President, Peter Baccile, and Scott Musil, our CFO, after which we will open it up for your questions. Also on the call today are Jojo Yap, our Chief Investment Officer, Peter Schultz, Executive Vice President, Chris Schneider, Senior Vice President of Operations, and Bob Walter, Senior Vice President of Capital Markets and Asset Management. Now, let me turn the call over to Bruce.

Bruce Duncan
Chairman and CEO, First Industrial Realty Trust

Thanks, Art. Thanks to everyone for joining us today. As Art noted, we have members of our management team assembled today for this call, including one new addition, Peter Baccile. Peter, welcome. As you know, Peter will be taking over the reins as CEO on December 1st, and we are very pleased to have him on board, and I will ask him to offer a few comments before we get into the business of the quarter and the state of the industrial real estate market.

Peter Baccile
President, First Industrial Realty Trust

Thanks so much, Bruce. I'm honored and humbled to be chosen to lead First Industrial and build upon the accomplishments and track record that Bruce and the team have achieved. Bruce will leave some big shoes to fill, but he's also assembled a talented team of hardworking and dedicated people. He has orchestrated a significant enhancement to the assets of this company since he took the helm in 2009, and he and the team have worked diligently to reestablish a strong balance sheet and investment-grade credit rating. I look forward to working with the team to continue to grow our presence in our target markets, further enhance the portfolio, and maintain a balance sheet and credit profile that will outperform through the cycle.

Since I joined the company on September 29th, I've spent the vast majority of my time on the road, seeing our assets and meeting with and getting to know our people. I'm about halfway through my scheduled travel, and in every market, I've been impressed with the First Industrial team. I thank them for such a warm welcome to the company and all their insightful observations about our assets and the opportunities ahead. I've had the pleasure and the benefit of working with First Industrial for many years as a banking partner and advisor. Having now had the opportunity to see the company from the inside, I'm even more enthusiastic about our prospects and again, humbled to have this opportunity to lead such a first-class organization. Thanks, Bruce.

Bruce Duncan
Chairman and CEO, First Industrial Realty Trust

Thanks, Peter, and as chairman and a shareholder, I very much look forward to your stewardship. Now, back to business. We had a solid third quarter. Our metrics reflect our team's strong performance and the continuing favorable fundamentals within our sector. Cash rental rate growth for the quarter was robust at 11%, and cash rents have now been up 11 consecutive quarters. GAAP rents were up 20.4%, which marked the 19th positive quarter in a row. Cash same-store NOI growth before lease termination fees was 3.5%, and occupancy was 95.4%, which was a dip from last quarter. Scott will walk you through the details in a bit. The industrial market continues to see broad-based demand across industries and markets while supply remains measured. Through the third quarter, CBRE Econometric Advisors is reporting net absorption of 203 million square feet against completions of 132 million.

Against this favorable backdrop, our team is focused on pushing rents and driving cash flow. Given this opportunity, our track record, and the opportunities we continue to see in the marketplace to create value through development, we started three new projects in the third quarter that we touched on in our second quarter call. At First Park 94 in Chicago, we started our second building, a 602,000 square footer that is expandable to 700,000 square feet. This follows the successful lease-up of our initial 601,000 square footer at this multi-building park. Estimated investment is $29.9 million with a targeted GAAP yield of 8%. As a reminder, we define GAAP yield as first year's cash NOI divided by the GAAP basis at the property at completion.

In Phoenix, we started a 618,000 sq ft facility at First Park @ PV 303, with an expected investment of $32.8 million and an estimated GAAP yield of 7.7%. We are also adding to our portfolio in Southern California, our largest market, with the start of the First San Michele 215 Logistics Center in Riverside. This 243,000 sq ft distribution center has an estimated investment of $17.8 million and an estimated GAAP yield of 6%. At the end of the third quarter, we had six projects under construction totaling 2.5 million sq ft, with a total estimated investment of $157.8 million. They are currently 19% leased with a weighted average estimated GAAP yield of 7.2%. We also had two projects completed but not placed in service. First Park Tolleson in Phoenix and First Arlington Commerce Center 2 in Dallas.

