Boston Properties Q4 2024 Earnings Report

Boston Properties EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $1.79
• Consensus EPS: $0.51
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$1.28
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A

Boston Properties Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: N/A
• Expected Revenue: $843.55 million
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

Boston Properties Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q4 2024
• Date: 1/28/2025
• Time: After Market Closes
• Conference Call Date: Wednesday, January 29, 2025
• Conference Call Time: 10:00AM ET

Boston Properties (NYSE:BXP) (NYSE: BXP) (BXP or the Company) is the largest publicly traded developer, owner, and manager of premier workplaces in the United States, concentrated in six dynamic gateway markets - Boston, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington, DC. BXP has delivered places that power progress for our clients and communities for more than 50 years. BXP is a fully integrated real estate company, organized as a real estate investment trust (REIT). Including properties owned by joint ventures, BXP's portfolio totals 53.3 million square feet and 188 properties, including 10 properties under construction/redevelopment. BXP's properties include 167 office properties, 14 retail properties (including two retail properties under construction/redevelopment), six residential properties (including one residential property under construction) and one hotel. BXP is well-known for its inhouse building management expertise and responsiveness to clients' needs. BXP holds a superior track record of developing premium Central Business District (CBD) office buildings, successful mixed-use complexes, suburban office centers and build-to-suit projects for a diverse array of creditworthy clients. BXP actively works to promote its growth and operations in a sustainable and responsible manner. BXP has earned a twelfth consecutive GRESB Green Star recognition and the highest GRESB 5-star Rating. BXP, an S&P 500 company, was founded in 1970 by Mortimer B. Zuckerman and Edward H. Linde and became a public company in 1997.

Boston Properties Q4 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Presentation

[Operator]

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to BXP's Q4 2024 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. After the speakers' presentation, there will be a question and answer session. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded.

[Operator]

I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker, Helen Hahn, Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

[Helen Han, Vice President, Investor Relations at Boston Properties]

Good morning, and welcome to BXP's Q4 2024 earnings conference call. The press release and supplemental package were distributed last night and furnished on Form 8 ks. In the supplemental package, BXP has reconciled all non GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measure in accordance with Reg G. If you did not receive a copy, these documents are available in the Investors section of our website at investors. Bxp.com.

[Helen Han, Vice President, Investor Relations at Boston Properties]

A webcast of this call will be available for 12 months. At this time, we would like to inform you that certain statements made during this conference call, which are not historical, may constitute forward looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. Although BXP believes the expectations reflected in any forward looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, and with no assurance that its expectations will be attained. Factors and risks that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by forward looking statements were detailed in yesterday's press release and from time to time in BXP's filings with the SEC. BXP does not undertake a duty to update any forward looking statements.

[Helen Han, Vice President, Investor Relations at Boston Properties]

I'd like to welcome Owen Thomas, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Doug Linde, President and Mike LaBelle, Chief Financial Officer. During the Q and A portion of our call, Ray Ritchie, Senior Executive Vice President and our regional management teams will be available to address any questions. We ask that those of you participating in the Q and A portion of the call to please limit yourself to 1 and only one question. If you have an additional query or follow-up, please feel free to rejoin the queue. I would now like to turn the call over to Owen Thomas for his formal remarks.

[Owen Thomas, Chairman and CEO at Boston Properties]

Great. Thank you, Helen. Good morning and Happy Lunar New Year to all of you. Our results in the Q4 demonstrated strong performance given our execution and the property and capital market recovery that is underway. Our FFO per share was in line with our forecast and market consensus for the Q4.

[Owen Thomas, Chairman and CEO at Boston Properties]

We completed over 2,300,000 square feet of leasing in the quarter, which was the most quarterly leasing we have experienced since the Q2 of 2019. It was 130% of our long term average leasing for the 4th quarter and our 5th largest quarter of leasing ever. Over the last few months, we have made several significant leasing announcements with important clients such as Bain Capital, Ropes and Gray, McDermott, Will and Emery and Knitwell. We leased over 5,600,000 square feet for all of 2024, which was 35% greater than 2023, and the average term for over 291 leases completed in 2024 was just under 10 years. Though the 4th quarter is usually our most productive leasing quarter due to year end seasonality effects, momentum is clearly building in the market and our leasing results.

[Owen Thomas, Chairman and CEO at Boston Properties]

As I discussed at some length last quarter, the most important market forces impacting BXP, corporate earnings growth, return to office behavior and outperformance of premier workplaces continues to work in our favor, serving as a tailwind for BXP's performance. The one critical factor with a more uncertain trajectory is interest rates. Inflation measured at CPI has risen the last 3 months to 2.9 percent, stubbornly above the Fed's 2% target and the December employment release indicated new job creation was well in excess of market expectations. As a result, the Fed has become more cautious lowering its forecast of Fed fund rate cuts in 2025 and in the fixed income markets, long term interest rates are up nearly 100 basis points since the Fed's first rate cut in September last year. Notwithstanding these uncertainties, short term interest rates should remain lower in 2025 than 2024, which would be a positive for our and our clients' cost of capital.

[Owen Thomas, Chairman and CEO at Boston Properties]

One question we frequently receive is to project the impact of the new federal administration's policies on BXP's activities. Though we are in the early stages of the new administration executing its plan, we do believe many of the articulated policies are business friendly, particularly lower taxes and less regulation, which will be positive for our clients, building their confidence and as a result, stimulating leasing activity. Regarding efficiency initiatives, even if the federal workforce is rationalized and the GSA reduces space requirements, having federal workers returning to their offices should be a significant positive for BXP's business in the Washington, D. C. Region.

[Owen Thomas, Chairman and CEO at Boston Properties]

BXP has limited exposure to GSA leases and is therefore not directly impacted by a reduction in GSA space requirements. More street life would be a positive for the urban environment and local retailers in Washington, D. C. And many of our users are government contractors who would be more likely to return to their offices in line with their government clients. An area of concern with the new administration's policies, the potential impact to interest rates given that new tariffs if implemented could be inflationary and larger fiscal deficits resulting from tax cuts could lead to higher long term treasury yields in the debt markets.

[Owen Thomas, Chairman and CEO at Boston Properties]

We are shocked by the devastation of the recent fires in LA and empathetic to all those impacted. It is too early to fully understand the future impact of this tragedy on the LA office market, But we are aware of a significant office sale process that is progressing with no apparent pricing impact post the fire incident. As discussed repeatedly in the past, BXP competes primarily in the premier workplace segment of the office sector, which continues to materially outperform the broader office market. Premier workplaces are defined in CBRE's research as the highest quality 7% of buildings, representing 13% of total space in our 5 CBD markets. Direct vacancy for premier workplaces is currently 13.2% versus 18.8% for the broader market.

[Owen Thomas, Chairman and CEO at Boston Properties]

Likewise, net absorption for premier work places has been a positive 8,800,000 square feet over the last 3 years versus a negative 15,600,000 square feet for the broader market, asking rents for Premier Workplaces are more than 50% higher than the broader market, up from approximately a 40% premium 3 years ago. Regarding the real estate private equity capital markets, office sales volume in the 4th quarter demonstrated a continued acceleration of deal activity. Specifically, significant U. S. Office sales volume was $15,300,000,000 80% greater than the Q3 of 2024 and 59% above the 4th quarter a year ago.

[Owen Thomas, Chairman and CEO at Boston Properties]

Lower short term interest rates, increased leasing activity for certain assets and locations and better access to debt financing continue to be the drivers. Though there were limited premier workplace sale transactions this past quarter in our core markets, Notable deals include, Norjust purchased the 50 percent interest that did not already own and a portfolio of 8 assets located in Boston, Washington, D. C. And San Francisco from Nuveen. Pricing was on average approximately $500 a square foot for a portfolio that is 88.5% leased.

[Owen Thomas, Chairman and CEO at Boston Properties]

A non U. S. Investor purchased a 11% minority interest in One Vanderbilt next to Grand Central in New York City for $2,700 a square foot and a 4.3% reported cap rate. Moving to BXP's capital allocation activities and new investments, we commenced an exciting new office development in Washington D. C.

[Owen Thomas, Chairman and CEO at Boston Properties]

Specifically, we acquired 725 12th Street, a vacant office building from its lender for $34,000,000 or $112 a square foot. The site is very well located immediately adjacent to Metro Center, Washington D. C. Busiest transit stop where 4 train lines converge. Concurrent with the acquisition, we secured a long term pre lease commitment from McDermott, Will and Emery for 152,000 square feet to anchor a new premier workplace development on the site.

