Good day, everyone, and welcome to today's FRP Holdings, Inc. earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, you will have the opportunity to ask questions during the question-and-answer session. You may register to ask a question at any time by pressing star and one, that's star one on your touchtone phone. You may withdraw yourself from the queue by pressing star two. Please note this call may be recorded. It is now my pleasure to turn the conference over to Chairman and CEO, John D. Baker II.
Welcome to FRP Holdings conference call to review the fourth quarter and year-end results for 2021. I'm John Baker, Chairman and CEO of FRP, and on the line with me today are David deVilliers Jr., our President, John Baker III, our CFO, David deVilliers III, Executive Vice President, John Klopfenstein, our Chief Accounting Officer, and John Milton. Before we begin, let me caution you that any statements made on this call which relate to the future are, by their nature, subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results and events to differ materially from those indicated in such forward-looking statements. These include, but are not limited to, the risks listed from time to time in our SEC filings, including our annual and quarterly reports.
We have no obligation to revise or update any forward-looking statements other than imposed by law as a result of future events or new information. Revenues for the three months ended December 31, 2021 were $8,399,000, up from $5,833,000 in 2020. Operating profit was $259,000 versus $1,555,000 a year ago, and net income was a loss of $592,000 or $0.06 versus a profit of $1,493,000 or $0.16 a year ago. Driving these results were, first, the inclusion of our second mixed-use project in Washington, D.C., The Maren, which was completed and reached stabilization early in the year. This accounts for the Increase in Revenues.
Also attributed to The Maren was $659,000 in expense as the quarterly amortization of the fair value of the leases in place established when we booked this asset as part of the gain on remeasurement upon consolidation of this joint venture early in the year. Also contributing to the higher expense was a charge of $807,000 for a non-refundable deposit of $500,000 dollars and due diligence costs on a potential warehouse property where the acquisition has recently been determined to be considered less than probable. The same quarter last year included a credit of $250,000 for settlement of an environmental claim on our Anacostia property.
Also affecting the quarter was a decrease in interest income of $651 thousand due to bond maturities and the repayment of the preferred loan on The Maren JV upon the building's refinancing. For the full year, net income was $28.215 million or $3 a share. The key items were the $26 million in gain from the remeasurement of the value of The Maren upon reaching stabilization and the $8.24 million of operating profit from our mining royalties. This was offset by the $807 thousand in due diligence and deposit costs mentioned earlier, also by $3.899 million in amortization expense of the value placed on The Maren's leases in place as part of the write-up of that asset upon stabilization.
Now, if I may, I will turn it over to David deVilliers Jr. to walk you through our segment's performance. David?
Thank you, John, and good day to those on the call this afternoon. I'd like to offer a window on our operations today and give some detail to John's opening remarks. Though our business segments are important silos in which to report and analyze the company, operationally, we have some overlap and synergies that can be difficult to follow using our reportable business segments. Allow me to shine a light on the day-to-day at FRP. Basically, we employ a four-pronged approach to our business since 2018 when we liquidated our legacy warehouse portfolio. They would include our in-house, which includes our industrial, commercial, and land development platform. These properties are developed, managed, and owned 100% by FRP.
The second leg of our stool is third-party joint ventures, which, as the name states, are projects done in conjunction with third parties, where FRP is the major owner, but rely on third-party platforms to confirm much of the day-to-day operations. Of course, we have mining and royalties, which has not changed. The fourth leg of our stool is the lending ventures. Where we are the principal capital source for residential land development activities. Relative to our in-house platform, in the third quarter of 2020, we sold a newly constructed and leased 94,000 sq ft building in our Hollander Business Park, realizing a gain of $3.8 million or $40 per sq ft.
Adjacent to that site, in the fourth quarter of 2021, we delivered two speculative warehouses for a total of 145,540 sq ft. One of these buildings, totaling 66,000 sq ft, is now fully leased with occupancy scheduled for the second quarter of this year. Also, in Q3 of 2021, we broke ground on a 101,750 sq ft build to suit warehouse building that will cap off the final building at Hollander Business Park. We expect to complete and provide occupancy to the tenant by year-end.