These two 620,000 sq ft were 50% leased at quarter end. They have a combined estimated investment of $35.9 million with an estimated GAAP yield of 7.7%. Here in the fourth quarter, we recently signed a full building lease for 234,000 sq ft at First Arlington 2. Today, with First Park Tolleson at 81% leased, we have just 74,000 sq ft available at these completed developments. I refer you to page 20 of our supplemental for details on our developments. Up next in our pipeline is The Ranch by First Industrial, which we plan to start by the first quarter of 2017. Recall that this $86.5 million six-building, 936,000 sq ft park is located in the Chino East Hills market of the Inland Empire.

We love this sub-market of Southern California due to strong demand and a vacancy rate of just 1% at the end of the third quarter. Moving to acquisitions. The heavy competition for quality assets continues. However, we were successful in acquiring two buildings in the third quarter and another in the fourth quarter to date. As discussed last time, we acquired a 99,000 sq ft building in San Diego that is 100% leased for $11.9 million. Our initial GAAP yield is 6.1%. We also acquired a recently completed 121,000 sq ft vacant development in the I-55 sub-market of Chicago for $9 million. Our team's job there is to add value through lease up, and our expected GAAP yield is 6.5%. In the fourth quarter to date, we acquired a 63,000 sq ft building in the Doral sub-market of Miami, in close proximity to the Miami International Airport.

We like this asset due to its infill location in a very tight market. We paid $8.4 million for this building and our GAAP yield is 7.4%. We also added a development site in Dallas during the third quarter for $3 million. This site can accommodate a 420,000 sq ft single or multi-tenant building. On the disposition side of our portfolio management efforts, we had a very active quarter. We sold 19 buildings totaling 653,000 sq ft for $38.5 million. These had a weighted average in-place cap rate of 6.3% and a stabilized cap rate of 7.5%. This brings our year-to-date sales total to $139 million. On our way to our $150 million-$200 million goal for the year. We are working hard toward a strong finish to 2016 as we continue our focus on capturing opportunities to drive long-term cash flow.

With that, let me turn it over to Scott to walk you through some more details on the quarter and our guidance. Scott?

Scott Musil
CFO, First Industrial Realty Trust

Thanks, Bruce. Let me start with the overall results for the quarter. EPS for the quarter was $0.27 versus $0.13 one year ago. Funds from operations were $0.37 per fully diluted share, compared to $0.35 per share in 3Q 2015. Funds from operations before one-time items, namely our acquisition costs in 3Q 2016 and 2015, as well as our gain on sale of non-depreciable real estate in 3Q 2015, were unchanged. As Bruce noted, we finished the quarter with occupancy at 95.4%, down 40 basis points from the second quarter and down 10 basis points year-over-year. Sales helped occupancy by 15 basis points since June 30th. Regarding leasing volume in the third quarter, we commenced approximately 3 million square feet of long-term leases. Of these, 638,000 square feet were new, 1.4 million were renewals, and 934,000 square feet were developments and not-in-service acquisitions.

Tenant retention by square footage was 63.4%. same-store NOI growth on a cash basis, excluding termination fees, was 3.5%, primarily reflected in-place rental rate bumps, rental rate growth on leasing, and a decrease in free rent. This was partly offset by lower average occupancy. Lease termination fees totaled $11,000 in the quarter, and cash same-store NOI growth, including termination fees, was 3.4%. For the quarter, cash rental rates were up 11% overall, with renewals coming in at 8% and new leasing at 17.3%. On a GAAP basis, overall rental rates were up 20.4%, with renewals increasing 17.4% and new leasing up 26.6%. Moving on to our balance sheet metrics. At the end of 3Q, our net debt plus preferred stock to EBITDA is 5.5 times. Adjusting EBITDA by normalizing G&A and excluding acquisition costs, and adjusting debt by adding back loan fees.