[Owen Thomas, Chairman and CEO at Boston Properties]

Further, we have a letter of intent with another anchor client to lease substantially all of the remaining space. Our development plan is to demolish the existing building, reuse the below grade parking structure and rebuild a new 320,000 square foot premier workplace with market leading amenities and unique entry meeting and outdoor spaces for our 2 anchor clients. We expect the full development budget, including land acquisition and capital costs, will be approximately $350,000,000 and our projected initial cash development yield for the project is over 8%. The development has commenced with our acquisition in December and we expect to deliver the building in late 2028. 725 12th Street is a great example of how BXP is uniquely able to create an accretive investment opportunity in the current market environment.

[Owen Thomas, Chairman and CEO at Boston Properties]

The existing building was empty and its loan in default creating a discounted acquisition opportunity. Industry leading clients want and will pay for new premier workplace space fulfillments notwithstanding high levels of vacancy in existing buildings. And BXP has the unique ability to execute given our relationships with lenders and owners, trusted reputation and experience with industry leading clients, both in Washington, D. C. And around the U.

[Owen Thomas, Chairman and CEO at Boston Properties]

S, access to the capital markets needed to fund the development and a market leading execution team to design and construct the new building. Well done, team BXP DC. Continuing with new development, I described last quarter our 940,000 square foot 343 Madison project in Midtown with direct lobby escalator access to Grand Central Madison Concourse and located 2 blocks south of JP Morgan's new headquarters building. We are in active conversations with several potential anchor clients ranging from 150,000 to 400,000 square feet. 343 Madison is the only immediately actionable office development site in close proximity to Grand Central Terminal, widely viewed as the most in demand office submarket in the U.

[Owen Thomas, Chairman and CEO at Boston Properties]

S. We expect to launch this $2,000,000,000 project in 2025 where as a reminder, BXP owns a 55% interest. We also expect to launch 2 new residential developments in 2025 where BXP will serve as a developer and a minority owner of the project. One of these projects is in suburban Boston at 17 Hartwell Avenue in Lexington on a site we already own that is being reentitled, and the other project is in the New York region. More details will be forthcoming when we launch these projects later this year.

[Owen Thomas, Chairman and CEO at Boston Properties]

DXP, along with 3 partners, was also awarded by the State of New York a project known as Site K, located at 11th Avenue between 35th and 36th Streets, directly across from the Javits Convention Center and adjacent to our 3 Hudson Boulevard commercial site in New York City. The plan is to build approximately 13 50 residential units with an affordable component and a 4 50 room hotel and 2 separate towers over a 5 story podium. We are very pleased and honored to have been selected by New York State in this highly competitive RFP process. The project is several years away from construction commencement given the entitlement, pre development and design work that needs to be completed. DXP also delivered into service 2 projects this past quarter ahead of schedule.

[Owen Thomas, Chairman and CEO at Boston Properties]

In October, we completed 300 Binney Street, a 240,000 square foot office to lab conversion project fully leased to the Broad Institute on a long term basis, where we were able to achieve a 1st year cash development yield on incremental capital of 14.5%. We also fully delivered into service SkyMark, a 50 8 unit luxury residential high rise development located in Reston Town Center. The lease up of this project is well ahead of schedule having leased over 50% of the units at above pro form a rents only 6 months after opening. We are in active negotiations for the disposition of 3 land sites and are preparing to put into the market an operating property. In the aggregate, these sales, if successful, will generate approximately $200,000,000 of net proceeds, although it is possible one of the land sale closings gets pushed to 2026.

[Owen Thomas, Chairman and CEO at Boston Properties]

We remain active evaluating our non producing assets, both sites and buildings taken out of service to generate more monetization activity. Notwithstanding the development deliveries we completed in the second half of twenty twenty four, DXP continues to execute a significant development pipeline with 7 office, lab, retail and residential projects underway as of the end of Q4, the largest of which is 290 Binney in Cambridge fully leased to AstraZeneca and expected to deliver in the Q2 of 2026. These projects aggregate approximately 2,300,000 square feet and $2,100,000,000 of BXP investment with $1,200,000,000 remaining to be funded. So in conclusion, BXP is clearly gaining momentum in both leasing and new investment activity due to more favorable market conditions and our strategy of commitment to both our clients and the premier workplace segment of the office industry, our access to public and private debt and equity capital markets and a leading market presence in our core cities. We will build on this momentum and the constructive environment for our business to lay the foundations for additional growth in the years ahead.

[Owen Thomas, Chairman and CEO at Boston Properties]

Let me turn over our report to Doug.

[Doug Linde, President at Boston Properties]

Thanks, Owen. Good morning, everybody. So as Owen said, BXP's regional leasing teams had an outstanding 4th quarter and we greatly exceeded our 2024 baseline leasing expectation of 3,500,000 square feet. We did a significant amount of future year expiration leasing during the Q4, which follow the pattern that we set over the last 12 months. This has had the effect of dramatically reducing our 2026 2027 expirations.

[Doug Linde, President at Boston Properties]

During the last 15 months, our 2026 expirations were cut by more than 1,500,000 square feet. So as of Twelvethirty Onetwenty four, 2026 expirations sit at 1,860,000 square feet, 3.8 percent of our portfolio and 2027 sits at 2,200,000 square feet, 4.4 percent of the portfolio. And the largest expiration we have in 2026 is 134,000 Square Feet and the largest expiration we have in 2027 is 143,000 Square Feet. We are today in renewal or replacement client discussions on more than 500,000 square feet of the 2026 expiration. 2026 and 2027 will be exceptionally low rollover years for BXP.

[Doug Linde, President at Boston Properties]

Why am I emphasizing this? Because if we continue to lease 2000000 to 3000000 square feet of vacancy and expiring space in 2026 and 2027, there will be a material improvement in our occupancy, 490,000 square feet is 100 basis points. Mike thought I should just stop right there today, but I'm going to keep going. Our in service properties finished the year at 87.5 percent occupancy, a 50 basis point increase from last quarter and slightly ahead of the estimate we provided on our last call. Remember, our occupancy reflects the square footage of space where we are recognizing GAAP revenue.

[Doug Linde, President at Boston Properties]

Our leased square footage includes the addition of any spaces that have been leased but have yet to commence GAAP revenue. At the end of the Q4, we were 89.4 percent leased. Our focus is on leased square footage since it captures all of our future revenue and eliminates the variability of the timing of completion of tenant improvements, which governs GAAP revenue recognition and occupancy. We start 25 with our lease square footage, as I said, at 89.4. We've just completed our bottom up leasing projections, which emanate from the regions, a little help from me as well.

[Doug Linde, President at Boston Properties]

And the goal for our in service and 2025 development deliveries is just over 4,000,000 square feet. So that's our goal for 20 4 excuse me, 25. In 20 24, we completed leasing on about 1,500,000 square feet of vacant space. Our 25 estimate includes the execution of about 2,000,000 square feet of currently vacant space and 1,300,000 square feet of leasing on known 25 move outs and 2025 explorations where we believe we'll be successfully renewing our clients. The remainder of the leasing will be on future year expirations, the 500,000 square feet I talked about earlier.

[Doug Linde, President at Boston Properties]

Our current pool of leases and negotiation is about 1,000,000 square feet. It covers 280,000 square feet of currently vacant space, 325,000 square feet of 25 expirations, 75,000 square feet of 25 renewals with the remaining transactions involving spaces with expirations after 2025 and as Owen said, our 2nd lease at 725 12th Street. There's another 1,600,000 square feet of active pipeline transactions, which include 550,000 square feet of vacant space. These are deals that are not in LOI stage, but where we have good clarity. We're off to a good start in 2025.

[Doug Linde, President at Boston Properties]

So we have 3,100,000 square feet of contractual expirations in 2025. If we achieve our budget of 2,300,000 square feet of leasing of vacant and 25 expiring space square footage, our net lease pickup would be about 40 basis points. The one adjustment to this number will be the impact from changes to the portfolio, which will cause some quarter to quarter fluctuations, but will even out by the end of 2025. Right now, we expect to take about 825,000 square feet of space out of service, which is currently 62% leased and we're adding our 3 developments, 651 Gateway, Reston Block D and 360 Park Avenue South, which will all be in the in service portfolio by the end of the year and they are currently 23% leased. I guarantee it will be a lot higher before we get to the end of the year though.

[Doug Linde, President at Boston Properties]

In 2025, we're taking a few suburban office assets out of service. This follows the path we took in 2024. We are taking action where we have higher and better use for our assets. There's pent up demand for residential development and acknowledgment by local governments that affordable housing is critical component to a successful economy and development economics that can actually work for 6th frame construction today. This is leading to a change in attitude towards the permitting of additional housing in some of our communities.

