Urban Edge Properties Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
February 14, 2024

There are 9 speakers on the call.

Operator

Good morning and welcome to Urban Edge Properties 2023 Year End Earnings Conference Call. Joining me today are Jeff Olson, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Jeff Mualim, Chief Operating Officer Mark Langer, Chief Financial Officer Rob Milton, General Counsel Scott Oster, EVP and Head of Leasing and Andrea Drazen, 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 in which the company does not undertake to update. Our actual results, financial conditions and business may differ. Please refer to our filings with the SEC, which are also available on our website for more information about the company.

Operator

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 our website. At this time, it is my pleasure to introduce our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Jeff Olson.

Speaker 1

Great. Thank you, Areeba, and Happy Valentine's Day to everyone. As highlighted in our press release, 2023 was a record year from virtually every perspective leasing, development, refinancings, acquisitions, dispositions, executive and board refreshment, simplification and earnings growth. Our total return to shareholders was 35%, the highest in the shopping center REIT sector, outperforming our peers by 2,300 basis points. Moreover, we are optimistic about our future, particularly due to several points of differentiation relative to our peers.

Speaker 1

1st, Our portfolio is concentrated in the DC to Boston corridor, the most densely populated supply constrained area in the country. This not only results in high embedded land values, but further limits new supply due to lack of available land and high costs to develop in our markets. 2nd, we have executed leases that will generate $27,000,000 of rent upon commencement, representing 11% of our current NOI. We also have $8,000,000 of anchor repositioning and redevelopment projects underway expected to generate a 15% return. Importantly, over 90% of this pipeline is pre leased.

Speaker 1

3rd, our size. With an equity market cap of approximately $2,000,000,000 we have a greater opportunity to increase per share earnings through higher internal growth and modest acquisition activity. For example, we have $180,000,000 property in our acquisition pipeline, which if closed should increase FFO by a penny a share on a leverage neutral basis. Our FFO growth targets for 2024 and 2025 reflect minimal acquisition activity. 4th, our balance sheet and secured debt strategy.

Speaker 1

Our long term debt consists solely of non recourse single asset mortgages. This has allowed us to eliminate nearly $100,000,000,000 of debt during market dislocations. Only 13% of our debt is maturing through 2026 and we maintain a well laddered debt maturity profile. 5th, we own nearly all the anchors in our shopping which is why our top tenants include Home Depot, Lowe's, Target and Walmart. These four tenants alone generate $35,000,000 in annual rent.

Speaker 1

Many of these anchor parcels would likely trade in the 5.5% to 6% cap rate range as evidenced by our recent sale of Freeport Commons. We also own most of the outparcels on our properties, which would also trade at similar cap rates in the private market. All of these factors position us well for 2024 as we continue to take advantage of the significant opportunities we see to drive increased value and long term growth. Now turning to our 2024 outlook. Our goals for the year include achieving same property NOI growth of at least 4%, advancing our $27,000,000 S and O pipeline and increasing our leased occupancy Back to our historical high of 97% to 98%.

Speaker 1

Mark will provide further details of our guidance, But I can confidently say that our team is highly focused on achieving the targeted growth we outlined at Investor Day, which is to generate FFO of $1.35 per share or higher in 2025. To that end, we increased our annual dividend by 6%, reflecting our confidence in our earnings and cash flow growth. Finally, I want to extend my gratitude to the UE team for their tremendous execution and accomplishments in the past year. We are excited to build on this momentum and continue executing our growth strategy in 2024. I will now turn it over to our Chief Operating Officer, Jeff Muella.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Jeff, and good morning, everyone. I echo Jeff's appreciation for the amazing job our team did in 2023, my first year at Urban Edge. As we look into 2024 and beyond, I feel confident that our efforts around capital recycling, leasing and development will continue to produce these strong results. First, acquisitions and dispositions. Our October 2023 sale of an industrial portfolio in East Hanover, New Jersey And our simultaneous purchase of Shoppers World and Gateway Center in Boston were our most notable transactions of the year.