This is below the low end of our target range of 6 to 7 times. At September 30th, the weighted average maturity of our unsecured notes, term loans and secured financings is 4.2 years, with a weighted average interest rate of 5%. These figures exclude our credit facility. Our credit line balance today is $204 million, and our cash position is approximately $13 million. Now reviewing our 2016 guidance per our press release last evening. Our NAREIT FFO guidance is now $1.42 to $1.46 per share. Excluding acquisition costs associated with our investment activity, our FFO guidance is $1.43 to $1.47 per share, which is a reduction of $0.01 compared to the midpoint of guidance we discussed in our second quarter call, and a tightening of the range.

The reduction in the midpoint of the guidance is primarily related to an increase to our projected performance-based incentive compensation costs, as well as incremental compensation related to our CEO hire. The key assumptions for guidance are as follows. Average in-service occupancy of 95.25%-95.75% based on quarter-end results, reflecting a narrowing of the range. Cash same-store NOI growth for the fourth quarter of 2.5%-4%. This implies a quarterly average same-store NOI range for the full year 2016 of approximately 5.5%-5.9%. This represents a midpoint of 5.7% compared to the midpoint of 5% in our second quarter results release. Our G&A guidance range is now $26.5 million-$27.5 million, an increase of $1.5 million at the midpoint related to the projected incentive compensation and incremental CEO compensation that I just discussed.

As a reminder, our prior G&A guidance did not reflect the impact related to the compensation of our new CEO. Note that guidance includes the costs related to our developments under construction at September 30th. In total, for the full year 2016, we expect to capitalize about $0.03 per share of interest related to our development projects. Guidance also includes the impact from the acquisition we made in the fourth quarter to date. Our guidance does not reflect the impact of any future sales, nor any acquisitions or developments other than those we discussed, nor the impact of any future debt issuances, debt repurchases, or repayments. Guidance also excludes any future NAREIT-compliant gains or losses, or the impact of impairments, nor the potential issuance of equity. With that, let me turn it back over to Bruce.

Bruce Duncan
Chairman and CEO, First Industrial Realty Trust

Thanks, Scott. The industrial marketplace continues to be strong, enjoying broad-based demand helped by the secular tailwind of e-commerce. We will continue to capture the opportunity to serve this tenant demand throughout our portfolio and through targeted new developments and acquisitions. Since this will be my last earnings call, I'd like to take a few moments to publicly thank my teammates around the country. Together, we have accomplished many great things, and I know there are many more to come, because as I always say, there is work to be done. We have the team here at FR that gets it done. I didn't join First Industrial expecting to be doing this nearly eight years later, but it has truly been a great ride and great fun working together with all of you. I am excited about what lies ahead for our company.

You are in very capable hands with Peter and the leadership team. I would also like to thank our customers for the opportunities to serve your supply chain needs. We will continue to strive to provide you industry-leading service and the right properties to support your business objectives. Thanks also to all of our financial and business partners for your past and continuing support. We appreciate it very much. I also thank all of you analysts on the sell side who have followed our transformation over the years. While we may not have always seen eye to eye on every matter, as I have often said, great minds can differ. I've greatly appreciated your efforts to get to know our business and our team. Although, I must admit that I might not miss the Q&A session of the calls during my retirement.

I know Peter and the team embrace it. Lastly, I would like to thank our shareholders for your confidence and your investment in us. We will keep working hard for you to drive cash flow and shareholder value. Thank you. Now, we will open it up for your questions. As a courtesy to other callers, we ask that you limit your questions to one, plus a follow-up, in order to give the other participants a chance to get their questions answered. You are, of course, welcome to get back into the queue. Nicole, may we open it up for questions?

Operator

Certainly. As a reminder, in order to ask an audio question, you may do so by pressing star one. Your first question comes from the line of Craig Mailman with KeyBanc Capital Markets.