[Doug Linde, President at Boston Properties]

We have been working in many of our markets for more than 25 years and have established constructive relationships in these towns and counties. We are working with the local communities to rezone commercial office to for rent and or for sale housing. 17 Hartwell Avenue, as Owen said, is the first example of this. This is a building in Lexington that we took out of service in 'twenty four and where we have received the entitlements for 3 12 unit project in late December. We expect to be under development in early 2025.

[Doug Linde, President at Boston Properties]

We have also entitled the site in Shady Grove, Maryland for townhouses and have executed an agreement to sell the 1st space to a townhome developer. We've done the same thing in Herndon, Virginia, where we have rezoned land holding 2 existing office buildings for a 3 59 unit rental project and a townhouse development, and we've already executed an agreement to sell the townhouse development sites. This is what we expect to accomplish with the buildings that we are taking out of service in 2025. Our office markets have either stabilized or are improving. Sublet additions have tailed off, leasing activity has picked up in every market and the negative absorption spigot appears to have stopped in Boston, San Francisco, Northern Virginia and the District of Columbia following what we have already seen in Midtown Manhattan over the last year.

[Doug Linde, President at Boston Properties]

Our 2 largest property concentrations, the Back Bay of Boston and Midtown Manhattan, continued to be the strongest markets in our portfolio. Availability is sparse, rents are increasing and concessions remain constant. While there's no meaningful job growth in office using jobs across the U. S. Economy, the pace of job reductions has slowed.

[Doug Linde, President at Boston Properties]

There are still technology companies that are reducing headcount, but there are others that are short of space and increasing their footprints. We are witnessing space utilization growth in pockets of industries, though they vary by market. Take the legal industry as a case in point. There are law firms in New York and Boston that are expanding, while at the same time, law firms in Washington, D. C.

[Doug Linde, President at Boston Properties]

And San Francisco continue to reduce but upgrade their footprints. The improvement in business sentiment, the anticipation of deal activity and a more robust capital raising environment are improving the confidence of our existing and potential customers. When our clients are confident, they are more constructive about making long term real estate commitments. While we don't think that 25% is going to be characterized by a dramatic pickup in market leasing absorption, we are certainly on the right track. And our data on Premier Space illustrates the activity continues to migrate to the best assets.

[Doug Linde, President at Boston Properties]

As Owen said, there's no better example of this than the transaction that he described at seventwenty fivetwelve. When we began our pursuit of this opportunity, we identified 8 buildings defined as Class A premier by the brokerage community in DC, including one new development under construction that could accommodate 150,000 square foot client. Were they trophy? Did they have availability at the top of the building? Were they amenity rich?

[Doug Linde, President at Boston Properties]

Well, none of these buildings were deemed to be acceptable by our client. In order to bridge the delivery of the new development, the client also executed a short term extension to 500 North Capital, a JV asset owned by DXP rather than relocate when their existing lease expired to the existing inventory in the market. The bifurcation is real. VXP's activity for the Q4 was not dominated by any region. We completed 680,000 square feet in Boston, 577 in New York, 571 on the West Coast and 494,000 square feet in DC.

[Doug Linde, President at Boston Properties]

320,000 Square Feet was on currently vacant space, 626,000 involved 24,000 and 25 expirations and 1,200,000 involved lease extensions for the space that we were scheduled to expire post 2026. 152,000 square feet was for the new development at seventwenty fivetwelve. The activity includes about 312,000 square feet of leasing on existing vacant space. Across the portfolio, the deals were executed this quarter had a markdown of about 5% with a 3% increase in Boston, a 5% decrease in New York, a 10% decrease in D. C.

[Doug Linde, President at Boston Properties]

And a 14% decrease on the West Coast, pretty consistent with what you saw in our supplemental for the leases that hit revenue this quarter. The bifurcation of client demand between the East Coast and the West Coast continues to exist and there are actions of the clients in these respective markets that are also different. There was little large block availability in the Back Bay of Boston or in the Park Avenue submarket in New York. The lease extensions we completed with Robeson Gray at the Prudential Center this quarter begins in 2,031. You may recall that we did an early extension with Bain Capital earlier this year and another with MFS at 111 Huntington Avenue in 23.

[Doug Linde, President at Boston Properties]

At the moment, the rents necessary to justify new construction in Boston are considerably higher than the rents embedded in extensions. Our large clients recognize that if they want to remain in the Back Bay long term, there are few alternatives to remaining in place. This quarter, we did 2 other larger renewals in Boston, 1 at 200 Clarendon and the other at Atlantic Wharf. These clients have the options to go to vacant space in the greater CBD market, but that would have meant significant changes in quality and location. Our Boston CBD portfolio availability is as tight as it has ever been.

[Doug Linde, President at Boston Properties]

We do have some work to do, however, in our urban edge portfolio, which is where we have our largest concentration of vacant space, large known expirations and life science availability. These markets are focused on traditional technology and life science clients, life science tenant clients and that demand growth continues to be weak. Traditional life science demand is weaker than office demand. We are in discussions with a few life science companies that are looking exclusively for office space as they focus their capital on acquiring de risked products that are in trials rather than pure drug discovery and therefore don't need lab infrastructure. There is considerable lab sublease space available and the economics of these offerings make it very difficult for new developments with Shell Lab to compete even if we provide a significant tenant improvement allowance.

[Doug Linde, President at Boston Properties]

Our availability in Midtown Manhattan is almost none, but we have a concentration in Midtown South. We have 350,000 square feet of availability at 200 and 5th Avenue, where we are in lease negotiations with a non technology client for 244,000 square feet. At 360 Park Avenue South, demand is picking up and there has been some improvement in small tech tenant inquiry. But overall tech demand in 2025 is still less than 40% of what it was pre COVID. We are in lease with another single floor tenant at 360 Park Avenue South.

[Doug Linde, President at Boston Properties]

During the quarter, we leased about 200,000 square feet to financial firms in the Park Avenue submarket at the General Motors Building 599 Lex and at 510 Madison Avenue. Each of these clients experienced growth in their footprints. There's no question that the activity we have seen at 599 Lex is a direct result of the lack of availability on Park Avenue. Our largest midtown opportunity in 2025 is at 510 Madison. We are finishing up an amenity upgrade and have about 100,000 square feet of availability on 11,000 square 500,000 square foot floors.

[Doug Linde, President at Boston Properties]

The big news is that the small floor leasing market this quarter was made by CBRE, who took multiple small floors at Lever House earlier this month at rents that position our offering at 510 Madison as a great value in the market. There was a sparse selection of large block space availability in the Park Avenue area, which portends well for our ability as Owen said to get a commitment at 343 Madison, where the rents necessary to support new construction are only a slight premium to current market rents and we're leasing at rents that will be starting in 2029 and 2030. The leasing excitement on the West Coast in 2024 continues to be growth from AI organizations in the city of San Francisco. At this point, we're not sure what defines an AI company since it seems that even established technology companies are describing their proprietary large language models, computing power and storage of data, and there are a number of organizations that are working on industry specific solutions that rely on new training models. The critical point is that the technology ecosystem in the city of San Francisco and the Peninsula is where the bulk of these businesses are operating and growing.

[Doug Linde, President at Boston Properties]

In addition, the cost of office real estate is significantly cheaper, the cost of housing is cheaper and there is more available talent than there has been in the last decade in the Bay Area. Our largest availability in our CBD portfolio wide is in San Francisco. Many of our traditional office users have continued to rationalize their space in the city, which has led to little if any growth in the traditional San Francisco CBD market. Mayor Lurie is just weeks into his new job and one of his priorities is bringing workers and shoppers and visitors back to the CBD. View space is in short supply, but space in the lower sections of buildings is widely available and very competitive.

[Doug Linde, President at Boston Properties]

We completed a new amenity center in Embarcadero Center in December and are now focused on increasing occupancy there and at 680 Folsom Street where we also have a large block and are finishing up a new amenity offering as well. Before I hand the call over to Mike to discuss 2025 earning guidance, I want to reiterate my comments at the top of my remarks. We accomplished a lot of leasing and a lot of early in the rules in 2024. We expect 2025 will be a year of modest lease square footage increases as we focus on leasing vacant space and known expirations. When we get to 2026 and 2027, there is going to be very little expiration headwinds.

[Doug Linde, President at Boston Properties]

If we lease at a pace anything like 2024 and what we hope to accomplish in 2025, we will see our lease percentage accelerate. Mike, time to talk about the quarter and guidance for 2025. Excellent.

[Michael LaBelle, EVP, Treasurer & CFO at Boston Properties]

Thanks, Doug. Good morning, everybody. So this morning, I plan to cover the details of our Q4 and full year 2024 performance. And I'm going to spend most of my time describing our 2025 initial earnings guidance that was included in our press release with additional details in our supplemental financial package. For 2024, we reported total consolidated revenues of $3,400,000,000 and full year FFO of $1,250,000,000 or $7.10 per share.