Speaker 2

We're delighted to add these 2 great retail assets to Urban Edge and I can tell you that retailer demand has already exceeded our initial expectations. We've been active on other fronts as well. In December, we sold an additional $101,000,000 of non core assets at a blended 5.8% cap rate And we're now under contract to sell 2 small non core properties for a total of $38,000,000 by the end of this quarter at a blended 5% cap rate. We've also continued our buying momentum with last week's acquisition of Heritage Square in Wachung, New Jersey for $34,000,000 Heritage Square is anchored by 2 TJX concepts has 4 outparcels and is diagonally across Route 22 From our existing Green Brook Commons anchored by BJ's and Aldi's, we love the critical mass stable national retailer lineup and flexibility that this property provides. We acquired Heritage Square at a going in cap rate above 7.75%, making it immediately accretive and providing future growth through below market rents with minimal turnover risk.

Speaker 2

It's worth mentioning here that the investment sales market is continuing to come back to life as both buyers and sellers have adjusted to the new normal for interest and cap rates. We're seeing more and more deals both on market and off market and our team is busy underwriting everything that fits our profile. In leasing, we also finished the year strong with our best quarter of 2023 in terms of number of deals, square footage leased and leasing spreads. 51 deals were executed in the 4th quarter for a total of 650,000 square feet and same space deals generated an average cash rent spread of 18%. Of the 51 deals this quarter, 22 were new leases with a very strong same space average spread of 38%.

Speaker 2

Tenant signing leases this quarter included a national single credit tenant to backfill our 94,000 square foot space in Totowa, New Jersey that was previously occupied by Bed Bath and Beyond. While we can't announce the tenant just yet, we're excited about the use and the credit that this will they will bring to the property, not to mention the leasing spread. For full year 2023, we completed about 2,000,000 square feet of leasing transactions about 500,000 square feet of which is attributable to new leases. With an overall spread of about 12% and a new lease spread of almost 25%, it was a year of both quantity and quality leasing. As we've said before, the record low supply of available space in our core Northeast markets coupled with healthy retailers investing more money to improve the in experience has really helped propel our leasing efforts and the results are evident in the numbers.

Speaker 2

Our same property occupancy rate increased 150 basis from the prior quarter and now sits at 96% with our anchor lease occupancy up to approximately 98% and our shop occupancy up 2 30 basis points to approximately 88%. We are laser focused in 2024 on increasing our shop occupancy back to and above Urban Edge's historical high watermark of 91%, a potential 300 basis point increase. We expect this increase to be driven by 2 components, 100 and 50 basis points of deals underway in our leasing pipeline and 150 basis points from converting temporary tenants to permanent tenants. We continue to see demand from fast casual restaurants, discounters and healthcare providers, which gives us confidence we'll meet our shop leasing goals. And finally, on the development side, we completed 7 projects with aggregated costs of $38,000,000 in the 4th quarter.

Speaker 2

This includes the opening of Sector 66, a 123,000 square foot indoor entertainment destination at Shops of Caguas in Puerto Rico. And we commenced another $38,000,000 of redevelopment projects during the quarter, bringing our active project total to $168,000,000 at year end, which we expect will generate a 15% unleveraged yield. Overall, we remain very bullish, not only on what was accomplished in 2023, but on where the business is headed. We have low basis assets in the most densely populated part of the country, allowing us to generate healthy spreads and development yields as leases mature and weaker tenants depart. We have a more stable transaction market where interest rate volatility has effectively boxed out high leverage and debt dependent buyers and provided way better opportunities for companies with strong balance sheets and strong And most of all, we have a tight leasing market, where for the first time in at least 20 years, Demand meaningfully exceeds supply.

Speaker 2

According to Cushman and Wakefield's most recent market study, 2023 was a year of more than 4% retail rent growth, the lowest level of retail vacancy since 2007 and a record low year for retail construction. And nowhere are these trends more pronounced than in the Northeast. We expect this to continue and we intend to take advantage of the wind at our backs. I'll now turn it over to our Chief Financial Officer, Mark Langer.

Speaker 3

Thanks, Jeff. Good morning. I will comment on our 4th quarter results, provide insights on our balance sheet and liquidity and conclude with an outline of key assumptions impacting our 2024 guidance. Starting with our results for the quarter. We reported FFO as adjusted of $0.31 per share in the 4th quarter and $1.25 per share for the full year, achieving the high end of our guidance range.

