First Industrial Realty Trust, Inc. (NYSE:FR) Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

And if you were to look at spreads on a 10-year deal, I would say were probably 200 to 210 basis points.Robert Stevenson Okay. That’s helpful. And then one last one for me. The Camelback 303 purchase option, is that at a fairly similar price to the 1.6 million acre you did here in the first quarter? And is there anything different in terms of the quality or use of the land between the first 50 acres and the last 70?Johannson Yap Rob, can I comment on the pricing on the rest of the 71 acres for confidentiality and competitive reasons, I will tell you that it’s land that the buyer wants. And so we disclosed to you the ground lease numbers. And in terms of use I would say it would be a similar use with — and the lot that they bought has frontage on two of their corners, and this one is published on the freeway.

So maybe one less suite from it, but that’s about it. It’s same use.Robert Stevenson Okay, perfect. Thanks guys, appreciate the time. Operator And we have a question from Todd Thomas from KeyBanc Capital Markets. Todd, please go ahead. Todd Thomas Yes, hi thanks. Good morning. I just wanted to follow up a little bit on some of the development leasing. I think the guidance continues to assume 12 months of downtime from completion to lease up, is that right? And I know you’ve been running closer to six months on average. But how should we think about the pace from here? And do you see any risk that any of the projects delivered in ’22 might not be leased before that 12-month mark?Peter Baccile So yes, you’re right. We do continue to use a 12-month assumed downtime for lease-up on new completions.

The last couple of years, it’s been shorter. I would characterize the post 2020-time frame as kind of being peaky in our business, and that’s why we have not changed our 12-month downtime assumption. Doesn’t mean that we don’t have great confidence going forward. In fact, if we have markets like we had in 2018 and ’19 going forward, we’d all be just fine. So that’s the assumption there.With respect to leasing on the existing development pipeline and some of the projects that are completed, Peter and Jojo, you guys want to talk about the projects in your region?Peter Schultz Sure, Todd. I commented on some of the projects before, but I would say two things to add to Peter’s comments. One is we deliver all of our buildings moving ready. So there’s not a long lead time to permit and outfit the building.

So to the extent we convert a deal, that can happen fairly quickly, which makes us feel pretty good about leasing within the 12 months.The second thing I would say is the cadence of decision-making from smaller midsized tenants, we continue to see as better. The larger tenants are a little bit slower as they continue to assess the macro environment and the capital market environment, particularly given some of their investments that they would make in the building. So in general, I would say we continue to feel good about leasing all of these within 12 months. And we’ll see how some of the decision-making goes with some of the bigger tenants. Jojo, anything else you want to add?Johannson Yap Yes. Yes. I just want to add that we’re really excited about the projects that you see here under construction and already completed.

In terms of the under construction, I mean, about 73% of them are in super infill markets and coal cell markets, primarily in California, Northern Cal, SoCal and South Florida. And so if you look at all the designs of these projects, I would say they’re top tier and not only top tier, but the very constrained markets. So we’re really very happy with this pipeline. And so of course, our job is to beat that 12 months down time.Todd Thomas Okay. That’s helpful. And then in terms of rent change going forward, you previously had highlighted the opportunity that you had in Southern California this year with sort of an outsized percentage of role during the year. Are you through that now with this quarter’s results? Or is there still some role in SoCal to be worked through in that, I guess, 37% portion of this year’s role that has not been addressed yet.Christopher Schneider Yes.

This is Chris. Actually, if you look at our three largest remaining rollovers, they range from 225,000 square feet up to 300,000 square feet. All of those rollovers are in the Inland Empire market.Todd Thomas Okay. And then just last question around the guidance and I guess, the occupancy assumption. Does the guidance still assume that old Post Road is leased up, they have an executed lease in the third quarter?Scott Musil Todd, this is Scott. That’s correct.Todd Thomas Okay. So that — so in terms of the occupancy assumption underlying guidance, I guess that would add a little over 100 basis points of occupancy by year-end. I guess in terms of the occupancy assumption then that’s what sort of that would imply, I guess, an even greater decrease in occupancy throughout the balance of the portfolio.

Is that the right way to think about the trajectory for occupancy outside of that?Scott Musil Well, we gave a range of occupancy quarter end average and that was 98.25%. So we’re higher than that as we stand today. So yes, as the quarters go on, we see a slight decline in quarter-end occupancy. But we’re still very, very happy with having an occupancy rate above 98%.Todd Thomas Okay. And the guidance, though, assumes that 100 basis points — a little over 100 basis points…Scott Musil It assumes that old costs leased up in the third quarter, it only impacts the quarter and average by 50 basis points because it’s only in place for two quarters. But yes, it’s assumed in our occupancy guidance to lease up in 3Q, Todd.Todd Thomas Got it. All right, that’s helpful.

Thank you.Operator And we will follow with a question from Rick Anderson from SMBC. Rich, just hang on a second while I unmute you. Okay, Rich, go ahead, please. Richard Anderson So the — this nearly 60% cash releasing spread is bananas and congratulations to you. To what degree is the sort of second-generation or even first-generation CapEx influencing that? In other words, like if you did nothing what would the number be? I’m just curious, what are the building blocks to get you to that 58% number in terms of the money you spend to attract tenants into the space.Scott Musil Over that Chris, the leasing costs on average, and they really haven’t changed materially. Christopher Schneider Yes. One statistic we really look at is kind of our percentage of but TI and leasing cost as a percentage of the net rent over the entire lease term.

And if you look at that number, that x number for the — of the ones signed already, is actually a little bit lower than where we were in 2022. So we — so we’re not spending any more money to get those of those higher.Scott Musil Another way of saying it, we’re not buying increases in rents through above-market tenant improvements, Todd. These are standard allowances that are included in our results.Johannson Yap And no additional concessions. In fact, there are some deals in California or renewals or as is.Richard Anderson Okay. Good. So it’s a pretty pure number. And then on the development side, Scott, you and I had a quick chat last night about tenant commitment to their space. You talked about larger tenants moving a bit slower in their decision process.

What about the commitment they’re making financially to the interior space and the build-out that’s on their dime? Are you guys seeing anything to suggest that perhaps they’re not making as much of a financial commitment on top of the fact that they’re maybe moving slower to making the commitment in general. Can you just talk about that decision tree for me?Peter Schultz Rich, this is Peter Schultz. No, we’re not seeing any real degradation in the level of their commitment. What we are seeing is they’re just taking longer to make the decisions because the commitments are large. So no change in their program or what we anticipate, particularly in the larger buildings, given the sophistication of material handling equipment and how tenants operate in the buildings we continue to see probably that growing, not shrinking.Richard Anderson Could you quantify how much a typical tenant that does beyond the just basic racking system, but more of the higher tech type of investment?

How much is that as a percentage of something? Can you quantify how much of an investment tenants are willing to make, which really makes the sort of sticky?Peter Schultz Right, it’s Peter again. We don’t really see those costs in general, the tenants contract for that work directly. So we’re not really involved in that activity for the most part. Jojo, anything you want to add to that?Johannson Yap No, I mean in addition to the racking that Todd mentioned, I mean, the investment forklifts investment charging stations and then sometimes dock packages. But overall, there’s really not — I mean net we’re not open to all of the expenditures, but these are standard expenditures. And nothing materially has changed.Richard Anderson Okay, thanks very much.