Craig Mailman
Analyst, KeyBanc Capital Markets

Thanks, guys. Just want to congratulate you, Bruce. Well-deserved retirement here. You've done a great job over your tenure. It's not often that you hear a thanks to the sell side, much appreciated.

Bruce Duncan
Chairman and CEO, First Industrial Realty Trust

You're welcome. I appreciate all your work and help. Thank you.

Craig Mailman
Analyst, KeyBanc Capital Markets

First starting out on Phoenix, you guys have a little bit more work to do in Tolleson, you guys started a new development. One of your peers seems to be seeing a little bit of softness in demand in this market. Curious if you guys are seeing anything similar to that.

Bruce Duncan
Chairman and CEO, First Industrial Realty Trust

Sure. Let me ask Jojo to answer that.

Jojo Yap
Chief Investment Officer, First Industrial Realty Trust

Yes. Hi. In Phoenix, net absorption continues. Our vacancy that you referred to, we actually created a vacancy. One of the major influence of the current 88% occupancy was a vacancy we created as we grew a tenant from 79,000 sq ft to 170,000 sq ft. Nevertheless, that really got us out of the chute on First Park Tolleson at 81% pre-lease. There's still a job for us to do in terms of leasing that space that was vacated, that functional space. We like that space. It's competitive in the marketplace. We have another space, that's 74,000 sq ft at First Park Tolleson that remains to be leased. Overall, we continue to get good prospect activity for both of those spaces, Craig, our job is to get that done, we'll let you know as soon as we get those leased.

In terms of the 618,000 sq ft at First Park @ PV 303 that you mentioned, we're very excited about that project. Once we're done with that, we would be the highest quality building in that size range because of a number of things. Clear height, loading, freeway frontage that's just less than a mile from the junction of I-10 and 303, the new beltway, it's right between two interchanges, which is Camelback Road and Indian School Road. We're very excited about that project. There are already some bigger tenants in the marketplace looking for a space. That would be done next year, we'll report back to you when we get it leased.

Craig Mailman
Analyst, KeyBanc Capital Markets

That's helpful. If you compare it to six to 12 months ago, you're not seeing any kind of changing demand dynamics in the market?

Jojo Yap
Chief Investment Officer, First Industrial Realty Trust

Craig, no. No, we have not seen. In fact, if you look at the last nine months, I would say most of the large parcels have been consumed or tenanted.

Craig Mailman
Analyst, KeyBanc Capital Markets

All right. Great. Thank you.

Jojo Yap
Chief Investment Officer, First Industrial Realty Trust

Thank you.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of John Guinee with Stifel.

John Guinee
Analyst, Stifel

Great. Peter, welcome aboard.

Peter Baccile
President, First Industrial Realty Trust

Thanks, John.

John Guinee
Analyst, Stifel

Big shoes to fill. Tell us a little bit about yourself, what your background is, where you're going to be living, all that sort of thing.

Peter Baccile
President, First Industrial Realty Trust

Sure. I have an apartment here in Chicago, so I'll be living here for the most part. Look, I've been a banker, obviously, for 30 years. I started out at Morgan and spent 26 years there. I had the opportunity over my career to work in this industry from the days when the market cap in REIT land was about $5 billion. Obviously, a lot has happened between then and now. I've been involved in a lot of the consolidation that's happened in the space over the years, as well as the creation of new markets like the CMBS market, as well as bringing what I would call corporate finance to real estate companies, getting investment-grade ratings, et cetera.

I've had a lot of opportunity as well to work with a lot of the leaders of our businesses before they were leaders of our businesses in this industry. I've had management opportunities over the years. For the last 15 years or so, I've had the good fortune to be a global head of a couple of different businesses. I'm looking forward to this challenge. We have a great team here. It's a super opportunity for me, and the future looks bright. Thanks.

John Guinee
Analyst, Stifel

Great. Thank you.

Operator

As a reminder, in order to ask an audio question, please press star one. Your next question comes from the line of Dave Rodgers with Robert W. Baird.

