Brandywine Realty Trust (NYSE:BDN) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Page 4 of 10

Operator: Just one moment for our next question. It comes from Michael Griffin with Citi.

Michael Griffin: Great, thanks. Maybe we can talk on life science demand for a bit, specifically 250 King of Prussia. You noted the stabilization was pushed back a quarter. This is a suburban asset kind of further out from where our city is, you kind of think of that core life science cluster down in CBD Philly? Just — how confident are you that demand is there for a product like this? And any additional commentary you could give there would be great.

Jerry Sweeney: Yes. I’m sorry, Michael, confident on the demand at 250?

Michael Griffin: Yes.

Jerry Sweeney: Okay. No, I think we’re very confident. I think the — we were trying to market that project is kind of a hybrid life science office. And that really was the predicate behind our kind of leasing assumptions and the capital costs. So as I mentioned, this quarter, we did raise our capital cost by about $20 million. We did increase the yield by $0.2 to the point to 8.2 as we’ve been marketing that and the building really just delivered recently. So it’s in showcase condition, we have a few tenants in there now. It’s really become a magnet for life science companies. We put — we invested a lot of money to the infrastructure of that building. It’s really part of our kind of Radnor Life Science Center, which has a few buildings in it and the demand drivers here have been very strong.

They’ve been — the demand drivers, while they’ve been strong, they’ve been a little frustratingly slow in making decisions, which is what we’re kind of seeing across the board. But as we look at that pipeline, it’s a full bore 100% life science. Some of the larger users we’re talking to, Michael, are — they just tend to take a little bit more time than we frankly would like as they go through their technical requirements and space planning requirements. So just taking a look at the existing pipeline and when they’re targeting their occupancy date, that was one of the drivers behind, key drivers behind moving the stabilization date back. But Philadelphia is pretty fortunate where there seems to be some strong life science demand drivers, particularly in University City here in close proximity to the anchor institutions, but also some kind of hubs of life science activity in the suburbs, primarily kind of the Radnor, King of Prussia quarter as well as further north of the springhouse.

So you have a couple of those suburban pods that have generated some very good leasing activity on the life science front. And then here in the city, while it’s been predominantly University City kind of between 30 and 30 A Street market. There’s also been very good pods of primarily manufacturing and low-impact research based down the Navy or and a few other pads around the city as well. So we’re actually — we remain very encouraged with the demand drivers we’re seeing on the life science side in both the University City and suburban locations.

Michael Griffin: Got you. That’s definitely helpful. And then just on the tenant default in Austin, can you expand on that a bit? And are there any other tenants in your portfolio that might find themselves in a similar situation?

Page 4 of 10