At the close of the year, Cranberry Business Park, our renovated 268,000 sq ft multi-building warehouse park, was 100% leased and on schedule to be fully operated in this quarter, the first quarter of 2022, up from 87.6% occupied over the same period last year. To continue our pipeline of industrial building pads, we have begun seeking entitlements for the 55-acre tract we purchased in late 2020. We expect this process to be complete later this year and have begun the building design process in the interim to create 675,000 sq ft of warehouse product. Existing land leases for the storage of trailers on site will help to offset our carrying and entitlement costs on this tract of land. We are hopeful we can begin construction here in 2023.
Finally, in September of 2021, we purchased another 17-acre parcel in Perryman Industrial Section of Harford County, Maryland, not too distant from the Cranberry Business Park. We've begun both building design and initial entitlement work on this site, which could support up to 250,000 sq ft of warehouse buildings. Depending on market dynamics, construction on this project could begin as early as Q3 2022. Completion of these two new projects, plus the build-to-suit warehouse currently under construction in Hollander, will add another 1 million sq ft of warehouse product to our industrial in-house platform that when added to the assets in operation at Hollander Business Park and Cranberry Run, will total over 1.4 million sq ft.
Although the NOI for our in-house operations was flat, being $453,000 for Q4 2021 versus $466,000 in Q4 2020, all of the new buildings opened at the end of this past year and what will be coming online in this year should provide a substantial lift for our NOI in 2022. Relative to our mining and royalty, FRP maintains ownership of over 15,000 acres of mining lands under lease to major aggregate companies who pay rent and royalties. When possible, we then convert the mining land to a higher and better use, upon having reached the end of its useful life as an aggregate facility.
Our mining and royalty division saw total revenues for the quarter of $2,267,000 versus $2,383,000 in the same period last year. NOI was $2,137,000, a decrease of 3.7% or $83,000 over the same period last year. This decrease reflects a tenant temporarily shifting operations off our site in Manassas, Virginia, for part of the year. Moving on to our third-party joint ventures. Currently, we maintain relationships and operate both stabilized and development projects with three distinct partners, MRP, Woodfield, and St. John Properties, as well as an investment in a Delaware statutory trust with a group called Capital Square. As of 12/31, our joint venture platform includes eight mixed-use projects in various stages of development and operation.
Four are located in Washington, D.C., with MRP as our joint venture partner. These projects are Dock 79, The Maren, Bryant Street phase I, and Verge. Verge will not be ready until third quarter of this year for any tenants. As of 12/31/2021, 786 of the 1,026 apartments in operation were leased. This is up significantly from 2021 at the beginning of the year because we were at 569 units. We also have two mixed-use projects in Greenville, South Carolina. This is where Woodfield is our development partner. Riverside opened its 200 apartments for lease in August and was 49% occupied at year's end. 408 Jackson will be placed in service in the third quarter of this year.
Two additional projects that make up the balance of our third-party joint venture platform are Hickory Creek with Capital Square and an office retail project with St. John Properties. Hickory Creek's 294 units remained above 95% occupancy for the year, while our joint venture with St. John Properties, that it includes 72,000 sq ft of single-story office and 27,150 sq ft of retail, remained at 46% occupied. To summarize, relative to our third-party joint ventures in mixed-use developments, not counting Capital Square, at Hickory Creek and St. John Properties, we are currently invested in six projects totaling 1,827 apartment units and 127,000 sq ft of retail.
At quarter end, only Dock 79, The Maren, Riverside, and Bryant Street, totaling 1,256 apartments were operating, and 62,000 sq ft of retail tenants were occupying their respective spaces. The remaining apartments and retail spaces will be completed and ready for occupancy over the next 12 months. Net operating income for these assets was $2.1 million for FRP for the fourth quarter of 2021 versus $1.4 million in the fourth quarter of 2020. 2022 should be a very telling story about the growth of our third-party joint ventures program. The last leg of our operating stool is lending ventures. This is a program where we provide working capital toward the entitlement and horizontal development of single-family residential products and ultimately is sold to national home builders.