Dave Rodgers
Analyst, Robert W. Baird

Hey, Bruce. Congratulations, Peter. Welcome. Bruce, we'll leave value to the historians, but I think you-

Bruce Duncan
Chairman and CEO, First Industrial Realty Trust

I like that, value to the historians, John. I'm glad you're not being rude.

Dave Rodgers
Analyst, Robert W. Baird

We weren't ready for that question, though. I don't even know what you prepared as an answer, but I'll leave it with that.

Bruce Duncan
Chairman and CEO, First Industrial Realty Trust

You don't want to know.

Dave Rodgers
Analyst, Robert W. Baird

I don't know if this one will go to Jojo or Bruce, to you. Clearly saw a little bit of a retention decline here in the most recent quarter, occupancy decline. Kind of wanted to know the strategy that you've pushed, because clearly we've seen a lot of rent growth. The spreads were extremely healthy. I guess is that the strategy is to continue to push rents, or have you kind of hit the point where it's time to maybe moderate the pushing of rents to kind of maintain the occupancy level? Just thoughts around that, please.

Bruce Duncan
Chairman and CEO, First Industrial Realty Trust

Our thought is, number 1, we'd like to have both. We'd like to have both great rental rate growth and increased occupancy. Again, we are pushing rents. We had a dip in the quarter. I would say as we look around the country, we feel very bullish about supply-demand. We feel very bullish about the opportunity to continue to push rates as well as increase occupancy. This is a temporary dip, and hopefully we'll continue to show some growth. Peter, you want to just comment on a couple of the vacancies?

Peter Schultz
EVP, First Industrial Realty Trust

Sure, Dave. The major part of the decline in retention really happened in central Pennsylvania, where we had a handful of tenants move out, the largest of which is 178,000 sq ft. As Bruce said, in this environment, we continue to feel good about overall demand and continue to focus on pushing both rents and occupancy.

Dave Rodgers
Analyst, Robert W. Baird

Great. That's helpful. Then maybe a follow-up to that on the development side of the equation. Jojo, I think I calculated something like $235 million of capital at risk if you start the Ranch, but maybe you can correct me if I'm not right. Also maybe provide the updated denominator to that overall. Then I guess, just more broadly with development, you have a number of vacancies in there. What size tenant are you seeing activity on in the development pipeline, and what are you really going after with the buildings that you're building today?

Jojo Yap
Chief Investment Officer, First Industrial Realty Trust

Oh, sure. Okay. In terms of the $325 million internal revolving cap that we've set, we have $68.4 million in capacity. Okay. I just want to make sure everybody understands. That includes the most recent lease that we did in Dallas for our Arlington Commerce Center, but that also includes the acquisition of the vacant property in Chicago, the 121,000 sq ft in the large sub-market of the I-55 corridor in Chicago, and that includes the to-be-built Ranch. To your next question of what we're trying to build, as you can see, we are building what we feel really fits the market and where we think the fundamentals are greatest. Case in point, example, Dallas. We have built a multi-tenant product right in the middle of Great Southwest, where in the mid-size tenant is clearly underserved.

We're very pleased to be able to announce that we have a full building lease for that 234,000 sq ft. In addition, another example, we've targeted, for example, Inland Empire East at the mid-size tenants underserved as well. As you know, we built 187,000 sq ft, First San Michele. We got that lease at completion. Now we're basically building a 242,000 sq ft a little bit north of that. Overall, all our buildings are very functional in the sense that it gets good clear, good access. That's a minimum. Good loading and good storage, trailer storage, and parking. Again, it really fits a multitude of tenants because the demand from industrial real estate right now is broad-based, not only e-commerce.

It comes from auto, it comes from food, it comes from 3PLs, and of course, the migration of retailers to omni-channel to be included in there, too. Hope that answers your question.

Dave Rodgers
Analyst, Robert W. Baird

It does. Thanks, guys.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Eric Frankel with Green Street Advisors.