[Michael LaBelle, EVP, Treasurer & CFO at Boston Properties]

We continue to grow our portfolio and saw revenue increase by 4% in 2024, primarily from bringing new developments into service. Our 4th quarter FFO of $1.79 per share was in line with the midpoint of the guidance we provided last quarter and our portfolio performed consistent with our expectations. As Doug mentioned, our occupancy climbed this quarter by 50 basis points to 87.5%. Our Premier Workplace CBD buildings that contribute nearly 90% of the company's revenues continue to outperform and are 90.9% occupied and 92.8% leased. Our CBD occupancy improved by 80 basis points in the 4th quarter with positive absorption in Boston, New York City and Seattle.

[Michael LaBelle, EVP, Treasurer & CFO at Boston Properties]

We also reported 2024 full year AFFO, which we refer to as FAD in our supplemental of $894,000,000 which exceeds our dividend payout by over $200,000,000 While not impacting our FFO, we recorded non cash impairment charges totaling $341,000,000 this quarter related to 3 of our unconsolidated joint ventures. The charges all relate to assets located on the West Coast and include our interest in Colorado Center, Gateway Commons and Safeco Plaza. With that, I will turn to our 2025 guidance. On a high level, our 2025 guidance can be summarized as follows: growth from a full year contribution of development deliveries, higher fee income and relatively flat 2025 same property portfolio NOI compared to 2024. These items will be offset by lower termination income, lower interest income from utilizing our cash balances to pay off debt and fund our developments and a loss of NOI from taking buildings out of service for future development.

[Michael LaBelle, EVP, Treasurer & CFO at Boston Properties]

I'll start with the growth from our development activities. In 2024, we delivered 2 fully leased properties, 300 Binney Street in Cambridge and Dick's House of Sport at the Prudential Center in Boston. We also delivered Skymark, our multifamily project in Reston that is currently in lease up and 54% leased today. As Owen mentioned, it's exceeding our expectations on both absorption pace and rental Our life science deliveries at 651 Gateway in South San Francisco and 103 and 180 City Pointe in Waltham continue to be in lease up with minimal projected contribution to our earnings in 2025. 651 Gateway will be delivered into service and we will cease interest capitalization in the Q1 of 2025.

[Michael LaBelle, EVP, Treasurer & CFO at Boston Properties]

And lastly, our 360 Park Avenue South development in Midtown South opened in late 2024. We have 4 floors occupied and are seeing a meaningful pickup in leasing activity. We will complete incremental leasing in 2025, but the revenue commencement will likely be either late in the year or in 2026. We expect the NOI for 360 Park will have significant growth in 2026 as we gain occupancy from new leasing. 360 Park will be delivered into service and we will cease interest capitalization in the Q3 of 2025.

[Michael LaBelle, EVP, Treasurer & CFO at Boston Properties]

Overall, the incremental contribution to our NOI from our developments in 2025 is expected to be $19,000,000 to $22,000,000 Our same property portfolio is the largest contributor to our earnings and generated approximately $1,900,000,000 of NOI in 2024, including our share of joint ventures. Doug described in detail our lease expirations over the next 12 months and the expectation that we will grow our leased percentage as we execute our leasing plan for 2025. As you know, there is a lag between signing a lease, achieving occupancy and generating GAAP revenue. In the first half of twenty twenty five, we have several larger expirations that will impact our occupancy. These include 350,000 square feet at 205th, whereas Doug described, we're negotiating a replacement lease for occupancy in 2026.

[Michael LaBelle, EVP, Treasurer & CFO at Boston Properties]

We also have 480,000 square feet in 2 uncovered expirations in suburban Boston. This totals 1.6% of the portfolio and is expected to result in our occupancy declining slightly in the 1st 6 months of 2025. We do have signed leases totaling 860,000 square feet that will take occupancy spread relatively evenly across 2025. Our leasing plan results in our occupancy remaining relatively stable and averaging 86.5% to 88% during the year. Our same property NOI is also anticipated to be stable and we project 25 same property NOI growth of negative 1% to positive 0.5% from 2024.

[Michael LaBelle, EVP, Treasurer & CFO at Boston Properties]

Our 2025 same property NOI on a cash basis will actually increase by up to 1.5% from 2024 as we have free rent burning off that will increase our cash flow from the portfolio. Turning to our fee income, which we expect to be higher in 2025 from earning leasing commissions on our joint venture properties. This is primarily at 205th and 360 Park Avenue South in New York City And we'll also generate incremental construction management fees as we construct the tenant improvements for AstraZeneca at 290 Binney Street in Cambridge. Our projection for fee income in 2025 is $32,000,000 to $38,000,000 an increase of $7,000,000 at the midpoint from 2024. Our termination income was higher than typical in 2024 and totaled $16,000,000 or $0.09 per share.

[Michael LaBelle, EVP, Treasurer & CFO at Boston Properties]

In 2025, we're projecting a more normalized $4,000,000 to $8,000,000 of termination income. So this results in a $10,000,000 projected revenue decline in 2025 at the midpoint of our guidance. As we described on our call last quarter, we project our net interest expense will be higher in 2025 as we will be carrying lower cash balances, resulting in lower interest income. At year end, we reported cash balances of $1,300,000,000 At the beginning of January, we utilized $850,000,000 of available cash to pay off an expiring senior unsecured note. We are also forecasting approximately $700,000,000 of development spend in 2025.

[Michael LaBelle, EVP, Treasurer & CFO at Boston Properties]

Overall, we project our average cash balance will be $800,000,000 lower on average in 2025, reducing our interest income by approximately $35,000,000 year over year. Our consolidated interest expense is expected to be relatively flat in 2025 versus 2024, assuming no Fed rate cuts. And with 12% of our debt portfolio floating, we will benefit if the Fed cuts rates this year, and that is reflected in the low end of our interest expense guidance. Overall, we project net interest expense of $610,000,000 to $625,000,000 in 2025, an increase of $33,000,000 from 2024 at the midpoint. Lastly, and as I described last quarter, we've taken Reston Corporate Center the buildings at Reston Corporate Center out of service upon the expiration of the full building lease on Twelvethirty Onetwenty 4.

[Michael LaBelle, EVP, Treasurer & CFO at Boston Properties]

This is the location for the next phase of our highly successful Reston Town Center development that we anticipate will encompass 2,300,000 square feet of new mixed use development including both multifamily and commercial space. The ability to increase the density by nearly 10 times on this site will create significant future value and earnings over time. The buildings generated $11,000,000 or $0.06 per share of NOI in 2024 that we will lose in 2025. So to sum all this up, our initial guidance range for 2025 FFO is $6.77 to $6.95 per share, representing a decline of 2% at the high end from 2024. At the midpoint, the decline is comprised of higher net interest expense of $0.20 lower same property NOI of $0.03 lower termination income of $0.06 higher G and A of $0.04 and the loss of $0.06 from pulling Reston Corporate Center out of service.

[Michael LaBelle, EVP, Treasurer & CFO at Boston Properties]

These are projected to be partially offset by higher NOI from our developments of $0.11 and higher fee income of $0.04 Again, the modest decline in 2025 FFO is primarily due to lower interest income from lower cash balances as we fund our development pipeline that will generate future growth, pulling buildings out of service for future development as well as decline in non core termination income. We have not included any incremental acquisition activity in our guidance, so we are actively looking for opportunities. Looking forward to 2026, we see an opportunity to demonstrate meaningful growth in our portfolio. We have very limited lease expirations and project positive absorption in the in service portfolio, And we have embedded growth opportunity in the development pipeline through the delivery of a fully leased 290 Binney Street in mid-twenty 26 and the lease up of the available space in our 2024 and 2025 development deliveries. You can hear about all of this and more at our Triennial Investor Conference we will hold this fall on September 9 in New York City.

[Michael LaBelle, EVP, Treasurer & CFO at Boston Properties]

The conference will be a deep dive into our portfolio and our future outlook and will include presentations from our regional teams offering an opportunity for investors to see the depth of our company. We will send out Save the Dates soon and we look forward to hosting all of you. That completes our formal remarks. Operator, can you open the lines for questions?

[Operator]

Thank you, sir. Our first question comes from the line of Steve Sakwa from Evercore ISI. Please go ahead.

[Steve Sakwa, Senior Managing Director & Senior Equity Research Analyst at Evercore ISI]

Yes, thanks. Good morning. Doug, you provided a litany of information. I'm not sure that I was able to transcribe it all 100% accurately. But high level, when you sort of look at the rollover this year, just help me think through kind of your retention ratio and given the no move outs, like what do you expect to retain of the expiring space this year?

[Steve Sakwa, Senior Managing Director & Senior Equity Research Analyst at Evercore ISI]

And then I guess what is your broad expectation for, I'll call new leasing activity on vacant space?

