Urban Edge Properties (UE)
NYSE: UE · Real-Time Price · USD
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Apr 29, 2026, 3:56 PM EDT - Market open
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Earnings Call: Q2 2023

Aug 2, 2023

Operator

Greetings, welcome to the Urban Edge Properties' second quarter of 2023 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Mr. Eitan Bluman. Sir, you may begin.

Etan Bluman
SVP of Investments, Urban Edge Properties

Good morning. Welcome to Urban Edge Properties' 2023 second quarter earnings conference call. Joining me today are Jeff Olson, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; Jeffrey Mooallem, Chief Operating Officer; Mark Langer, Chief Financial Officer; Rob Milton, General Counsel; Scott Auster, Executive Vice President and Head of Leasing; and Andrea Drazin, Chief Accounting Officer. Please note, today's discussion may contain forward-looking statements about the company's views of future events and financial performance, which are subject to numerous assumptions, risks, and uncertainties, and which the company does not undertake to update. Our actual future results, financial condition, and business may differ materially. Please refer to our filings with the SEC, which are also available on our website, for more information about the company. In our discussion today, we will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures.

Reconciliations of these measures to GAAP results are available in our earnings release and supplemental disclosure package in the Investors section of our website. At this time, it is my pleasure to introduce our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Jeff Olson.

Jeff Olson
Chairman and CEO, Urban Edge Properties

Great. Thank you, Etan, and good morning. Our results this quarter reflect our continued progress towards achieving our 2023 net operating income growth and FFO goals, giving us further confidence in attaining our three-year growth targets we outlined at our Investor Day in April, including growing net operating income by at least 20% compared to 2022, and achieving FFO of $1.35 per share in 2025. Our conviction stems from the fact that approximately 80% of our expected NOI growth is derived from executed leases and contractual rent bumps. On that point, we disclosed that $6 million of annualized gross rents commenced during the second quarter on previously signed leases.

Our current pipeline of signed, but not opened leases, amounts to $28 million of annual gross rents, representing 11% of current annual NOI, the highest percentage in the shopping center sector. Our strong performance this year has exceeded our plan, supporting our decision to raise guidance again this quarter. Our new FFO, as adjusted range, is $1.16-$1.19 per share, an increase of $0.015 at the midpoint. This follows the $0.02 per share increase we announced in the first quarter. We continue to see strong demand from a variety of retail categories, especially grocers, discounters, quick service restaurants, health and beauty, and medical services. This strong demand, combined with limited supply and manageable bankruptcy risks, has created a favorable environment for most landlords.

According to Cushman & Wakefield, retail shopping center vacancy is currently at an all-time low of 5.4%, new retail construction is significantly constrained by high construction and capital costs, especially in the D.C. to Boston corridor, the most densely populated, supply-constrained corridor in the country. Our same property occupancy rate is now 95.5%, the highest level since 2018, still well below our 98% three-year occupancy average from 2016 - 2018. We are pleased to have recaptured 184,000 sq ft of the 206,000 sq ft of Bed Bath & Beyond space we had at the beginning of the year, as it will allow us to upgrade our tenants at higher rents and increase traffic at these centers.

We are making great progress on our active redevelopment and anchor repositioning projects. During the quarter, we completed three projects, which included a new Walgreens at Montehiedra, Nemours Children's Health at Broomall, and Total Wine at Cherry Hill. We have approximately $200 million of active redevelopment projects currently underway that are expected to generate a healthy 12% unleveraged return, of which 98% of the total project GLA has been pre-leased. We remain confident in our long-term strategy due to the favorable supply and demand dynamics of the shopping center industry, particularly in our markets. Our signed, but not open leasing pipeline, is the fuel that will help us achieve our goal of increasing net operating income by at least 20% over the next 3 years.

This NOI growth, combined with our strong balance sheet, abundant liquidity, and well-laddered debt maturities, gives us confidence in reaching our 2025 FFO target of $1.35 per share. We are proud to have been named one of New Jersey's best places to work by NJBIZ Magazine for a second consecutive year. We believe this is a direct result of our commitment to creating a collaborative culture that prioritizes the professional growth and well-being of our employees. We recognize our employees are our greatest asset and are proud to have been acknowledged for our dedication to them. I will now turn it over to our Chief Operating Officer, Jeffrey Mooallem.