Our current project in the under development this year is Amber Ridge. Our total commitment for this project is $18.5 million. As with our Hyde Park venture that was concluded and we sold in 2020, this investment includes a charged interest rate and a minimum preferred return of 20%, above which a profit-induced waterfall determines the final split of proceeds. Entitlements at Amber Ridge are complete, land development is underway, and two national home builders are under contract to purchase all 187 lots. As of year-end, 34 lots had been taken down, with $6.3 million returned as of 12/31, of which $1.3 million of that was interest income. As of the end of February, 51 lots had been taken down.
Our current lending structure is also called Presbyterian Homes, which is a new project, a 344-lot, 110-acre development in Aberdeen, Maryland. We plan to provide up to $31.1 million in funding under similar terms to previous projects. Entitlements are underway and are the conditions precedent to settling on the land. No discussion today is complete without a nod to COVID-19. We have touched a few times on the impact COVID has had on FRP and our customers. We have been very fortunate as a company, both in life and business, throughout this global pandemic. FRP has remained a healthy concern that has been able to continue to grow and prosper despite the significant challenges we've all faced.
We know we are not immune to the effects of this terrible global disease, but we are getting very close to normal at FRP with our team back in the office and warm weather on the way. We remain at the ready to assist our tenants navigate these ever-changing waters and continue to grow our portfolio. As a business and a collection of professionals, we stand atop a solid foundation financially that uniquely enables us to both capitalize on opportunities and make hard decisions, sometimes not to perform. It is this mission that has proven to insulate us from much of the troubles others have faced and is rooted and committed and focused on the fundamentals that guide how and where we make and maintain investments. Thank you, and I'll now turn the call back to John.
Thank you, David. We'll now open the floor for any questions that any of you all may have.
Our first question comes from Curtis Jensen with Robotti & Company.
Hey, good afternoon. Can you hear me okay?
Yeah.
Yeah. How you doing, Curtis?
I'm doing fine, thanks. A couple of things. I know you have a note on your operating expenses, including that non-refundable deposit of $500,000. Are deposits of that size kind of a norm for that kind of project you were looking at?
This is David. How are you, Curtis?
Good. Good.
This is a fairly large project. The purchase price on the land is about $7 million, I think $6.5 million. We put the property under contract in early 2020. We weren't gonna buy it until we felt really comfortable, and the study period was extremely long. Part of the way we've gotten through some of these things is putting up deposits. It's been so long. We've been through so many twists and turns. We've decided that, you know, actually, if you think of it as a 10% deposit, 10% of the $6.5 million would be $650,000. It's not completely out of the ordinary.
The $500,000 deposit that went hard was really our hedge against the possibility of something not going well for this raw land piece purchase. We'd rather do it that way and be able to hopefully get to a positive conclusion, but we just aren't there yet.
Is this the 130 acres that is, like, supposed to be warehouse space in Cecil County?
Yes, sir. It could take up to 900,000 sq ft, we believe.
What can you identify the issues, or is it still kind of in negotiation, or is it dead in the water?
No, it's not. It's if you look at a raw land purchase, Curtis, kind of like a great big mosaic. This is a raw piece of land that needs water, sewer, has you know has all sorts of normal issues that we go through. It's just that it's the water situation there, it's a public-private partnership between a private water company and the local town that has the wells. There's only certain ways that the private utility company can charge its ultimate user, and that's regulated by the Public Service Commission. It's just a myriad of steps that you have to go through that it's taking an unusual amount of time, especially during the middle of COVID.
We can't completely say exactly what these costs are because somebody might say something, but until you get it in writing, we don't believe that it's real. We haven't been able to feel completely comfortable to move forward.
Got it.
To answer your question, Curtis, it's still under negotiation. It's not dead.
Okay. All right. Good. On the royalties, I guess the Manassas wrinkle was that's a relatively small property with no minimums. Is that?