Eric Frankel
Analyst, Green Street Advisors

Thank you very much. First, Bruce, congratulations on obviously a phenomenal tenure at First Industrial. I can only hope to retire twice like you, though. Peter, welcome aboard, and look forward to getting to know you better. My primary questions are, 1, I think you obviously outlaid how solid demand has been this year relative to supply. We have seen some pipelines pick up in a few couple different markets. I was hoping someone can comment on that, specifically some of the larger markets with larger populations such as Chicago and Atlanta.

Bruce Duncan
Chairman and CEO, First Industrial Realty Trust

Sure. Jojo, you want to take that?

Jojo Yap
Chief Investment Officer, First Industrial Realty Trust

Sure. Eric, yes, there is a supply pickup, but at the same time, again, the demand continues to significantly exceed the supply. For example, CBRE EA, just for Atlanta, you're looking at year-to-date, 16 million square feet of net absorption. That, of course, that doesn't include the last quarter. If you look at 2015, that already exceeded 2015. In 2015, Atlanta had about 14.8 million square feet of net absorption. Chicago, year-to-date, 16 million square feet Year-to-date. Last year, Chicago brought in 18 million. It's on track again to exceed last year's net absorption. Finally, you mentioned maybe Dallas. Dallas, a year-to-date absorption, 20.7 million square feet. Last year's net absorption is 23.4. It's on track to match or exceed last year's absorption.

Anyway, what I wanted to paint you is the picture wherein this year has been a good year and may exceed last year. Supply has picked up, but demand continues to outstrip supply.

Eric Frankel
Analyst, Green Street Advisors

Is there any concern that this is some sort of one-time surge related to demand and, or there's developers that are building, that they're trying to forecast something that may not be there, though? I'd just like to maybe understand better if there is a solid list of prospects that are kind of known that can fill up that space and then have a better understanding of how that might impact the market rent growth fundamentals.

Jojo Yap
Chief Investment Officer, First Industrial Realty Trust

Sure, Eric. Overall, again, the product that's being built, again, and overall and across markets being leased. Again, basically, primarily you have to focus on some product. Some product may be at equilibrium, but most product, especially the mid-sized tenants, is still underserved.

Peter Schultz
EVP, First Industrial Realty Trust

Eric, it's I'm sorry, Jojo. Eric, it's Peter. I would just add to what Jojo said. The best news is that demand continues to be very good and broad-based across a number of different industries and size ranges. Everybody talks about e-commerce, but it's not just e-commerce. As we said, we're seeing a lot of activity from the third-party logistics providers, the parcel carriers, auto, food and beverage, a number of different verticals. There's certainly more supply, but there's also been some discipline about the supply. If you look at most of the markets, as Jojo said, demand continues to exceed supply. We're seeing record absorption in just about every market. Overall, I think that there are always a lot of tenants in the market. We discount some of that. You never know if it's duplicative.

I think the best thing is that most of the activity that we're seeing continues to be growth and additive. It's not just moving from a lateral move from one building to another. Almost all the deals we're seeing today, particularly in our development pipeline, are real growth.

Bruce Duncan
Chairman and CEO, First Industrial Realty Trust

Eric, just when you look at things, we underwrite like a year's downtime. If you look at what we've been able to accomplish, we've been able to lease these up quicker than that. We continue to be very encouraged by the strength of the demand in the marketplace across all regions, basically.

Eric Frankel
Analyst, Green Street Advisors

Very helpful, color, I appreciate that. Just one quick follow-up. Looking at your development summary, in the First Park 94 in Wisconsin. Congrats on getting the first building lease. I did notice that the second building seems comparable in size and presumably functionality to the first, yet the construction cost on a per-square-foot basis is roughly 8% higher. Can you comment on construction cost trends or whether there are some other costs thrown into the second building that's different than the first?

Jojo Yap
Chief Investment Officer, First Industrial Realty Trust

Sure. Yes. Just overall, it's the cost of the added infrastructure we added to the site and an inflationary increase in basically building materials and labor.

Eric Frankel
Analyst, Green Street Advisors

Could you provide a rough breakdown what that inflationary pressure is?