Jeffrey Mooallem
EVP and COO, Urban Edge Properties

Thanks, Jeff. Good morning, everyone. The leasing environment is the best we have seen in the last 15 years. Our portfolio has just nine vacant spaces that are 20,000 sq ft or larger, including two that we just got back yesterday from Bed Bath & Beyond. We are actively negotiating deals on eight of those nine vacancies, with multiple retailers bidding on seven of the eight. With more choices, we are able to extract higher rent and better terms. Our focus is on selecting the right tenant for each asset and generating the most attractive capital-adjusted returns. The data coming out of the recent Bed Bath bankruptcy is another indication of the healthy state of the industry.

Of 109 leases that were auctioned off in the first grouping of stores, 71 were awarded to retailers, with the backup bidder, in many cases, also being a retailer. This exemplifies the strong demand and the limited supply for box space in shopping centers today. Second quarter new leasing activity was light, with 11 leases aggregating 28,000 sq ft. Spreads were negative compared to prior tenants, as most of these spaces were interior mall locations in Puerto Rico that have been vacant for more than two years. We expect increased activity in the second half of 2023, as we have about 400,000 sq ft of leases in the pipeline at a spread in excess of 40%. On the development side, we delivered three projects in the second quarter and continued to work through our sector-leading signed, but not open pipeline.

As we delivered to tenants, we've seen some construction savings from budgeted numbers as supply chain concerns have eased and material and labor prices have stabilized. We also continued to work on monetizing some of our non-core land parcels, the most notable of which is our residential opportunity at Bergen Town Center. In the second quarter, we received final site plan approvals for 456 multifamily units, a credit to our entire development team, who got this approved with a unanimous vote ahead of our projected timeline. We are actively engaged with several residential developers to maximize value, and we hope to announce a deal soon at a valuation on a price per unit basis that we believe will be one of the highest ever for Bergen County. Lastly, I want to add a few comments about the transaction market today.

The second quarter has seen a real pickup in offerings, and there are probably more assets in the market now than at any time in the last 12 months, with the bid-ask spread narrowing. Sellers are prioritizing the certainty of closing to a higher degree than what we have historically seen during other parts of the cycle. As a well-capitalized buyer with deep lending relationships, this provides us with a strong competitive advantage, and we're using that advantage to spend more time looking at deals in our core markets. We also believe there is a very attractive cap rate spread right now between potential retail acquisitions and a number of the high-quality, low cap rate assets that we own, including excess land at Bergen, our industrial portfolio, and self-storage properties.

As a result, we may look to dispose of certain low-cap, non-retail assets and recycle proceeds into higher yielding and, in our mind, undervalued retail properties in our core markets. This aligns with our strategic plan to simplify our business and grow earnings. I will now turn it over to our Chief Financial Officer, Mark Langer.

Mark Langer
EVP and CFO, Urban Edge Properties

Thanks, Jeff. Good morning. I will discuss drivers of our second quarter results, comment on our balance sheet and liquidity, and will close with an update on our 2023 guidance. Starting with our results for the quarter, we reported FFO, as adjusted, of $0.30 per share and same-property NOI growth, including redevelopment, of 3.5% compared to the second quarter of 2022. The increase was primarily due to rent commencements on new leases and higher net recovery income, driven by lower operating expenses. Excluding the collection of amounts previously deemed uncollectible in both periods, same-property NOI growth would have increased by 6.6%. In terms of our balance sheet, we ended the quarter with $93 million of cash and no amounts drawn on our $800 million line of credit. We have been busy on the financing front.

In addition to the successful refinancing we announced on our call last quarter regarding Bergen Town Center's new $290 million, 6.3%, seven-year mortgage, we closed three other mortgage financings in the second quarter. We refinanced our $9 million mortgage at The Shops at Bruckner, with a new six-year, $38 million loan at a fixed rate of 6%. A portion of the proceeds was used to pay off our $29 million variable rate mortgage on the Plaza at Cherry Hill that was bearing interest at 8.75%. We also obtained a new 10-year, $16 million mortgage at a fixed rate of 6%, secured by our Newington Commons property. We now have only one remaining maturity in 2023, limited to a $21 million, 5% mortgage at Hudson Mall.