It's not a small property, but it does not have a meaningful minimum. You're correct in that, Curtis. The pit is divided up between our property and I think at one time it was two others, but now it's just one other. Based on the mining plan, they you know move between the two property owners. So they should be coming back to our land this year.
You make a good point, Curtis. We would never enter into a lease without a minimum today. This was entered into 50 years ago, and it's just something we've inherited.
Yeah. Do they give you much notice when they're gonna move, you know, do that kind of maneuver in their? Do they give you a little explanation of what their mine plan's gonna be, or they just, you know, one month to the next, they decide they're gonna move their equipment or whatever?
Their mine plan is, for lack of a better term, sort of their business. I don't think the person operating the quarry gives any thought to who owns which land. We don't get any notice until we see their trucks.
Okay. Then I guess on the breakout of the NOI reconciliation, there's a tax allocation with a positive $2.4 million under mining royalties. But then if you look under the segment, you've got an operating profit of $8.2 million, but in the NOI reconciliation, it looks like $8.9 million. I'm trying to figure out what the delta is and which one's closer to cash.
The cash, Curtis, would be the NOI schedule. Of course, you know, NOI excludes overheads, and those are real cash expenses, so keep that in mind. The difference between the $9 million number and the $8.2 million number would be other income. In this particular case, it's a gain on some property sales that we had.
Okay. Let me just see. I think that'll just about do it. I guess last question on stabilized JVs. I couldn't quite tell. Is your retail full for Q4 at the Maren and Dock 79?
Um-
The-
Go ahead, David.
Yeah. The Maren was full. The major tenant moved in in December. Then we have a lease executed for the remaining 24% at Dock, which is about 3,500, around 3,500 feet. The lease is executed, and they're going through the planning and the permitting for that space. That'll probably be opened up sometime this summer. Effectively
It gives you a lot. Okay.
No, effectively, we're 100% leased, but we're not 100% occupied.
Are you allowed to raise rents at this point?
We are now.
Okay. Part of your rent at the retail is point-of-sale %, right?
Yes, sir. Over a certain amount.
Okay. All right. I assume if you got the retail full and assuming we don't cancel the baseball season.
That's not up to us.
with the ability to raise some rents, that's definitely within your control.
Correct.
We need you guys.
Yeah.
Hopefully, the NOI will be up next year if or this year, all else being equal.
We hope so. It's you know, D.C. is an interesting place to do business, especially as it relates to COVID. Obviously, the weather has a lot to do with you know, the success of these restaurants and the baseball. We've already lost two games, apparently, but at least we think that the baseball season is gonna be there. Cautiously optimistic.
All right. Thanks.
Our next question comes from Bill Chen with Rhizome Partners.
Hi, guys.
Hey, Bill.
Hey, Bill.
Hey. I got a bunch of questions like Curtis, so I'll just dive right into there. The first question's on the consolidation. You know, when Dock 79 and Maren stabilize, you guys consolidate and also issue the press release that had disclosed the GAAP gain that reflects the value creation from the development. The question is, when Bryant Street stabilize, which I think will be 2022, maybe you guys differ or 2021, will you consolidate the financials, or would it become a line item as in the equity earnings? The second question would be, would you also disclose the GAAP gain so that the market can understand the value creation from the development?
Bill, hi. It's John Klopfenstein here. The reason that we recorded a gain upon the consolidation of Dock 79 and The Maren is because we had a provision in our joint venture agreement which allowed us to force a sale of the property, basically put us in control of the joint venture, even though we shared other decisions equally. Bryant Street has no such clause because it's an opportunity zone, so we can't sell it anytime soon or don't prefer to sell it anytime soon. At this time, we don't anticipate consolidating Bryant Street, and there will be no gain to record on the change in that status.
I would think.
Got you.
Bill, in answer to your second part of your question, that while we wouldn't attribute a value to it, we would be very clear what the NOI was.
Yeah.
for the project.
Sure. Certainly.
Yeah. We do what we can to make it easy for shareholders to determine the value of the stabilized asset.
Got you. Well, I mean, we certainly appreciate that very much. Then I guess just to confirm, if my memory serves me correctly, I think we're at 60% of the interest. Is it that with the allocation to the JV partner that falls below 50, and then we don't consolidate that? Is that the main reason?