[Doug Linde, President at Boston Properties]

Okay. So I'm going to answer your question, circuitously. In a year when we have very large lease expirations, so we have a 350,000 or 400,000 square foot lease expiring, highly unlikely that we've retained that organization. When we have a year when we have the multitude of our leases expiring that are between 40,000 square feet and 5,000 square feet, we're probably retaining a very high percentage of those tenants. So as I look forward into what we have remaining in 2024 that are 25 that are known expirations, all of the large ones we've already sort of acknowledged are going to be known vacancies and we are now leasing that space to other customers.

[Doug Linde, President at Boston Properties]

So the obvious example that we're going to talk about on the call was 200 Fifth Avenue, we have a 350,000 square foot lease expiring and we were in negotiation on a 244,000 square foot replacement tenant on that, right. So that's I think that's sort of the way that works. In a non large lease expiration year, generally we are renewing somewhere between 45% 50% of our existing tenants. Some of those are actually growing, so we may actually be picking up additional square footage there, but that's sort of what our known retention rate is. If you look at 2025, what we are looking at this year is that we will cover somewhere in the neighborhood of 3 +1000000 square feet of vacancy and known leasing expirations of tenants that are expiring plus the renewals of the smaller tenants that are sort of moving forward through the normal process.

[Doug Linde, President at Boston Properties]

So we have a whole host of those. So as I described sort of what we're currently working on today, in the year, we're covering some vacant space, we have leases on known expirations. And then I said we have about 75,000 square feet of leases in progress on just sort of normal as sort of an ordinary course of business expirations that are occurring on a day to day basis in the portfolio. So as I look into 2026 and 2027, those numbers are exceedingly low and the bulkiness is also low, right? So if I start with 1,800,000 square feet today, which is the number in the supplemental on a 100% basis, And I have 500,000 square feet that I'm actively working on that I expect to get done in 2025.

[Doug Linde, President at Boston Properties]

That means when we get to this point in 2026, my known expirations for 2026 are going to be under 1,300,000 square feet. If I lease on a sort of average year, somewhere in the neighborhood of 2,000,000 to 3,000,000 square feet of vacant and renewals, I'm picking up occupancy in a meaningful way. And that pattern will also move forward into 2027. That was my point of my sort of initial remarks.

[Operator]

Thank you. And I show our next question comes from the line of Andrew Berger from Bank of America. Please go ahead.

[Andrew Berger, Equity Research Associate at Bank of America]

Hey, good morning. This is Andrew on for Jeff. I appreciate all the detail. So Doug, you mentioned that Back Bay Boston and Midtown Manhattan are the strongest markets. And obviously, it sounds like there's a lot of great activity that's reflected by the volumes.

[Andrew Berger, Equity Research Associate at Bank of America]

You also mentioned though that concessions are flat. And I'm just curious with all this activity, what does it take to really become more aggressive and start to reduce concessions?

[Doug Linde, President at Boston Properties]

So I'm going to give you a quick answer and then I'll ask Hillary and I'll ask Brian to comment on it. So my quick answer is inflation is real in terms of what happened over the last 5 years. So the cost of building anything probably went up somewhere between 45% 55%. So just assume 50%. So the cost for 1 of our clients to move into new space or rebuild their space is materially higher.

[Doug Linde, President at Boston Properties]

So the contribution that we are giving them on sort of a real basis is it makes up a smaller portion of what they actually have to spend. But Hillary and Brian, why don't you sort of talk about the stickiness of concessions in your market? Hillary?

[Hilary Spann, Executive Vice President of New York Region at Boston Properties]

Sure. Yes. Hi, this is Hillary. I would say that in discrete instances in Midtown on the Park Avenue, corridor, there are some reductions in concessions, but that is in a very defined geographic area. More broadly, even on the margins of the Park Avenue submarket, there is availability in buildings and folks have choices about where they want to go.

[Hilary Spann, Executive Vice President of New York Region at Boston Properties]

And so the concessions are sticky because the availability levels are elevated outside of the Park Avenue submarket. And so that's part of the reason that I think you've seen the overall statistics reflect sort of a flattening, but not radical decline in concessions given in New York. Brian?

[Bryan Koop, Executive Vice President of Boston Region at Boston Properties]

Yes. I'd say that Doug was spot on with the inflation comment. And then also we are definitely feeling, let's say, some flattening on the concessions regarding TI in the Back Bay. However, our downtown market is not in that position and it can be used in negotiations. But it's definitely firmed on TI, very noticeable for back pay only though.

[Operator]

Thank you. And I show our next question comes from the line of Alexander Goldfarb from Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.

[Alexander Goldfarb, Managing Director at Piper Sandler Companies]

Hey, good morning down there. So question for you guys. You've outlined a pretty solid outlook sort of tail end of this year into 2026 and 2027 as far as addressing a lot of leasing exposure. And it sounds like I know you're not giving guidance for the next few years, but sounds like all else equal, we should see a meaningful pickup at FFO. What are the risks or offsets?

[Alexander Goldfarb, Managing Director at Piper Sandler Companies]

Like, for example, acquisitions that may be dilutive or taking buildings out of service for redevelopment, like what would stop you guys from or what would stop FFO from really accelerating tail end of this year into next?

[Doug Linde, President at Boston Properties]

So let me give you I'm going to give you half the answer and I'll let Mike give you the other half of the answer. So on my half of the answer, I believe if you look at our NOI from our same property portfolio in our developments, there will be meaningful increases in the contribution from those assets as we move into 2026 and 2027.

[Michael LaBelle, EVP, Treasurer & CFO at Boston Properties]

So I mean, I think on the other side of things, there's where interest rates going. So where are short term and long term interest rates going? What does that mean for our interest expense base as we refinance bonds that are expiring every year? And that is offset by what is likely to be somewhat lower floating rates on the 12% to 15% of our debt portfolio that's floating.

[Operator]

Thank you. And I show our next question comes from the line of John Kim from BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

[John Kim, Managing Director - US Real Estate at BMO Capital Markets]

Thank you. Doug mentioned life science tenants looking for office space exclusively. I'm wondering if you could provide any commentary on how widespread you think that is, either by geography or stage of the companies? And if you believe this is a reflection of AI and its impact on biotech sector?

[Doug Linde, President at Boston Properties]

Okay. So I'll try to give you a perspective on that and then I'll let Rod give you a perspective as well. And Brian, do you have anything else you want to add as well? So what I believe is going on right now is that there is a bunch of money that is being raised in the life science sector that are looking for opportunities to take advantage of trials that have already started and shown some efficacy. And they are instead of starting with a brand new idea, looking sort of for that later stage proven kind of a product to move forward.

[Doug Linde, President at Boston Properties]

And there are management teams that have been able to figure out how to raise capital to do those things. And they are the companies that we are seeing right now, certainly in suburban Boston, as the preponderant of the expansion and growth relative to life science. What we have not seen is significant numbers of incubator kinds of companies going to the point where they are now ready to move into a more permanent kind of a space because they have been given capital by their VCs in order to go to the next level in the same way that was happening in 2018, 2019 2020, right? That's where all of the demand was coming from. So I'd say there's sort of that shift.

[Doug Linde, President at Boston Properties]

And Rod, you may want to comment on what you're seeing in the South San Francisco market.

[Rodney Diehl, Executive VP of West Coast Regions at Boston Properties]

Thanks, Doug. So I think it's important to keep in mind that our office buildings in South San Francisco have always catered to the office component of the life science business that was around down there. That's still the case. We actively are in negotiations now with a larger lab tenant that's specifically looking for more office space. So that is definitely part of it.

[Rodney Diehl, Executive VP of West Coast Regions at Boston Properties]

I don't know if it's attributable to the AI piece as your question came through John, but there's a mix of office users that are life science tenants. That's very typical in our market.

[Doug Linde, President at Boston Properties]

Brian?

[Bryan Koop, Executive Vice President of Boston Region at Boston Properties]

Yes. In Boston, I'd say, we've seen a little bit of evidence, let's say, 3 to 4 situations that are indicative of what Doug and we've discussed here, but not enough to say it's a big trend and it's only in the urban edge market.

[Operator]

Thank you. And I show our next question comes from the line of Nick Yulico from Scotiabank. Please go ahead.

[Nicholas Yulico, Managing Director at Scotiabank]

Good morning. Mike, I had a question on the occupancy guidance. So the midpoint assumes you're roughly flat from where you ended Q4, but that guidance doesn't include the developments being put into service. So I was hoping you can quantify how much the developments will drag occupancy this year. The reason I'm asking is, I think you'll be reporting an in service occupancy number through the year that actually includes those developments being added in.