Speaker 3

Same property NOI growth including redevelopment was down 1.3% compared to the Q4 of 2022 and up 2.5% for the full year compared to 2022. When excluding the impact of out of period collections, Same property NOI growth with redevelopment was up 0.6% in the quarter and up 4.3% for the year. The 4.3% growth rate was at the high end of our prior guidance range of 3.5% to 4.5%. As we expected, there was a noticeable swing between headline NOI growth and the growth rate excluding collections on out of period receivables, Given nearly $2,000,000 of collections in Q4 of last year compared to about $700,000 received in Q4 of 2020 3, we also expected 4th quarter NOI to be impacted by the timing of certain deferred maintenance projects that were completed towards the end of the year. On the financing front, we obtained a new 6 year $43,700,000 non recourse mortgage secured by Huntington Commons at a fixed rate of 6.29 percent executed at a spread of 185 basis points and we paid off our $20,700,000 maturing mortgage at Hudson Mall.

Speaker 3

After the quarter, we prepaid 3 variable rate mortgages aggregating $76,000,000 Debt bore interest at a rate of SOFR +200basispoints or 7.34%. Looking ahead, as Jeff highlighted, our debt maturity profile is in great shape as we have minimal maturities aggregating $213,000,000 through 2026, representing only 13% of outstanding debt. Our total mortgage indebtedness has a weighted average term to maturity of 5 years with a weighted average interest rate of 5%. We continue to see strong interest from lenders for retail properties and are in active discussion with life companies and regional banks. The CMBS market is showing increasing interest in retail properties, but pricing levels haven't been as competitive, Although we expect that market to strengthen during the year, we have made great progress reducing our leverage, Consistent with the plan we outlined during our April Investor Day, our net debt to annualized EBITDA decreased to 6.6 times in the 4th quarter due to the execution of our capital recycling efforts and the growth in recurring EBITDA, which was up over 8% compared to 2022.

Speaker 3

As we continue to execute our plan and benefit from EBITDA growth of our S and O pipeline, we expect this level to decrease below 6.5 times in 2025. Turning to our outlook for 2024. Our initial 2024 FFO as adjusted per share guidance range is $1.24 to $1.29 or about $1.27 at the midpoint. Our guidance incorporates the following key assumptions. We expect same property NOI growth, including properties and redevelopment to increase 4% at the midpoint of our range, driven by the full year impact of leases that commenced, including $8,000,000 of annualized gross rent That rent commenced in the Q4 of 2023 and an additional $6,000,000 from the S and O pipeline that is expected to in 2024.

Speaker 3

I will point out that $4,500,000 of the $6,000,000 coming online in 2024 is weighted to the second half of the year. Another thing to recall is that snow removal costs in the 1st part of last year were significantly lower than normal, which will provide a headwind in the NOI growth rate this year. While we don't guide on a quarterly basis, Our expectation is that the 4% NOI annual growth rate will not be evenly generated throughout the year, but will be strongest in the 3rd and 4th quarters. Our guidance assumes that credit loss reverts to a more normalized level of 75 basis points to 100 basis points of gross revenues or approximately $4,000,000 Our guidance at the midpoint assumes about $500,000 of collections on past amounts deemed uncollectible compared to approximately $3,000,000 that was received in 2023. One item to note outside of cash NOI that is impacting FFO guidance is our expectation that we will incur a year over year decline of $0.02 per share in straight line rent and non cash amortization, driven by the timing of previous anchor contractual rent increases that are now in the back half of their lease terms as well as non recurring GAAP free rent and the impact of dispositions executed last year.

Speaker 3

As Jeff Nuella mentioned, our guidance assumes that leased occupancy grows to 97% to 98% with shock occupancy growing to 91% and anchor occupancy growing above 98%. Interest and debt expense guidance of $83,000,000 to $85,000,000 includes $6,000,000 of regular and default interest that is accrued, but not being paid on Kingswood Center, given the property is going through the foreclosure process. We have assumed Kingswood Center remains on balance sheet for the full year. However, the full FFO impact of the property, including interest expense is not included in FFO as adjusted, so any changes regarding the ultimate resolution of the foreclosure will not impact our guidance on that metric. The primary factors driving the interest expense guidance reflect the full year impact of new and refinanced mortgages obtained in 2023 that we disclosed in our earnings release and in our 10 ks.

Speaker 3

Our 2024 guidance assumes that we will add $60,000,000 to $80,000,000 of new leverage during the year at rates of approximately 6% to 6.5%. So all things considered, when excluding the impact of Kingswood, Interest and debt expense is expected to increase $7,000,000 to $9,000,000 in 2024. We assume recurring G and A will be $35,500,000 to $37,500,000 in 2024, up 4% from the prior year, but down 3% from 2022 levels. Moving to transactions, our guidance includes the $34,000,000 acquisition of Heritage Square that we announced today and non core dispositions that Jeff Muellam just described. We have no other material capital activities assumed in our guidance.

