Cousins Properties Incorporated (NYSE:CUZ) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Unidentified Participant: Very helpful. And then maybe just a comment on your question on sublease space. I know like areas such as the domain, you have long-term walls in those areas. But just curious on any of your particular properties that might have some sublease space that’s listed?

Colin Connolly: Yes, the — we’ve got some subleasing. There are some customers who’ve got some subleases in our portfolio — across the portfolio, but not a significant number today. And really, as you look at it, the domain, that’s what I think people oftentimes focus on. We’ve got some very large tech customers in D10, D11 and D12 and D9 will deliver next year. Expedia has got a little bit of space in the D11 property out there. Our perspective on that is with long-term leases with no kind of termination options on any of those in the near term, actually wouldn’t be a bad thing from a diversification standpoint as some of those customers actually did multi-tenant those buildings for us. And so we’ll continue to monitor if situations arise that are positive for us. We’ll work with them. But as we stand today, there’s not a material amount of sublease.

Unidentified Participant: Thanks, Colin.

Colin Connolly: Thank you.

Operator: Our next question will come from Jay Poskitt with Evercore ISI. You may now go ahead.

Jay Poskitt: Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. I know that you guys have a pretty good size of land bank of $160 million. I’m just kind of curious what your thoughts are on certain projects of any of these sites. I know that guidance hasn’t called for any development starts, but I’m just kind of curious what your thoughts are on utilizing some of these land. And if you’re not playing out sort in the next couple of years, what do you need to see in order to kind of change your mindset with those? Thanks.

Colin Connolly: Yes. I mean we own a terrific land bank, and we’ve always tried to size that land bank at between 2% and 3% of the overall balance sheet to really give us the role the raw materials, if you will, to start new development projects, and we’ve found in the past that if a customer comes to the market and you don’t have a piece of land, it’s hard to ultimately win the business. So we’re about today about 2.5% or so. So we actually have a little bit of room, and we might see some land opportunities in this environment. But ultimately pulling the trigger on any of those projects, whether it’s an office development or a residential development in a mixed-use setting, the return has got to be appropriate relative to the cost and the risk.

My sense is in the near-term, we’re going to see more attractive opportunities on the acquisition side. But again, you never know, and there are some customers out there that we’re talking to today that could be potential build-to-suit opportunities. And so those will certainly be worthy of consideration.

Jay Poskitt: Great. Thanks that’s all from me.

Operator: Our next question will come from Young Ku with Wells Fargo. You may now go ahead.

Young Ku: Great. Thank you. Just I think you guys mentioned the largest lease expiration in ’23, about 120,000 square feet. Could you guys provide some additional color on that, which market it is? And then whether there will be any contractions or expansion associated with that space?