[Nicholas Yulico, Managing Director at Scotiabank]

So it'd be helpful to know that. Thanks.

[Michael LaBelle, EVP, Treasurer & CFO at Boston Properties]

Sure. I'm happy to answer that, Nick. I think in our supplemental, what we provide is what the in service occupancy is at the end of the year and then we guide to what we expect the occupancy to be in those buildings for 2025 as a way to help you kind of determine where the same store is going, where the portfolio NOI is going. But you're right, in 2024, we had some negative impact because we brought 103 City Point online in the 4th quarter and we brought 180 City Point online in the 3rd quarter and that was not part of our original kind of guidance for the in service portfolio. At the end of the year, we're at 87.5% occupied.

[Michael LaBelle, EVP, Treasurer & CFO at Boston Properties]

We're going to remove Reston Corporate Center from service. It's fully leased. It's not a big impact. It's only down about 10 basis points. So we'll start at 87.4 percent net of that.

[Michael LaBelle, EVP, Treasurer & CFO at Boston Properties]

If you look at the developments that are delivering, as I mentioned on my notes, 651 Gateways coming in Q1 and then 360 Park and Block D will come in Q3. Right now, they're 21% occupied. If they don't achieve any more occupancy, it's going to have a negative impact of 70 basis points roughly on our occupancy. Now as Doug mentioned, we've got some activity there, especially at 360 Park. So we do think we're going to have a little bit more occupancy there, but they're certainly not going to fully leased.

[Michael LaBelle, EVP, Treasurer & CFO at Boston Properties]

Doug also mentioned that we're going to remove some other buildings from service in the suburbs. So there's a couple of buildings in suburban Boston we're thinking about and suburban in Princeton that we're thinking about. And if we were to do that, because we have a higher and best use for those assets to build residential developments, that actually goes the other direction and could help us by close to 90 basis points. So as Doug mentioned, kind of a net of these two things is not going to be that impactful. But at this point, we haven't determined right to take those buildings out of service.

[Doug Linde, President at Boston Properties]

Yes. Let me just comment on our development pipeline and sort of what's going on in there and where I think you'll start to see some progress and where you won't see some progress. So the building that probably sees the most relative progress during the year in terms of its least square footage is probably 360 Park Avenue South. Knock on wood, Hillary, you can sort of talk about the activity we're seeing there. And then we're actually seeing some leasing activity at 180 City Pointe.

[Doug Linde, President at Boston Properties]

Again, it's a lab building where we're talking to lab tenants about office space and therefore we're going to likely be building our office space, not lab space. Net, we're also not going to be building out lab infrastructure in that space. We're not going to be spending the same capital. And then Jake, you may want to comment on sort of what we're also doing and seeing at rest in Block D. So in all three of those particular situations, I believe you will see a meaningful increase in occupancy during 2,000 sorry, lease percentage in 2025.

[Doug Linde, President at Boston Properties]

The occupancy won't hit until 2026. Where we're going to have, I'd say, a more of a challenge are at 651 Gateway, which is the building we have with ARE where there's very little activity right now. And then at 103 City Pointe, which is the 2nd lab building that we have in the Waltham submarket. But Jake, why don't we start with you and talk about Block D and then Hillary can talk about 360 Bark Avenue South and Brian can talk about 180 City Point.

[Jake Stroman, Executive VP, Co-Head of the Washington & DC Region at Boston Properties]

Yes, sure. Thanks, Doug. I will just say that we've seen a pretty meaningful uptick in activity across the Reston Town Center market and in particular the 75,000 Square Foot Block D development that we just delivered. And we have a few clients and proposals and prospects that we're discussing, taking the majority or all of the space with. So very good activity and hope to have better news to deliver here in the coming quarter or 2.

[Doug Linde, President at Boston Properties]

Hillary?

[Hilary Spann, Executive Vice President of New York Region at Boston Properties]

Thanks, Doug. At 360 Park Avenue South, as Doug mentioned earlier, we have one lease out for a full floor at that building. So that will be the 5th floor that we've leased there. And we have 3 or 4 other proposals that we're actively trading that are roughly the same size, 1 floor to 2 floors. That's really where the demand sweet spot seems to be in that submarket.

[Hilary Spann, Executive Vice President of New York Region at Boston Properties]

And as a reminder, the floor plates there are about 23000 square feet, so call it 20000 to 40000 square feet tenants. The larger tenant demand has remained muted in Midtown South. And so if we continue to see 20 to 40s, we expect that we'll have very good leasing activity throughout the course of the year and that the building will continue to lease up a pace. But there is still the outside chance that we'll get a larger tenant, in which case, I think that it could fill up quite quickly. So we just have to see how it plays out with regards to the tenant size demand, but we are in active discussions with several tenants and out to lease with 1 in particular for a full floor.

[Doug Linde, President at Boston Properties]

And Brian?

[Bryan Koop, Executive Vice President of Boston Region at Boston Properties]

Yes. 180 City Point is noted probably the highest probability of getting some lease up there. And we started seeing some pickup in the Q4. And I'd say that they were from clients that had been in the market for over a year and really gain confidence in the Q4 that we're seeing.

[Bryan Koop, Executive Vice President of Boston Region at Boston Properties]

So that building is excellent. It's the best product in the market for life science and the description that we have about a couple of deals looking at it for life science, but office is hopeful. 103, a little bit more challenging, it's GMP building and that zone is a little bit more quiet, although we're still optimistic about that for a possible lease this year.

[Operator]

Thank you. And I show our next question comes from the line of Michael Goldsmith from UBS. Please go ahead.

[Michael Goldsmith, Equity Research Analyst at UBS Securities LLC]

Good morning. Thanks a lot for taking my question. Doug, in the past you commented that 3,000,000 square feet of leasing equates to flat occupancy. You talked a lot about it. I think you've done a nice job of cutting back on some of the future expirations.

[Michael Goldsmith, Equity Research Analyst at UBS Securities LLC]

So is there a nice hard and fast rule? How we should think about it going forward? Or is it still $3,000,000 equates to flat occupancy from here? Thanks.

[Doug Linde, President at Boston Properties]

Yes. So in 2025, dollars 3,000,000 is flat occupancy. Dollars 3,000,000 in 20.26 is a meaningful increase in occupancy. Again, our portfolio is 49,000,000 square feet. So 490,000 square feet is 100 basis points.

[Doug Linde, President at Boston Properties]

So we have under 2,000,000 square feet expiring, we do 3,000,000 square feet of leasing on vacant and expirations, that would mean a pickup of a material amount. I'm just that's I'm doing the math for you. I'm not suggesting I'm giving you a projection for 20 seconds.

[Operator]

Thank you. And I show our next question comes from the line of florist van Dijk from Compass Point LLC. Please go ahead.

[Floris van Dijkum, Managing Director at Compass Point Research & Trading]

Hey, thanks guys for taking my question. A question on capital allocation. Owen, as you think about where you're deploying your capital, obviously, the transaction in D. C. At 7.25twelve was very interesting.

[Floris van Dijkum, Managing Director at Compass Point Research & Trading]

How do you think about how many other types of transactions like that are in the markets? What kind of what markets are you looking at or which markets do you think are going to be the most active for you in 2025? And maybe also touch on the sellers or who you're getting this product from, if you could?

[Owen Thomas, Chairman and CEO at Boston Properties]

Yes. Okay, Flora. So, I would break it first between development and acquisitions. So on development, the only market where development is really supported by current market rents is in Midtown New York. And so we have, as I mentioned in my remarks, and you're aware of 343 Madison, which we have which we expect to launch this year.

[Owen Thomas, Chairman and CEO at Boston Properties]

We are speaking to several anchor clients for that. And given the yields that we project, we think it's a very appropriate and strong allocation capital decision for the firm. Also in D. C, as I mentioned in my remarks, I think our team did a magnificent job of creating a very accretive new development opportunity given the dynamics in D. C.

[Owen Thomas, Chairman and CEO at Boston Properties]

There's clients that want to be in premier space, number 1. Number 2, they were able to identify a building that where the loan was in default and buy the loan at an interesting price. So we got a good land basis and all the math worked and they were able to de risk the project from a leasing standpoint given all of their relationships in the market and the interest by clients there in premier workplaces. We also have a great site in the Back Bay of Boston. Right now, I don't think market rents support that development, but it's getting closer because again, as Doug said, the Back Bay of Boston and Midtown New York are the 2 strongest markets we're in.

[Owen Thomas, Chairman and CEO at Boston Properties]

And my expectation is that's probably the next site that we control that will pencil from an office standpoint. And then just to finish the remarks on development, if other teams in other regions can replicate what our DC team did with the clients in the building that they created, we're going to want to do that. So that's the development answer. And then on the acquisitions answer, we continue to be in the market looking for buildings that are either currently premier workplaces or ones that we can make into premier workplaces. And again, we have looked at a lot of different deals and we continue to be out in the market.