Speaker 3

As we announced, our Board recently approved an increase in our dividend to an annualized rate of $0.68 a share. As we have stated in the past, we expect the dividend to grow as earnings and taxable income grow, while we maintain an emphasis on preserving free cash flow to fund our anchor repositioning pipeline that is generating unleveraged returns of 15%. To conclude, our team is committed to executing the growth strategy we outlined at Investor Day in April, achieving a $1.35 per share in FFO in 2025 and we are on track to achieve that. We appreciate the hard work exhibited by the entire UE team as their efforts have been instrumental in driving our success. We look forward to build on our momentum during 2024.

Speaker 3

Thank you for your continued support and interest in UE. I will now turn the call over to the operator for questions.

Speaker 4

Thank you. We'll now be conducting a question and answer session. And the first question comes from the line of Floris Van Dykem with Compass Point. Please proceed with your questions.

Speaker 5

Good morning, guys.

Speaker 3

Hey, good morning, Clay.

Speaker 5

Thanks for allowing me to ask your question. I've got a let me start with Something that Jeff talked about, which I think is actually really interesting and potentially massive incremental upside, I think, from where we stand today, even though your pipeline is already, I think, 11% of NOI growth, something like that. Your 12% vacancy in your shop space, which is based on my math, it's almost $12,000,000 of incremental

Speaker 2

Pending on you doing more anchor repositionings and upgrading, redeveloping the assets? Or Are you now finding greater demand from retailers just to take the space as is? Or is it dependent on you Spending money on the centers and how do you and how much potentially can you get at that $12,000,000 potential bogey? Hey, Floris. Good morning.

Speaker 2

Thanks for the question. Yes, I mean like anything else there's a few different answers. One of which is We've done so much anchor repositioning work over the last few years that we will start to see the fruits of that labor coming through in the shop occupancy. So a lot of our centers where New anchors have opened for instance we mentioned earlier in the call our asset in watching New Jersey we just had an Aldi open there in the Q4. So there'll be some shop leasing That's a result of better anchor repositioning over the last few years.

Speaker 2

The second of which answer I'd give you is that the team is super focused On shop this year, we're pretty much where we need to be on an anchor portfolio occupancy basis. So we're really looking harder at all of our shops spending more on canvassing, spending more time on the ground with brokers and with smaller retailers and we think that will also lead to some results. And then the 3rd component to keep in mind is a lot of the shop occupancy gains we're expecting do come from converting temporary tenants to permanent tenants. So in Puerto Rico for example, we have quite a bit of temporary tenant space that we know those tenants are anxious to either get converted into permanent tenants or we have other people sort of waiting to take those spaces. So we'll see some shop occupancy gains that won't necessarily be fresh dollars.

Speaker 2

It'll be the incremental dollars between the temp and the perm which will hurt your little your $12,000,000 number there a little bit. But there's still we're expecting about $1,000,000 of total gains from converting temp to permanent over the next year.

Speaker 1

And Floris, the only thing I'd add is we We made that part of an STI goal for the executive team and then obviously for the leasing team specifically on shop leasing. And I believe our targeted amount is around $6,500,000 this year.

Speaker 5

Great. And maybe a follow-up question, if I may. I'd love to get your an update on what's going on at Sunrise as well as Hudson, I saw that you paid off the mortgage at Hudson. Any particular reason why you wanted to do that? Does that give you more And talk a little bit about the entitlement process at those properties.

Speaker 1

Yes. Hudson, it does give us more flexibility. It was not that large of a loan to begin with. So we want to keep it unencumbered while we go through the process of redeveloping that asset, which is still in the early stages, but it has so much potential. Lots of stuff going on at Sunrise, but we can't get into any specifics just given the confidential nature of the Underway, but we're very optimistic and we hope to provide more guidance once it's appropriate for us to do so.

Speaker 5

Great. That's it for me. Thanks. Thank you, Flores.

Speaker 4

Our next questions come from the line of Sameer Khanal with Evercore ISI. Please proceed with your question.

Speaker 6

Hey, Jeff. Good morning. I guess with lease occupancy At 98% now, especially on the anchor side, just generally what's the conversation been with anchor tenants today, right? I mean given All the comments you made on supply, the strong demand. I mean, historically, they paid lower rents.

Speaker 6

So trying to understand how much more runway there is on pricing power?