Why we're not consolidating Bryant Street? Is that the question?
Yeah.
It's primarily because we share all decisions equally. In other words, we cannot-
Okay.
We cannot force any sort of transaction or any other major event without agreement with our partner.
What is our % actually?
Our percent is about 61%.
61%. Okay. Yeah. I mean, I just. I'm looking at Dock 79 and The Maren, and I traditionally have seen about ten. You know, I think with Dock 79, it went from 80 - 66, if I remember correctly. Then for The Maren, it went from 80 - 71. Somewhere between a 9%-14% drop-off in ownership, you know, if you start at 61. I'm just trying to do the math of where we wind up at. I'm just kind of guessing based on you know the economics on Dock 79 and The Maren.
David, do you have any comments on when the waterfall for Bryant Street occurs?
Go ahead, David.
No, we've changed them around. I think the waterfall doesn't happen until the end of the OZ period.
The end of the OZ, the Opportunity Zone period?
Yeah. If for some reason it fell down below 50%, we have the right to take it back up over 50.
Okay. Got you. That's all. Does that mean that we get, as long as we hold that property, we get 60% of the distribution, which that would be different than Dock 79 and the Maren?
Well, I don't know why it would be different, Bill. We get the distributions based on whatever the ownership interest is at the time.
You know, I'm just saying. You're saying, or maybe I'm understanding the end of the Opportunity Zone period because I'm generally thinking ten years out. Maybe you meant
Yeah
Something different. Okay. We would have 60% ownership until the end of the 10-year period for the Opportunity Zone?
Yes, until the crystallization would happen, which, then correct, we would get what we started out with until something like that happened.
The difference between the two, Bill, in this case, would be that the waterfall for Dock 79 and The Maren was based on a, you know, just coming up with a value for the building, whereas this will be a traditional waterfall based on, you know, sale proceeds.
Got you. That's 10 years out. Okay. Got you.
Yeah.
No, that's actually yeah.
Monetization. The sale being monetization, you know, having a refi.
Okay. Got you. No, that's. I'm actually glad I asked that question because that's a little bit better than I anticipated. I'm looking forward to stabilizing Bryant Street. The second question is on the Greenville.
Yeah.
You know, all the publicly traded Sun Belt multifamily REITs have reported double-digit rent growth. Are you seeing similar results in the Greenville projects?
Well, we have two of them, as you know, Bill. One of them is Riverside. I will say this, that it opened up in August, and
Mm-hmm
I think it was, at least as of last week, it was 73% leased and 60-some% occupied, and we have not offered any discount off the face rent.
Wow. Okay.
Of course, .408 Jackson doesn't even come into play until the summer, but it's been very, very strong.
Got you. Yeah, no, we're just seeing it on the Sun Belt multifamily just been absolutely on fire. Could you guys go back to my previous question on Bryant Street. You guys disclose a leasing and occupancy figure as of the year-end 2021. Can you disclose what that number is as of end of February?
I don't think we have those numbers in front of us, Bill, so I don't think we wanna talk about them off the top of our heads.
Yeah.
Okay. Let me see. My next question. Well, okay, thank you for that. My next question is on the renewal at Dock 79, The Maren. They're in the mid- to high 60s renewal rate, which is about 10%-15% higher than normal, if I remember correctly.
Yeah.
What do you think existing rent is? I mean, like, how much is that below market? The way I'm reading it is that people are wanting to stay because they're getting a, you know, a good deal.
Well, I think they're getting the deal that they had before, you know?
Mm-hmm.
You know, couple things. I mean, obviously, COVID has wreaked havoc down there as far as apartments moving out, moving in, you know, holding rents. Everything you can think of that benefits the tenant, it was there. The fact that they renewed at a certain particular rate, that didn't change, you could argue, you know, both sides of that fence, right? That they were paying above market rate before, but they were still willing to pay it again or vice versa, that they felt that it was low, and they wanted to stay. It's tough to draw any real conclusions with what's happening with renewals just by virtue of having to deal with the regulations that D.C. imposed on the landlords.