Jojo Yap
Chief Investment Officer, First Industrial Realty Trust

Yes, about 4%.

Eric Frankel
Analyst, Green Street Advisors

4%. Okay

Jojo Yap
Chief Investment Officer, First Industrial Realty Trust

Half on the additional infrastructure because again, our basis in that site is very low, and it's a first-class facility, as you know. We just added a little bit on the infrastructure. We like the site, and we're seeing good activity there. We're encouraged, but again, as we always say, it's on us to get this up built on time, on budget, and get it leased.

Eric Frankel
Analyst, Green Street Advisors

Absolutely. No, that's obviously That project seems like it's on a good path. Thanks. We'll jump back in the queue.

Bruce Duncan
Chairman and CEO, First Industrial Realty Trust

Okay. Thanks, Eric.

Operator

To ask an audio question, please press star one. Your next question comes from the line of Ki Bin Kim with SunTrust.

Ki Bin Kim
Analyst, SunTrust

Thank you. Bruce, congratulations, and it's been an amazing ride with FR. Peter, welcome. Just a couple of quick questions. If I look at your guidance and what it implies about the fourth quarter, it's not much of a material change from where you ended the third quarter. If I typically look at a lot of the industrial, small seasonality, if the fourth quarter is a little bit better. Just curious, what are you seeing for the couple of vacancies that you have? Is the fourth quarter this year going to be a little bit different than what we've seen in the past?

Bruce Duncan
Chairman and CEO, First Industrial Realty Trust

In terms of vacancies, in terms of coming up, we've got the stuff in Central P.A., which we're doing some backfilling.

Peter Schultz
EVP, First Industrial Realty Trust

Ki Bin, no large vacancies that we see coming up in the fourth quarter. It's just we've got work to do to backfill some of these vacancies. On the retention, Peter had mentioned earlier, we had 250,000 sq ft of move-outs in Central P.A., so work from that standpoint. No large vacancies coming up in the fourth quarter.

Bruce Duncan
Chairman and CEO, First Industrial Realty Trust

Ki Bin, when you look at our guidance for, if you figure it out with the fourth quarter with the guidance we have for 2016, it's mid-points ±96%. It's showing a little bit of growth there compared to where we ended in the third quarter.

Ki Bin Kim
Analyst, SunTrust

I know it's probably pretty early, but how's the prospect list look like for some of your bigger vacancies?

Peter Schultz
EVP, First Industrial Realty Trust

Ki Bin, it's Peter. I would say our larger vacancies around the country continue to be in Minneapolis, as we've talked about on some prior calls in the northwest quadrant where demand there has been a little bit weaker than supply. We did do some seasonal leasing with the post office in that building, which contributed to a pickup in occupancy in the third, and will be in place for the fourth quarter as well. We have our acquisition that we did last year in the I-95 north corridor, north of Baltimore. That's 348,000 sq ft. That will be in service in the fourth quarter and is in our numbers. That's a building that we have nothing to report on today. Good activity in that sub-market where there's been some absorption, both in a larger building, in a smaller building.

We have some work to do there, as we acknowledge. The comments I made about Pennsylvania and the third quarter move out to the largest space was 178,000 sq ft. We'll certainly keep everybody posted on our next call on our progress there.

Ki Bin Kim
Analyst, SunTrust

Okay. Just a last quick one here. The new development project in Phoenix, the 600,000 sq ft property. From what I understand, and I might be wrong here, is that maybe Phoenix is not the big box healthy market that perhaps it once used to be. Maybe some of the early occupiers of bigger space had more of a tax incentive to be there versus California. Maybe that demand profile changes going forward. Just curious, what was the investment rationale for building a big box space in Phoenix?