[Owen Thomas, Chairman and CEO at Boston Properties]

And as Mike said, he didn't put anything in his projections for next year about new acquisitions, but we're hopeful that we're going to this cycle, we're going to be able to identify accretive acquisitions. That's certainly been our history. Anytime there's a downtick in real estate and specifically office real estate, BXP has been able to add great properties at accretive yields to its portfolio. And I fully expect that to happen again this cycle. But there's nothing right now that's specific that we could point to that I think we will get done in the near term.

[Owen Thomas, Chairman and CEO at Boston Properties]

But that doesn't mean later in the year something that's of interest won't present itself.

[Operator]

Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of Michael Griffin from Citi. Please go ahead.

[Michael LaBelle, EVP, Treasurer & CFO at Boston Properties]

Great. Doug, maybe going back

[Michael Griffin, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Citigroup]

to your assumptions around vacancy leasing for the year. As I look in the portfolio, it kind of stands out from a vacancy perspective is still San Francisco. So suffice it to say, do you really need to see demand accelerate in that market for vacant space? I'm thinking about 680 Folsom, 535 Mission, as two examples of high quality properties there that could see some leasing. Or do you have enough demand from your portfolios in New York, Boston, DC to be able to hit that vacancy leasing goal?

[Michael Griffin, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Citigroup]

Thanks.

[Doug Linde, President at Boston Properties]

Sure. So I'm going to let Rod talk about what's going on in San Francisco and sort of what our expectations are there. But we need all of our markets to perform from an increase in available space being leased to new clients, right? That's the mandate across the entire portfolio and everybody else, all the regions have to pull their part. Obviously, we have lower expectations and higher expectations depending upon the particular property as well as the particular sort of environment of what the demand might be for that.

[Doug Linde, President at Boston Properties]

In San Francisco, we've done a really good job actually of leasing available space at 535 Mission because of interestingly the sort of demand that it is apt to capture and the success that that building has had in grabbing that demand. We need to do more of that. We also need to do more leasing at Embarcadero Center and we need to do more leasing at 680 Folsom. And Rod can talk about some of the things that we are doing to accelerate our activity in those properties. Rod?

[Rodney Diehl, Executive VP of West Coast Regions at Boston Properties]

Yes. Well, you hit on 535, which has had really great leasing experience in 2024 and we've got a good pipeline of deals we're talking to there still. And our strategy both at 535 and in Embarcadero and at 680 Folsom is centered around an amenity based offering first in a premier workplace environment. So we just finished this fantastic amenity center in Embarcadero Center called the Mosaic. It's gotten great reviews and it's a super great draw for bringing new clients in.

[Rodney Diehl, Executive VP of West Coast Regions at Boston Properties]

It's something that not every other building is offering. I certainly don't think at the quality. So we're doing that at Embarcadero. We have a similar type of focused amenity offering under construction now at 680 Folsom. We've done some remodeling to the lobby and we're going to add another portion on the ground floor, which will be a tenant amenity.

[Rodney Diehl, Executive VP of West Coast Regions at Boston Properties]

So that's going to definitely get some traction. We're also going to enhance the roof deck. We have a capital plan in place that's going to be completed this year on the roof deck of 6 80 Folsom, which again is going to be a nice way to differentiate that building. So I think we're positioning all these buildings for success. We have a great spec suite program in all the buildings that we've used over the years.

[Rodney Diehl, Executive VP of West Coast Regions at Boston Properties]

And it's when you go down a list of deals that we did last year, many of them are in those spec suites. So it's not the only focus, but it's certainly an important focus and we're going to keep doing that. And I just I'll close on the point that San Francisco had positive net absorption for the Q4. That hasn't happened in a long time. So it's a good sign and we feel it in our activity.

[Rodney Diehl, Executive VP of West Coast Regions at Boston Properties]

And so we're optimistic we're going to have a good year.

[Operator]

Thank you. And I show our next question comes from the line of Richard Anderson from Wedbush Securities. Please go ahead.

[Richard Anderson, Managing Director - Equity Research at Wedbush Securities]

Thanks. Good morning. So at the outset, you talked about your lack of exposure to the GSA leasing business, but perhaps defense contractors follow the Trump 5 day RTO approach to government workers. Then you have Amazon, JPMorgan, Salesforce. I'm wondering how critical this is until your old leasing outlook for 2026 and 2027 in terms of return to office.

[Richard Anderson, Managing Director - Equity Research at Wedbush Securities]

Is it enough to be 2 or 3 days a week for you to have a successful negotiating platform? Or do you need that to kind of ramp to a full week eventually over the course of the next few years? And whether or not you can comment on the conversations you're having with your tenants about what their plans are for return to office over the next few years? Thanks.

[Owen Thomas, Chairman and CEO at Boston Properties]

Yes. No, return to office is clearly accelerating and it's helping our leasing activity. I think it's varied a bit by industry and therefore we see it a little bit differently by region because different industries have different concentrations in different regions. So that's a it's a big plus. Look, we have always said return to office is important to leasing, but also corporate earnings growth as a proxy for corporate health is actually even more important and that's also a positive.

[Owen Thomas, Chairman and CEO at Boston Properties]

So I would put both of those in the same category when you think about the health of the client base that we serve. In terms of number of days in the week, I mean, look, I think even for clients that are only coming in 2 or 3 days a week, they want everybody in the office on the same days because that's why they're there is to collaborate. So it's hard to save space. People aren't allocating, okay, you come in Monday, Tuesday and this group comes in Thursday, Friday. So I don't think necessarily going from 4 days to 5 days increases space demand under that logic.

[Operator]

Thank you. And I show our next question comes from the line of Blaine Heck from Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

[Blaine Heck, Executive Director & Senior Equity Research Analyst at Wells Fargo Securities]

Great, thanks. Good morning. Related to the earlier question on concessions and increasing costs, I'm wondering whether you've noticed a change in tenants' willingness to move and upgrade their space given the higher costs to move and higher costs to build out their space over and above what you've given them in TIs? And whether that's driven more of a preference to renew in place because of those cost pressures, maybe even slowing the flight to quality? And if so, how does that factor into your leasing strategy?

[Doug Linde, President at Boston Properties]

Yes. So I'm going to give you a response on that and then I'll let the regions sort of chime in. My sense from what I have been seeing is that most of our clients have said we have to rebuild our space because we have to be competitive with our offering to our employees. And interestingly, if you have older space, call it 10 plus year old space, the brain damage associated with staying in place and renovating it is not something that is very attractive to many of our clients. And unless they are forced to do that, they would prefer to move in many cases, they would prefer to move within our buildings if we had space available to them.

[Doug Linde, President at Boston Properties]

But in many cases, we can't do that. And so they are going ahead and spending the money. And right now, again, and as Owen sort of talked about earlier, the confidence that our clients have based upon the economy is giving them, I'd say, the conviction that it's a good time to be making that capital allocation to their space. So maybe Hillary and Rod, you can start and then Brian talked about sort of the CBD location and then perhaps Jake you can talk about what's going on in Reston. Rod?

[Hilary Spann, Executive Vice President of New York Region at Boston Properties]

This is Hillary. I would entirely agree with the comment around the difficulty regarding renovating in place. We've seen clients be very reluctant to do that. I think that there is a lot of confidence in the New York market around the direction of the economy and for the client base in BXP's New York portfolio around their business models and their future. And so what we are seeing a lot of is clients expanding in our buildings, taking new space and building that space out.

[Hilary Spann, Executive Vice President of New York Region at Boston Properties]

We're also seeing new demand coming into the portfolio. And of course, that tenancy is generally always a full new build. So I think it's much more of a case where the demand drivers are expansion of the economy and expansion of business units and they want fresh new space that will help them compete for employees and will help them compete for clientele. So that's the trend that I see in New York.

[Doug Linde, President at Boston Properties]

Rod?

[Rodney Diehl, Executive VP of West Coast Regions at Boston Properties]

I would just add that, I think what we're not seeing is, the short term renewals that we saw early in emerging out of the pandemic. Most of our clients are confident in what the future looks like and are not asking for short term renewals. I mean, I think in those cases, it's tough. If somebody is willing to just do a 1 or 2 year extension or 3 year even, then it's hard to pull a tenant like that out of a building. But most of the people we're talking to are willing to make long term commitments 10 plus years.

[Rodney Diehl, Executive VP of West Coast Regions at Boston Properties]

So, I think that they're doing exactly what you said, Doug, which is they're looking to build a better offering for their employees to come back and entice them back. And we're seeing that across all of our existing tenants and then the ones that we're trying to pull out of other buildings. Definitely.