Yeah. I mean, one thing to bear in mind, Bill, is that, you know, you can't raise rents on renewals. You know, 55, 60, 65% renew, that's still 35% of renewals that are moving out and, you know, the people that replace them are paying market rates. You know, I don't know what % of our tenants are paying, you know, the exact same rent that they were paying on, you know, March first, 2020, but I wouldn't bet it's a huge portion. It's just you prefer to keep your tenants in the building because it's less expensive to go out and find a new tenant.
Any answer we give you would be pure speculation.
Sure.
It's a very important question, and we are focused on seeing what we can do as far as raising rates now that we've got the ability to do it. I think you're aware of this, Bill, but our leasing agents literally change the price daily.
Based on supply and demand. Once we get a trend, which surely should be by the next quarter, we'll have a good feel and can answer your question without just popping something off the top of our head.
Mm-hmm. You know, I appreciate that. On to next question. On their spec building, I'm seeing based on the reports that I see, I'm seeing market rent for that type of product in the mid-$67 range. Is that in line with what you guys are seeing for the two spec buildings?
Pretty much, yes. I mean, obviously, it depends on, you know, you kind of have to look a little bit closer underneath of the tent, but a lot of times it has to do with what the tenant improvements are that determines what the rents are. Those rents don't sound too far off.
Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Let's see. On the phase three and phase four for the waterfront, now that we have inflation, we have cost inflation, labor shortages, any thoughts on what it would cost today to kind of recreate. Like, if you were gonna build something like the Maren on phase III, like what % higher would it cost to build phase III today?
Hard to say, Bill. Like John said, it's just purely speculative. I mean, the rates are going to go up and down. We've seen. Actually, it's interesting. We saw steel go down for the first time in a while on a warehouse project we were doing. Actually went backwards. So it would certainly be higher. We're seeing, to take a number, it could be anywhere from 10%-15% more. It depends on when you do it and what you build. You know, there's a lot of pieces that go into the cost. You know, how big are the apartments, you know, at what kind of medium income apartment % you have to put.
I mean, there's a lot of pieces that go into making up the total project to see whether it's economically feasible or not.
Do we need to build a set-aside portion towards affordable for phase three and phase four?
The zoning commission will require it. It's called inclusionary zoning. You'd have that up in New York.
Well, I mean, that figure is up to 30 up here, 30-35.
It's not that high here. It's in the 10% range here.
10%. Would that be required on both or just one of those?
Well, if they're both residential, you know, the feeling is most likely. I mean, the inclusionary zoning is not gonna go away. If anything, it's gonna get, you know, gonna grow a little bit, but we just don't know what it is yet. We're not in front of the zoning commission yet. We're not that deep into pre-development. We're still trying to round out what the actual footprints are gonna look like now that the bridge is almost complete.
Got you. Yeah, that's helpful. Final question. Thoughts on macro with the inflationary rates, interest rates and cost inflation, you know, how that impacts. Just, you know, would love to hear your thoughts on it in general and also how that relates to positioning with regard to capital allocation, you know, so build, you know, to build to, you know, just like, you know, to invest in projects, you know, to buy something that's maybe existing. So just broad question. Just love to hear your thoughts on that.
Bill, this is John. You know, that's what you call a game time decision, when you look at the cost of the building and then you look at the cost of what rents have done. I think I know what's going through your mind is that if the cost of construction goes up, the cost of any new product is gonna need to have a higher rental rate, and hopefully we benefit from that, you know, from the old ones as well as the new. The free market capitalism is a funny thing, and we'll just have to take a look at it. That's what we do. I mean, we're gonna take a look at that equation before we would ever start a building.
Yeah. Inflation is pretty. It's just kind of a double-edged sword for our business. It means rents are going up, but it affects cap rates. Mining royalties have traditionally outpaced inflation, so that's a good thing. Interest rates going up is a bad thing for any new financing we do. I don't think these are particularly profound insights.