Speaker 2

Yes. Hey, Sameer. It's Jeff Mualin. Good morning. Yes, I would say that a 98% leased anchor portfolio allows us to play a little more offense than defense.

Speaker 2

It's certainly more offense than we've been able to play in the past. We only have a few anchor boxes left, we have other anchor boxes that we view to be under leased meaning if we have the opportunity to get them back and those conversations can get started, we think there's a lot of spread in the rents. Some of those are tenants that are potential watch list tenants. So we keep a close eye on those and kind of think about who we want to put in and at what kind of rent rates if we get certain space back. But your question is a good one.

Speaker 2

There's certainly an opportunity now to push not just rent, but to push other things that are important to us, increases, restrictions, all of that sort of stuff, the amount of capital we put into space that all goes into the deals. And of course, if we have the leverage of less vacancy or more users for our vacancy, we can cut a better deal.

Speaker 6

Got it. And I guess, Mark, on the same store NOI growth, the 3% to 5%, I mean, it's still a pretty wide range there. Maybe talk us through what needs to happen to sort of get us to the top end and the low end there? Thanks.

Speaker 3

Sure. Good morning, Sameer. So really the main pillars when we look at our NOI growth in that range, it gets down to the pace and rate at which The incoming leases get executed and filled. So from an RCD space basis, you saw my comments on the S and O and the timing of that. So that's one element.

Speaker 3

And another big element of course is the tenant credit loss provision, which has its own range. So In order to get to the high and low end, it's really a function of taking for the low end, the more conservative levels of bad debt, some tenant fallout and some slowdown in the pace of the rent commencements. And on the upper end of that range, Sameer, it's really getting to low levels of reserve, low fallout and getting full execution on the SNO. So those are the really the biggest drivers.

Speaker 6

And maybe as a follow-up, I mean, is it taking longer to open up open tenants these days given some of the approvals you need? Just trying to maybe talk around that a little bit. Thanks.

Speaker 2

Sameer, you're hitting on all my hot buttons today. Yes, listen, I mean, it's just the nature of the business where we are today. Things take a little bit longer to negotiate. Take a little bit longer to get approved. There's more municipality involvement than there has historically been in the past.

Speaker 2

We are in some very high density, good income demographic locations and generally those are the places that have towns that get very involved in a permitting process. So You get the bad along with the good of these kinds of 1st drink suburban locations. It is taking longer than we'd like. We've had a couple of deals where we've pushed delivery back a quarter or 2 quarters. We are getting it done.

Speaker 2

But certainly we'd love to expedite the process.

Speaker 6

Thank you.

Speaker 4

Our next from the line of Ronald Kamdem with Morgan Stanley. Please proceed with your question.

Speaker 7

Hey, just two quick ones for me. Just on the same store NOI, both sort of the 4Q number, you talked about sort of the I think there was some out of period stuff that happened in there. Can you just provide a little bit more color on what happened in 4Q and why the divergence between the first half versus second half in the 2020 guidance as well.

Speaker 3

Sure. Good morning, Ron. It's Mark. 4Q was the specific answer was really the timing As we noted in the press release of deferred maintenance, the big dollars really come from some parking lot and paving projects. That was the big driver.

Speaker 3

So it was just a function of timing. If you look on a full year basis, as I said in my comment, the NOI number for the year was in line or even behind of our guidance in particular when you exclude the other big variable in this quarter Ron on a year over year basis was the collections from out of period receivables. I mean that was a meaningful difference of about $1,300,000 and that we had expected as well. So The combination of just the timing of spend and so I'd just say, if you look at it more on a full year basis, you'd get a better picture than just looking individually at Q4, which is evident when you look at our guide for next year.

Speaker 7

Right. And then so for the guide for next year, I think you talked about The first half potentially being lower before ramping in the second half of the year. Is that sort of similar timing? Is it lease commencements? What's sort of driving that?

Speaker 3

Yes, 2 factors driving that. 1 is just seasonality on the OpEx side, snow removal costs, obviously, much more pronounced in 1Q and sometimes even a little in Q2. And then secondly and importantly what I commented on in the opening remarks about the cadence and pace of the

Speaker 6

S and O delivery, Ron, 75%

Speaker 3

of that S and O amount that we disclosed this year is really coming in the back half of the year. So NOI and FFO will be a gradual build and not ratable for those two factors both on the expense side and just the timing of rent commencements.