Looking forward, we feel very comfortable with our 6 mortgages maturing in 2024 and 2025, which aggregate only 10% of our total debt, amounting to $173 million at a weighted average in-place rate of 5.3%. These are secured by high-quality assets that we believe are financiable at rates in the 6%-6.5% range today. Considering the financing activity we have announced this year, less than 5% of our total debt is now unhedged variable rate debt, and all of it relates to 2024 maturities. In short, we feel very good about the way our balance sheet is positioned. Turning to our outlook for 2023.

As previously announced, we increased our 2023 FFO, as adjusted guidance to a new range of $1.16-$1.19 per share, which, when compared to our prior guidance, increases the lower end of the range by $0.02 a share and increases the upper end by $0.01 a share. The increase reflects our better-than-expected performance year to date and our increased guidance for same-property NOI growth, including redevelopment, with a new midpoint of 2%, up from the prior midpoint of 1%. The new midpoint assumes a general credit loss of 100 basis points of gross revenues and incorporates $1 million of lost rent for the remainder of the year on the two Bed Bath & Beyond anchor leases that we recaptured.

Our guidance assumes operating expenses normalize to levels similar to the third quarter of 2022, as this quarter benefited from the timing of certain deferred maintenance projects, which will likely start in the third quarter. In terms of collections on past amounts deemed uncollectible, our updated 2023 guidance at the midpoint assumes we will receive $2.5 million during 2023, an increase of $500,000 above our prior plan, based on some payments that we've received from bankrupt tenants that vacated in 2020. We have received about $1.7 million in the first half of 2023 and expect another $800,000 for the remainder of the year.

Note that collections on amounts deemed uncollectible during the third and fourth quarter of 2022 were materially higher, as we received about $4.5 million in the second half of last year. This will be a headwind to our NOI growth for the remainder of this year. Recurring G&A this quarter was $8.9 million. This is in line with our G&A guidance, which we did not change from last quarter when we updated and lowered it to reflect our expectation that full-year recurring G&A will be between $34.5 million-$36.5 million, a 5% reduction from 2022. We are continuing our efforts to evaluate ways we can extract savings and become more efficient and are pleased with the progress we have made.

In closing, our team is focused on executing the growth plan we outlined in April at our Investor Day. We are grateful for the dedication and execution provided by the entire UE team, who has made our success possible. I will now turn the call over to the operator for questions.

Operator

Thank you. We will now be conducting a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the questioning queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star key. Our first question comes from Samir Khanal with Evercore ISI.

Samir Khanal
Senior Equity Research Analyst, Evercore ISI

Good morning, everyone. Just curious, Jeff, you know, on the leases that you've executed, you know, what, what do these annual rent bumps look like? I mean, you know, in the past, you'd get these 1% annual bumps for boxes. You clearly talk about the strong demand. There's not a lot of supply out there, right? I guess, what does that economics look like, you know, at, at this point? Thanks.

Jeffrey Mooallem
EVP and COO, Urban Edge Properties

Thanks, Samir. Good morning. It's Jeffrey Mooallem. Yeah, so we're obviously, that's a focal point of all the new leases we're executing, and we are seeing better increases now than we were historically. Our rent growth in general on the new leases we're signing now is north of 2%. That's a combination of shop and box deals. In the ones that we did this quarter, I think we're about between 2%, 2.25% and 2.5%. It was a small quarter for us, leasing-wise, volume-wise, but our pipeline is pretty extensive, and we expect to be able to, you know, extract a lot of new leases in the third quarter.

Samir Khanal
Senior Equity Research Analyst, Evercore ISI

Okay, got it. You talked about the transaction market, you know, that's opening up. I know there was an article yesterday about the industrial property in East Hanover. I, I don't know how much you can provide a bit more color on that and maybe just sort of, maybe what has been sort of the initial interest?