Jojo Yap
Chief Investment Officer, First Industrial Realty Trust

Sure. Ki Bin, this is Jojo. If you look at the last nine months, there has been quite a bit of good absorption in the large box activity in Phoenix. When I define as large box, 300,000-600,000 sq ft. In fact, if you are a user of over 400,000 sq ft today and wanted to find a class A building, you're virtually out of choices. This building that we've designed, we've provided the ability to, in addition to being the highest quality 600,000-625,000 sq ft when it's done, we have the ability to actually demise it to four spaces. We have provided four points of access, we can actually provide even secured truck courts at each of every tenant. It is a very functional building, hopefully you'll get a chance to see it.

We're very excited we're going to be able to offer this building to multiple tenants or a single tenant. Again, our job is to get it leased, and we're making a bet. We think it's a high-quality location and, our job is to get it leased, Ki Bin.

Bruce Duncan
Chairman and CEO, First Industrial Realty Trust

Ki Bin, we're very excited about that. We think the location's great. To Jojo's point about the functionality of the building, we think this is going to be a great building. It's all on us to get it leased and be pro forma, and we're all over it. We'll report back.

Ki Bin Kim
Analyst, SunTrust

Okay. See you guys soon.

Jojo Yap
Chief Investment Officer, First Industrial Realty Trust

Thank you.

Operator

You now have a follow-up question from Eric Frankel with Green Street Advisors.

Vince Tibone
Analyst, Green Street Advisors

Hi, this is Vince Tibone. Could you discuss your refinancing plans for the roughly $150 million of unsecured notes that are maturing in 2017? Could you also touch on how you think about public versus private debt and the length of term that would be best at this time?

Scott Musil
CFO, First Industrial Realty Trust

Great, Vince. It's Scott. We've got just a summary. We've got about $157 million of bonds coming due on 2017. It's higher cost debt. The weighted average interest rate's about 6.5%. We've got nothing baked into our guidance or capital plan for 2016. What we're thinking more of now is probably an early 2017 execution. Having said that, we constantly look at the financing markets, if we see a pocket in 2016 we want to go, we will. We're looking at a couple of different markets. We're looking at the public bond market. We're looking at the private placement market. We're looking at the bank market. The benefits of the public bond market are going to be size. You can do a really big deal in that market. I would say the benefits of the private placement market are you can do a smaller size deal.

You can do sub-$250 million and not take a hit on rate. You can do a delayed draw on that market as well. The bank market's a good market as well. I'd say the downside on that is you're not going to get the same tenor that you're going to get in the bond market or the private placement market, you're not going to be able to get a 10-year deal in the bank market. We're looking at all three markets at this point in time, we've got a lot of choices, which is a good thing to have.

Jojo Yap
Chief Investment Officer, First Industrial Realty Trust

Our bias will be a longer term.

Vince Tibone
Analyst, Green Street Advisors

Great. Thank you. That's all I have.

Operator

Again, to ask an audio question, please press star one. You have a follow-up question from the line of John Guinee with Stifel.

Aaron Isaacson
Analyst, Stifel

Hi. Yeah, good afternoon. It's Aaron Isaacson. Bruce, congratulations as well from me. Quick question on the continuation of the asset sales. You guys have done a good job of continuing to sell out or reposition your capital out of older assets into new. Do you, I would assume, plan to continue that effort into 2017 and perhaps increase it?

Scott Musil
CFO, First Industrial Realty Trust

Well, asset management is an ongoing process, and I'm sure the team's going to have a lot to report on when they give guidance in terms of on the fourth quarter call in February.

Aaron Isaacson
Analyst, Stifel

Okay, thank you.

Scott Musil
CFO, First Industrial Realty Trust

Thank you.

Operator

We are showing no further audio questions at this time. I would like to hand the conference back to Mr. Bruce Duncan.

Bruce Duncan
Chairman and CEO, First Industrial Realty Trust

Great. Well, thank you very much. We appreciate it, and we look forward to seeing many of you out at NAREIT in Phoenix. Go Cubs. We need to bring it home. Thank you very much.

Peter Baccile
President, First Industrial Realty Trust

Thanks, everybody.

Operator

This does conclude today's conference call. We thank you for your participation and ask that you please disconnect your line.