Speaker 7

Great. And so just my last one if I may. Just on so I saw the Harris Teasquared deal. Can you just talk just broad Strokes about the acquisition market, are you seeing sort of more opportunities, less opportunities? How are you guys thinking about sort of that pipeline this year?

Speaker 1

Yes, I mean, I think we're seeing more opportunities. We do have a nice pipeline that's building. We closed on We've got probably another $80 ish million under serious negotiation at the time. And we do hope to close on more acquisitions this year. We're finding that the market is Tough to find an asset that meets all of the characteristics that we're looking for.

Speaker 1

So maybe every one out of 100 deals sort of fits our profile, but Heritage Square certainly was one of those and the one that we have that we're negotiating fits that as well. Jeff, do you want to add anything to that?

Speaker 2

No. I would echo that the market is a little bit it's still tough, it's still tight. But what is a little different, Ron, for maybe in past cycles Because interest rates are not at historic lows anymore, the highly levered buyers or the buyers who are maybe dependent on raising capital for deals don't show up at the table quite as often. And when they do they don't have quite the same credibility and certainty with the sellers that we do as a well all cash buyer. So we are seeing some competitive advantages as a buyer in the market today versus where it might have been a few years ago.

Speaker 7

Great. Thanks so much.

Speaker 1

Thank you.

Speaker 4

The next questions are from the line of Paulina Rojas with Green Street. Please proceed with your questions.

Speaker 8

Good morning. And following up with a prior question, so you have the plan to do modest acquisition and you have your preferred option has been recycling assets. But if you were to see an opportunity, larger opportunity, would you consider issue equity to take advantage of that considering how well your stock has done recently?

Speaker 3

Hi, Paulina.

Speaker 1

I think we would provided again that all the boxes are checked where the portfolio is accretive in terms of cap rate and plot relative to implied cap rate growth relative to the growth of our portfolio, risk relative to risk levels in our portfolio. But yes, I think that could be a source of capital for us under the right circumstances.

Speaker 8

Okay. And then I'm curious about

Speaker 1

And again Paulina, what I would come back to which I think is different from many of our peers in this space because of our company size, There aren't that many companies that can do an $80,000,000 deal and actually show a penny a share in FFO accretion. So this could play to our advantage if everything lines up.

Speaker 8

Yes, agreed. And then I'm looking at the heritage property you acquired, it's anchored by of price Ulta and it has no grocer and that So the industry in general investors love grocery anchored centers. So I mean, tricked by your thoughts about what do you see is the benefit of adding a grocer to centers like this

Speaker 1

Well, I mean, in particular, this center is anchored by 2 TJX concepts. And In total, I would say they bring the same amount of traffic to the center as a grocery store. By the way, TJX is now our largest tenant and we love TJX. We think they are a phenomenal company. So we looked at it from that perspective.

Speaker 1

Paul, I

Speaker 2

would add to that that this center has 4 outparcels to I believe the best in class tenants in each of their categories. You have a Miller's Ale House, a CityMD, a Chick Fil A and a Starbucks that's under construction. So those outparcels alone drive a tremendous amount of traffic. We own the property across the street which has a BJ's Warehouse Club and an Aldi's Grocer. So we're very familiar with the trade area.

Speaker 2

In our view more important than having a grocer in the property is really understanding the market and this is a market we know really well. We feel very comfortable with the tenancy there.

Speaker 8

That's very interesting. And do you think that there is a cap rate compression for having a grocer even if it's

Speaker 1

No question Paulina. This could have been a sub 6 asset, 6% cap rate asset with a grocer with a high quality grocer Or around 6.

Speaker 8

And then if I may, the last one. I mean, we have talked about how good fundamentals are. Big picture, do you think this is a business that could grow on a same store basis more than 3% in the coming years?

Speaker 2

I think it's probably a 2% to

Speaker 1

3% business for the next several years. I think that trend could move in a positive direction, but it's only as leases expire, which takes a longer time period. And I think it's possible that we get above that 3%, but it's going to take some time to get there as an industry.

Speaker 8

Great. Thank you.

Speaker 4

Thank you. At this time, we've reached the end of our question and answer session. I'll now turn the floor back to Jeff Olson for closing remarks.

Speaker 1

Great. We appreciate your interest in UE and we look forward to seeing many of you soon. Thank you very much.

Speaker 4

Thank you. This will conclude today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.

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Urban Edge Properties Q4 2023
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