Jeffrey Mooallem
EVP and COO, Urban Edge Properties

Look, the, the assets in the market, we can't get into too many details on it. We're certainly excited about you know, this, this, this concept of selling low cap rate assets and redeploying capital more creatively. It's early in the process for that asset, but the interest level is very strong. I want to say there are 100 CAs that have been signed.

Mark Langer
EVP and CFO, Urban Edge Properties

About 125, yeah.

Jeffrey Mooallem
EVP and COO, Urban Edge Properties

Yeah. And that's increasing. It was 100 just a couple of days ago. In addition to the industrial asset, as Jeff mentioned, you know, we also have excess land at Bergen, we have excess land at other assets. We own a couple of self-storage facilities that we developed several years ago that have now been stabilized. We own a number of single-tenant assets anchored by credit retailers that would include Home Depot, who happens to be our largest retailer, that could be up for consideration. We're, we're, we're evaluating our entire pool of assets to see where we might be able to make some trades.

Samir Khanal
Senior Equity Research Analyst, Evercore ISI

Then my last one is, is for Mark. You know, similarly, your, your expense recoveries were up again in the second quarter. Maybe talk around that and, and how we should be thinking about that. Kind of what's that stable number to think about and maybe in the, you know, for the remainder of the year and into 2024. Thanks.

Mark Langer
EVP and CFO, Urban Edge Properties

Sure. As I think I've messaged, you know, previously, we did expect and message that we expected the recovery ratio to improve as we were bringing this SNO pipeline on into income producing. Recoveries went from 83.5% on the same-property basis to 85.5% this quarter. While this quarter did benefit from some lower levels of expenses, I would say that because of the continuation of how we see the SNO pipeline, I think our run rate can be around this 85%, you know, elevated level and then ticking up next year modestly.

Samir Khanal
Senior Equity Research Analyst, Evercore ISI

That's it for me. Thanks so much.

Jeffrey Mooallem
EVP and COO, Urban Edge Properties

Great. Thank you, Samir.

Operator

The next question comes with Floris van Dijkum, Compass Point.

Jeff Olson
Chairman and CEO, Urban Edge Properties

Hi, Floris.

Floris van Dijkum
Managing Director of Equity Research, Compass Point

Hey, guys. Thanks, good morning. I think it's actually really interesting, this idea of selling low cap rate assets and, and buying, you know, higher yielding retail assets that presumably has some, some attractive growth here as well. Maybe if you could, I know it's, it's a little early, and you've got at least one asset in the market right now. You've got two big New Jersey industrial, and obviously, you've got your potential industrial development in Long Island at Sunrise as well. Maybe if you can touch upon, does this impact, you know, your plans with Sunrise and maybe getting out of that? A nd also, what kind of spread on sales versus acquisitions do you expect to get on, you know, on some of this recycling?

Mark Langer
EVP and CFO, Urban Edge Properties

Yeah, I mean, it's a little early to talk about the spreads, but it's sizable. I mean, I think on many of these assets, you know, as it was reported, and it's sub 5% cap rates, and you can buy shopping centers at a much larger spread than that. I'll let Jeff answer the Sunrise question.

Jeffrey Mooallem
EVP and COO, Urban Edge Properties

Yeah, I mean, Floris, good morning. You know, just like our East Hanover property, where there's just such great demand for space in these, in these real infill Metro New York locations, you know, Sunrise shares many of those same qualities, and that obviously makes it a very attractive site for the industrial development community. So the, the, the pickup in demand that we see across the area is gonna benefit us. Too early to really tell you whether that project gets built as an industrial project, a retail project, a residential, some combination, and our role in that. We're actively working through the plan with the town of Oyster Bay.

We're actively working through it with our existing retailers, and it's, it's, it's definitely moving in the right direction, both in terms of numbers and in terms of, you know, getting clarity on what we're gonna do. I would say that the, the metrics we're seeing in industrial today that, that led us to put East Hanover on the market, are also going to help us at Sunrise if we move forward with an industrial project there.

Floris van Dijkum
Managing Director of Equity Research, Compass Point

Thanks. I saw that you bought the ground rents at part of the Sunrise properties. Has that just simplified the ownership and the structure of that?

