Corporate Office Properties Trust (NYSE:OFC) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Steve Budorick: I don’t want to be too specific, but they are north of 7%.

Anthony Paolone: Okay. Got it. And then I don’t know, maybe it just struck me, but the time line to get those done out into 2025 seemed a bit more extended. Was there anything there driving that or just reading it wrong?

Steve Budorick: Some of that has to do with expected power delivery. We tend to plan our development schedules to meet expectations of our customer, and they tend to overestimate the time that they want the assets and then ask us to compress. So, it wouldn’t surprise me that at all if the delivery dates get moved up pretty significantly, but those delivery dates mirror the request of our customer.

Anthony Paolone: Okay. I understand. And then just last one. I think you mentioned there’s one other data center shell build-to-suit in the offing for the next year. Just wondering if you can peel back a little bit more of how you’re thinking about development leasing this year on what else might be on tap in the pipeline.

Steve Budorick: Well, we put out what we believe is comfortable guidance. Scenarios include some lease-up of additional leasing from 8100 Redstone Gateway, which is 100,000 square-foot building we’ve commenced and is actively developing. New starts at Redstone Gateway from additional build-to-suit or pre-leases, potentially the data center shell I had referred to. In total, we have €“ with the significant harvesting from our development pipeline, we still have over 700,000 square feet of developments we consider, 50% likely to win or better in two years or less.

Anthony Paolone: Okay. Great. Thank you.

Operator: Thanks. One moment for our next question please. It’s from the line of Tom Catherwood with BTIG. Please proceed.

Steve Budorick: Tom?

Operator: Tom Catherwood, your line is open, please.

Steve Budorick: You might want to try the next caller, which is also Tom Catherwood?

Operator: Alright. One moment please. Alright, Tom from BTIG, you line is now open please.

Tom Catherwood: Can you hear me now?

Steve Budorick: Yes. We can hear you, Tom.

Tom Catherwood: Excellent. Sorry about that. I guess I was logged in twice. So, I want to take a, kind of bigger picture look for a second when we’re thinking about risks. Obviously, there’s a lot of debate around debt ceilings in Washington, and maybe I don’t want to get into necessarily a discussion around how that could play out? But if we think back to when we’ve had other debt ceiling debates, in the past, this kind of drove sequestration, if I’m not mistaken, back in the early 2010s. And Steve, we’ve talked about in the past, and if my memory serves me, I think you’ve said that, kind of that type of limit on defense spending or pullback on it couldn’t happen again in the same way this time. Is my memory correct on that? And kind of what’s the risk that we could see some impact to work with more cuts or restrictions on defense spending, should the debt ceiling debate really get heated?

Steve Budorick: Let me clarify the thoughts I’ve presented in the past. As I view, that kind of a budget-cutting measure would be unlikely, not impossible in the current environment merely because of the elevated technological capacity and aggressive threats of adversaries today as compared to the way we felt back in 2011. That would be illogical for Congress to enact across the board . Having said that, Congress will do what it will do, and that’s just my opinion. One of the points we were trying to point out with the magnitude of the compound increases in defense spending is, the current budget is $100 billion higher than it was 12 months ago in fiscal year 2021. And it’s our belief within the capacity that’s been created with that increase, our business can succeed for quite some time.