On that thought, given the—I mean, we got some amazing rates when we refinanced Dock 79 and the Maren. Any thoughts on if we were to go to market today and try to put the same type of mortgage on Bryant Street, what that cost of debt will be today?
I haven't really looked at it, Bill. I mean, obviously, you're starting to see rates, you know, creep up. We don't overly finance these projects either. We usually get the best rates that we can, but we haven't really been looking because we have the two construction loans that we have remaining in Verge and Riverside, and even .408 Jackson have several extensions on them. We're not in a position where we have to go looking for anything. We'll probably start next quarter just to take a peek at the market and see what kind of rates we can get.
Mm-hmm. I'm sure, like, Bryant Street is probably the furthest along. Actually, I meant Riverside may be even further along, right? I mean, I'm sure you're looking at Bryant Street, permanent financing solutions.
We'll start looking at both. I mean, Bryant Street's a little bit more complicated because it's got, you know, retail and substantial amount of retail.
Mm-hmm.
Which incidentally is some 80-some% leased out of 91,000 sq ft, but it takes a while to get them in, and it takes a while to get them paying. Riverside doesn't have any retail. Riverside will probably be a pretty easy one.
I see. Gotcha. Well, thank you for the answer, gentlemen. That's all my questions. Thank you for answering them. I'll let someone else ask questions.
Thank you, Bill.
Thank you, Bill.
Thanks, Bill.
Our next question comes from Stephen Farrell with Oppenheimer & Co.
Good afternoon.
Good afternoon.
Hey, Stephen.
How are you? I have a quick question and a follow-up on what Bill was asking with Bryant Street and in regards to the consolidation. Is there any restrictions to refinancing the construction loan, either prior to stabilization or just as long as it's an Opportunity Zone investment?
No, sir. There are no restrictions.
What would that look like? Would any of the refinancing just stay with the properties, or can it be distributed to the JV partners?
Well, there's certainly opportunity zone restrictions. There's some preferred equity there that might wanna come out. But it's hard to say. I think that I don't know for sure. I believe that you can do certain things as long as it doesn't go over a certain % of what the original was.
You're leasing up pretty nice at the properties there. Is there a little bit of seasonality in the leasing compared to Dock 79 and The Maren?
If seasonality means the type of year, January, February, December, January and February are the worst months to lease, just historically. The weather and people just don't wanna be, you know, moving around then for some reason. Summertime, you know, the end of the second quarter and all of the third quarter are the two big months or the two quarters that are the most opportune for leasing. We're excited about, you know, Verge coming online in hopefully July. We were extremely fortunate when the first building at Bryant Street came out. It came out in December, and it was snowing. It's hard to say. Generally, the times are better in the spring and summer and early fall than they are now.
At The Chase 1A and 1B, are you offering any concessions there?
Yes, we do. It's about a 17% concession coming in.
Is that, I know you guys use the software, and you're changing prices frequently. Is that kind of-
Daily
... consistent with other properties in the area, and is it leasing up at a similar rate to those?
Well, yes, we are. We are certainly staying well within the velocity of the other places around us. In addition to changing rates on a daily basis, it's also the different types of unit. Actually, the algorithms are set up so that if you know one unit is leasing up a little bit quicker than the others, we might look to you know to take a little bit of that discount away. It literally does it every day for all of the units. We are definitely holding, you know, we're holding up with our competition for sure.
At The Maren and Dock 79, what is your approach going to be for looking at raising rents versus occupancy?
Well, you know, it's a game. It's an art, not a science, right? I mean, if you get up around 94% occupancy, 95, you wonder whether you've got, you know, if you shouldn't be trying to steal a little bit more money. But that's one of the things that we really are feel pretty good about is the group that we have. Kettler does a great job in that we have leasing calls every week and literally have these discussions on a weekly basis as to what to do.
For the renewals, is there a limit in the amount of increase that you can do year- over- year or?
No. There's no regulations other than what we come up with on our own. I think somebody mentioned.
Right
Earlier, you know, your spot is usually somewhere in the 50%-55% range. If you're renewing higher than that, then you're not renewing for enough. If you're lower than that, you're trying to renew for too much. I think the set point is usually somewhere around 50%-55%.