Jeffrey Mooallem
EVP and COO, Urban Edge Properties

Yeah, they was in a state sale asset that I had to clear. That's been in the works for a while, and we had to wait for something to pass through probate to get that done. Yeah, that's just a way of simplifying and consolidating our holdings into one entity.

Mark Langer
EVP and CFO, Urban Edge Properties

Floris, let me just add one thing. Yeah, Floris, let me just add one thing here, 'cause as I thought this morning about some of the unique characteristics of UE, I sort of put them into three different buckets. The first is what we've clearly communicated in terms of our NOI trajectory, which leads to FFO growth, getting to this $1.35 in 2025. That's all rooted in this SNO pipeline, which is about $28 million, and our $200 million redevelopment pipeline that's yielding around 12%. That's sort of one. Number two is this ability of ours to trade out of some low cap rate assets into higher cap rate assets, which we're beginning to test the market.

The third point really has more to do with the unique structure of our balance sheet, which, as you know, is, is, is all centered around non-recourse mortgage debt. We do have an ability to remove about $110 million of debt between the DPO at Las Catalinas, which is about $40 million, and the foreclosure at Kingswood, which is around $70 million. I think those three things are unique to UE.

Floris van Dijkum
Managing Director of Equity Research, Compass Point

Thanks. I guess, the follow-up question on your balance sheet, because I do think that's one of the other things that sets you guys apart, your mortgage structure. I found it unique in some ways that you are actually able to save money and by refinancing assets today. Obviously, the Bruckner loan was pretty cheap. Maybe, Mark, if you could comment a little bit on the, you know, what you're seeing in the financing market. 6% appears even for 10-year money in Newington is, you know, is very attractive. For six-year money, at Bruckner appears attractive, and you're paying down, you know, debt actually that's, you know, at 8.75%. That's, if you can walk through that a little bit more and give a little more market color.

Mark Langer
EVP and CFO, Urban Edge Properties

Sure, Floris. I think one thing, just as Jeff and you both pointed out, and that is, if you step back and look among our public peers, we are unique in that this is kind of our sole mortgage strat-- our, our sole debt strategy. So when we go out and talk to lenders, having a well-capitalized public REIT like us, we're, we're kind of differentiated from the get-go because at these times, sponsorship really does matter. When you look at the three primary sources, you know, that we go to, starting with CMBS, I would actually say that market has been more volatile recently, and the retail pricing for assets that we have actually has been inefficient.

When you go to the next prong of the regional banks, clearly there's been a bifurcation, given all the headline noise in some of the restructuring that they've done. We, we found many of our regional relationships actually are still open for business. It is a relationship-driven type of transaction. They, in turn, want deposits. They play in smaller, you know, tiers of loan size, which is fine for many of our centers. Where we've seen the most traction and where myself and, and Etan and others on our team have really spent time is with the life companies. High-quality product like we have, still highly desired.

Grocery still remains of top interest, but even outside of grocery, just really well located, well-anchored, high credit tenancy that we have, has enabled us to get the debt rates you mentioned of, you know, 6%, with real duration and, you know, 60% LTVs and higher. In terms of the last part of your question, what I would say is the, the rates that we're seeing today, you know, spreads are probably in the 200-225 range, but really asset quality and the type of center matters. I would tell you that all in those rates are, you know, 6%-6.5%. We're doing everything we can to push to the low end, but we've been very pleased with the appetite among life companies for our product.

Floris van Dijkum
Managing Director of Equity Research, Compass Point

Thanks, Mark. If I could, one final follow-up on the debt side. I know you had an, an asset in Brooklyn, an office asset that, I think you were thinking about handing back the keys on. Can you give us an update on that?

Mark Langer
EVP and CFO, Urban Edge Properties

Sure. We did announce and disclose, last quarter, again, this quarter, Floris. That asset has been transferred to special servicing. It was transferred in May. I think you guys all know the volume of activity that special services are dealing with, is quite large. Having said that, we are making very good progress. We're in very active discussions with the lender and lenders' council, going through the foreclosure process. It is just too early and hard to predict when that would be completed. We do expect that's where it's headed.

Jeffrey Mooallem
EVP and COO, Urban Edge Properties

Floris, when it's done, it, again, it should remove about $70 million of debt from our balance sheet, and it should be accretive to earnings by $0.01-$0.02 a share.

Floris van Dijkum
Managing Director of Equity Research, Compass Point

Perfect. Thanks, Jeff. Thanks, Mark.

Jeff Olson
Chairman and CEO, Urban Edge Properties

Okay, thank you.

Mark Langer
EVP and CFO, Urban Edge Properties

Yep.

Operator

Our next question is from Ronald Kamdem, Morgan Stanley.

Ronald Kamdem
Senior Equity Research Analyst, Morgan Stanley

Hey, just two quick ones. One, going back to Puerto Rico, if you've touched on it already, just maybe thoughts on what's happening on the ground there, and maybe you're thinking of potentially selling that asset or, or getting a sale done there? Thanks.

Jeffrey Mooallem
EVP and COO, Urban Edge Properties

Good morning, Ron. It's Jeffrey Mooallem. Yeah, look, we've said it last quarter, we're reiterating it this quarter, Puerto Rico is hot. The market has really come back. We're seeing it in our leasing. A lot of the spaces that we have down there that are interior mall spaces, that over the last several years, we've just been temping, we've been gradually converting into permanent leases, as tenants are willing to make a longer commitment to the island.

One big tenant in particular, who told us they only had two stores on the island, and about six months ago, were thinking that they were gonna just exit 'cause it was very hard to service only two stores in, in all of Puerto Rico, came back to us in the last month and said they were gonna exercise their option and stay longer, and they were gonna commit to building more stores on the island. And that's one of the best, you know, soft goods retailers in the world. So we feel very good about where Puerto Rico sits from a leasing standpoint. We're opening a good restaurant at our Las Catalinas property next week, and then our Sector 66 entertainment user should follow within 30 days after that.

As far as sale, it's not something that's on the table right now. Mark talked a little bit about the refinancing that, that we're working through, and, and we're excited about that. As, as values continue to increase there and occupancy continues to go up, and we can push rents a little bit more, it's obviously something we'll continue to look at, but not in the short term.

Ronald Kamdem
Senior Equity Research Analyst, Morgan Stanley

Mark, do you wanna talk a little bit about the financing market in Puerto Rico? Just because-

Mark Langer
EVP and CFO, Urban Edge Properties

Yeah, I would just add, Ron, you know, Jeff Olson mentioned the fact that we have this discounted payoff option, that's exercisable now, for Las Catalinas, which would enable us to purchase the existing debt for $72.5 million. Based on that, we are in the market. Puerto Rico, we find, is best financed through the local market. We have had great success, as you may remember, in getting permanent financing at Montehiedra. We're talking to the same three primary lenders that are in Puerto Rico and trying to negotiate a new mortgage now. Stay tuned. To Jeffrey Mooallem's point, I would just say fundamentals and both leasing activity, have enabled the financing market to also remain an increasingly more attractive opportunity for us. We are pursuing that right now.

Ronald Kamdem
Senior Equity Research Analyst, Morgan Stanley

Great. Then just for the guidance, can you remind us how much bad debt is, is baked into it for this year, and how much have you run through year to date? would be one. Then, the second part of that question is, as you're sort of thinking about the 2025 target of $1.35 of FFO, I think you've talked about, you know, the signed, not open pipeline. You talked about the $200 million of redevelopment and the 12 yield. Maybe can you remind us, what are the biggest sort of moving pieces to getting to that number, right? Because those first two are pretty clear, but is it bad debt? Is it, you know, sales? Just what could make you overshoot or undershoot that 135 in your mind right now? Thanks.

Mark Langer
EVP and CFO, Urban Edge Properties

Sure. In terms of the first question, on bad debt, we had messaged that right now in guidance, we're assuming 100 basis points of general credit loss reserve for the portfolio overall. We added and commented on the additional, you know, $1 million for Bed Bath, but included in our guidance is also, you know, the all fallout for Bed Bath that we've had, that Jeff mentioned. We fully provisioned in guidance, our Bed Bath exposure, and on top of that, 100 basis points, general credit loss. We've got about $1.7 million, to answer your question, of how much we've deemed uncollectible for the first six months. Some of that's lumpy because of, you know, one-off tenant situations, but that's the general guidance.