It seems like Amber Ridge, you're kind of picking up some pace in the units there that are being sold. If we keep going at this current pace, how do you see the payout from Amber Ridge.
Well, let's see, we were at 34 at the end of the year that were out of 187 gone. Then we were at 51 at the end of February, which is that first quarter of 2022. We've got a program with both builders to kinda take so many down on a quarterly basis. They're running a little bit ahead of schedule. At 29 units or so worth a quarter, we're still got a lot left. But the pace has definitely been more than what we've thought. In speaking with both of the builders, they seem to be very proactive in moving forward.
We may get more out this year than we thought. If this year was supposed to be somewhere in the 80-100 range, I think we'd like to think we might get past that. We won't be out, but we're a lot, we'll be a lot closer.
I know you talked about the warehouse deal that it hasn't completely fallen through. If that doesn't pan out, do you think that changes your pipeline materially? Kinda how are you viewing that? What would you look to replace it with if it doesn't go through?
Well, we wanna obviously, you know, our plan is to maintain a pipeline. We've been pretty successful with the industrial platform over the years. We do have the Kraus property, which is the 55-acre site, can actually take two buildings, one, you know, a 675, or some other variants, depending on what the day is. Our Chelsea property takes 250, which we haven't started yet. We're out at Hollander completely, so we will be in the market. We don't wanna get overly full of pipeline properties because they, you know, we don't wanna get back into having too much of an overhang there. We're always looking. They're not easy to find. We've constantly got people on the street looking for us.
We've bid on more possible raw land programs than you can imagine. We're very diligent in kind of looking at what we believe is the appropriate finished lot cost. I think sometimes we may be too conservative. We don't know. Certainly, the value has jumped up on this warehouse land over the last 18 months to two years. We don't know whether that's gonna be sustainable, but, you know, we're always looking.
In the surrounding areas there, do you think, there's more room for capacity? Is there a lot of capacity coming on in the next year or two?
Not a lot, but a lot is a relative term. Where we are right now, we've got properties that the one is the 250, it sits among a bunch of giants of over 1 million sq ft. We're thinking we can sneak something in because tenants, these large tenants are always looking for additional storage. To answer your question, there's not a whole lot of vacancy in the markets that we're serving up in the off the 95 and Northeast. The vacancy, I think, at the end of the year was around 3%. It's pretty low.
Well, thank you for taking my questions. That's all
Thank you for your interest.
Thank you, Stephen.
There are no further questions at this time. I will now like to turn the floor back to John Baker for any additional or closing remarks.
Well, thank you all for joining us today. We appreciate your interest in the company. You know, 2021 was an important year for us. We stabilized The Maren. We continued strong cash flows from our royalties, and we made a lot of progress in renting out our newest mixed-use project in D.C. called Bryant Street and also Riverside in Greenville.
Yeah, looking at for the balance of this year, as David mentioned, the 408 Jackson in Greenville and The Verge in D.C. should be coming on late this summer or early in the fall. They've, you know, they will be coming on quickly after we've made progress, hopefully to close out Bryant. We'll have three new warehouses at Hollander, and hopefully be well on our way. One of them, of course, is a build to suit, and the other two, there's been a lot of velocity, and we're optimistic about those. By year's end, we will have seven mixed-use projects, four in D.C., two in Greenville, and one in Richmond, as well as the three warehouses and an office retail park in Baltimore.
This is a dramatic transformation since our warehouse sale in 2018, and yet we still have $160 million in cash to fund future growth and to provide a safety net in these crazy times. Thanks again. We look forward to talking to you next quarter. I think a lot of these questions you all have asked will be much clearer as we get into summertime or late spring and seeing the velocity that goes on in the leasing and our ability to raise rents. I'm excited about the idea of the opportunity to raise rents. Certainly all over the country, they're going up like crazy, and I would hope D.C. would follow suit. Thank you all for joining us. I hope you have a great day.
Thank you, everyone. This does conclude today's call. You may now disconnect.