In terms of your question on the dollar, you know, $35 target, I think the biggest components to, you know, that we're focused on is while that SNO pipeline is executed, we got to get those RCDs and those tenants opened, and not face, you know, any fallout or delays. That needs to come to fruition. Then really, because we have very modest expectations on acquisitions and dispositions, that's not an element that I would say is moving the needle that much. It's really just the fundamental pillars to NOI that are gonna have, I think, the biggest impact on that.

Jeffrey Mooallem
EVP and COO, Urban Edge Properties

Ron, I would add, in addition to the signed, but not open pipeline, you know, which we're as Mark said, we're focused on converting into rent commencement dates. You know, there's a different pipeline that sits behind it, of deals that we're negotiating. I mentioned we had 400,000 sq ft in our pipeline at a roughly 40% spread. About 70% of that square footage is LOI executed. If we just get that 70% that's under LOI executed, you know, into signed leases and convert that into the new signed, but not open pipeline, that's a big lift, combined with the existing signed, but not open, to getting to that $1.35.

Ronald Kamdem
Senior Equity Research Analyst, Morgan Stanley

Excellent. Super helpful. Thank you.

Mark Langer
EVP and CFO, Urban Edge Properties

Thank you.

Operator

Our next question is from Paulina Rojas, Green Street.

Paulina Rojas
Senior Equity Research Analyst, Green Street

Good morning.

Jeff Olson
Chairman and CEO, Urban Edge Properties

Good morning, Paulina.

Paulina Rojas
Senior Equity Research Analyst, Green Street

Hi. It has been mentioned that we're starting to see more institutional interest, curiosity around retail. Can you provide on this topic, based on your conversations?

Mark Langer
EVP and CFO, Urban Edge Properties

Yeah, I mean, clearly there is more institutional interest around retail. I think in part because, you know, many of these institutional investors have reduced their office allocation, and they're looking to put it into other product types. Also, in part, it's one of the few sectors where you can obtain positive leverage. It's not like you're buying in the fours and hoping for rent growth that'll get you above your financing costs. Today, you can actually buy properties and finance it with non-recourse debt and get some type of spread. Given the resilience that you've seen in the shopping center space over the last several years, I think institutions have taken interest.

No, no question about it, there's, there is institutional interest in retail today, and, and it is proving to be, you know, a group of investors that's providing some competition for us as we're going out and looking at assets.

Paulina Rojas
Senior Equity Research Analyst, Green Street

Thank you. Then my last question is, have you done the exercise of assessing what's the mark-to-market of the rents in your portfolio today?

Mark Langer
EVP and CFO, Urban Edge Properties

I'm sorry. Say that one more time, Paulina?

Jeffrey Mooallem
EVP and COO, Urban Edge Properties

The phone broke up.

Paulina Rojas
Senior Equity Research Analyst, Green Street

Yes. Sorry. I'm just saying that given, given how good demand is, have you done the exercise of evaluating what's the mark-to-market upside of rents in your portfolio today? More so than the releasing spread that we track every quarter.

Jeff Olson
Chairman and CEO, Urban Edge Properties

W e think it's pretty significant. We have not gone lease by lease by lease. We're going through that right now as part of our budgeting exercise. I think the biggest indicator of what of where mark-to-market is, is just based on what, you know, what leases are under negotiation and what is that spread. We have about 400,000 sq ft of leases under negotiation, and the mark-to-market there is about 40%. Now, there's some capital required for that, too, but nonetheless, it's still a very high number. Probably the highest number we've had in years.

Paulina Rojas
Senior Equity Research Analyst, Green Street

Yeah. Okay, thank you. That's all.

Jeff Olson
Chairman and CEO, Urban Edge Properties

Okay. Thank you, Paulina.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, if you would like to pose a question, please press star one. There are no further questions at this time. I would like to turn the floor back over to Mr. Jeff Olson for closing comments.

Jeff Olson
Chairman and CEO, Urban Edge Properties

Great. We appreciate everyone's interest in UE. Please call us if you have any questions. Thank you so much.

Operator

This concludes today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you very much for your participation.

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