[Doug Linde, President at Boston Properties]

And Jake, comment on the sort of the opportunities that the 2 tenants that we're talking to about rest of next have to stay where they want, where they are and what they're doing.

[Jake Stroman, Executive VP, Co-Head of the Washington & DC Region at Boston Properties]

Yes, sure. I mean, again, we are having very interesting and productive conversations with lots of clients in the Northern Virginia market. Over half of our holdings in the DC region are in Reston Town Center, which is what I would say is the home to the who's who of the defense and cybersecurity community. And these are groups that can pay market leading rents and are seeking trophy quality product in a mixed use environment. And a lot of that is just because they want to attract and retain and motivate their employee base.

[Jake Stroman, Executive VP, Co-Head of the Washington & DC Region at Boston Properties]

So we're seeing lots of inbounds in that regard. And so it's exciting for the future of Reston Town Center.

[Doug Linde, President at Boston Properties]

But again, just to sort of keep going on this, Jake. The 2 tenants that we're actually talking to about Reston Next have the ability to stay where they are and pay rent that is significantly lower than what we're charging in at Block B, correct?

[Jake Stroman, Executive VP, Co-Head of the Washington & DC Region at Boston Properties]

Absolutely. Absolutely. And in each case, the landlords would happily accept renewals with these clients. But these clients want change. They want to motivate their employees to continue to come to work and do the important work that they do to generate revenue for them.

[Jake Stroman, Executive VP, Co-Head of the Washington & DC Region at Boston Properties]

So, they're looking to change up their environments and move to these mixed use environments that are more exciting and provide a better ground floor playing for their employees and more excitement and more amenities and we're seeing that in spades and Reston.

[Doug Linde, President at Boston Properties]

Right.

[Bryan Koop, Executive Vice President of Boston Region at Boston Properties]

Yes, ours is a little bit more varied. I'd say in at least 2 to 3 significant renewals, we had situations where we had clients that their initial space was well ahead of its time and how they work today isn't that much different than how it was when they did the original lease. But I would say that that's just an example of 3 extraordinarily good thoughtful plans from previously. And in those cases, they did some fresh up, they did some adding of some amenities, but nothing significant.

[Bryan Koop, Executive Vice President of Boston Region at Boston Properties]

But they're exceptional spaces to begin with and really thoughtful. On the new side, we are definitely seeing the willingness of the clients to add additional dollars of their own on top of tenant finish that we may provide to really create a great space. And I would also say that the amount of interest in seeing new space and examples of it is far more than I've ever seen. We just redid our own space on level 16 and it's incredible the response we've had from our own people, but we have probably at least a tour a day of clients coming to see it. There I've never seen a situation where the clients want to talk to us this much about how we see trends and how we see future layouts.

[Owen Thomas, Chairman and CEO at Boston Properties]

Yes. I would just add to this conversation from BXP standpoint. We're eating our own cooking. The Boston region and the San Francisco region were in space they had been in for well over a decade. And in the last 6 months, they both moved.

[Owen Thomas, Chairman and CEO at Boston Properties]

Here in Boston at Proust Tower to a lower floor and in Embarcadero Center to a lower floor. And there is no doubt that the new build out has created a lot of energy and enthusiasm for our teams. And so we're experiencing this phenomena that you're hearing about firsthand.

[Operator]

Thank you. And I show our next question comes from the line of Caitlin Burrows from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

[Caitlin Burrows, Vice President at Goldman Sachs]

Hi, everyone. You mentioned earlier that the negative absorption spigot seem to have stopped in a few markets and

[Caitlin Burrows, Vice President at Goldman Sachs]

you did mention positive absorption in San Francisco in 4Q.

[Caitlin Burrows, Vice President at Goldman Sachs]

But then you also mentioned that positive absorption in San Francisco in 4Q. But then you also mentioned that law firms in San Francisco are still reducing their footprint and others are rationalizing space. So it just makes it seem difficult that absorption would consistently increase if that's what you're seeing from the tenants. So I'm wondering if you can give some details on what gives you confidence that absorption will continue to be positive in San Francisco and like is the demand there to then take advantage of the amenities that you're creating that you went through before?

[Doug Linde, President at Boston Properties]

Rod, do you want to take that?

[Rodney Diehl, Executive VP of West Coast Regions at Boston Properties]

Yes. I mean, there's no question that some of the existing, I would say, traditional tenants, are still, in some cases, rightsizing. I mean, we've experienced it with some of our own law firm clients. I think you have to just add into that though the growing demand that is coming from these new technology companies. You can say it's AI or you can just say it's the new wave of technology companies, which has traditionally brought the Bay Area and San Francisco in particular out of these down cycles.

[Rodney Diehl, Executive VP of West Coast Regions at Boston Properties]

So we're seeing it. We're seeing lists of companies, names I've never even heard of that are out in the market. So, and I think you can point to obviously the bigger AI deals with OpenAI and Anthropic and ScaleAI and some of these others that have done deals as examples of tenants that are going to use space. And so, we're going in the right direction and I think it finally showed up in the numbers this quarter. So we'll see what happens, but it feels different than it did a year ago.

[Rodney Diehl, Executive VP of West Coast Regions at Boston Properties]

I can tell you that much, Caitlin, for sure.

[Operator]

Thank you. And I show our next question comes from the line of Yupal Rayna from KeyBanc. Please go ahead.

[Upal Rana, Director - Senior Equity Research Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets]

Great. Thank you. So Biogen announced some layoffs to their research department last week and they are your 3rd largest tenant. And I was wondering if there's any potential impact for BXP given they do only have about 2.5 years left on their term. And is there any read through on life science broadly on this announcement?

[Upal Rana, Director - Senior Equity Research Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets]

Thanks.

[Doug Linde, President at Boston Properties]

So, I think, look, Biogen is a company that has gone through many fits and starts over the decades that it has been in Kendall Square. We have one building with them, which is a lab building, the lease expires in the middle of 2028. And that's basically in the midst of the next election cycle. There's so much that's going to happen between now and then. I can't even contemplate what the world will look like for lab space in Kendall Square, but it's the one location on the globe that I would rather have more than less lab space.

[Doug Linde, President at Boston Properties]

And so to the extent that Biogen makes a decision to downsize or they grow, we'll be ready to capture whatever the opportunity is in that building. And again, it's the only building that we have with Biogen. The other building that we have has already been basically master leased to another organization and their Biogen has not been in that building for the last 15 years.

[Operator]

Thank you. And actually our next question comes from the line of Dylan Brzezinski from Green Street. Please go ahead.

[Dylan Burzinski, Equity Research Analyst at Green Street Advisors, LLC]

Appreciate taking the question guys. Just going back to some of your comments on sort of the concessionary environment remaining elevated to what it once was. I guess in some of your tighter markets, at least within your portfolio such as Boston and New York, are you guys starting to be able to push base rent so that on a net effective basis, we're starting to see incremental improvement? And then I guess as you sort of think about the next 2 years, right, going into 2026 and 2027, you guys mentioned being able to likely pick up significant occupancy. I mean, should we also expect you guys be able to push net effective rent growth quite significantly in those years?

[Dylan Burzinski, Equity Research Analyst at Green Street Advisors, LLC]

Or can you sort of put some guardrails around that for us?

[Doug Linde, President at Boston Properties]

So unequivocally in the Midtown market and in the Greater Boston Back Bay market, our rents are higher in 2024 than they were in 2023. And for the modest amount of space that we have available, they will be higher in 2025. In the Midtown Park Avenue market, same phenomenon, except the increase has been much larger. I mean, the increases are double digit in terms of what we have seen between 2023 and 2024 and what we probably will see in 2025 to 2026. I do not want to make a suggestion that we're going to see a ground swell of rental rate increases across all of our markets in the entire portfolio.

[Doug Linde, President at Boston Properties]

I think those particular markets are unusual because of what we discussed earlier in the call relative to the de minimis amount of large block availability and the fact that we're getting closer and closer to new construction pricing in Boston, we're not quite there yet and then obviously where we are in Midtown Manhattan. But it's a very constructive environment in those marketplaces. It's not as constructive elsewhere.

[Michael LaBelle, EVP, Treasurer & CFO at Boston Properties]

I just think the one thing I would add, Doug, is that there's no new development that is going to be coming in, in 2026 and 2027 in these markets. So from a supply perspective, there's nothing to for those clients to look at. So that will benefit us.

[Operator]

Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of Michael Lewis from Truist Securities. Please go ahead.

[Michael Lewis, Cyber Security Group Manager at Truist Securities]

Thank you. So you hit this topic of concessions and CapEx from a few different angles. When we put together the increased leasing volume as we get

[Michael Lewis, Cyber Security Group Manager at Truist Securities]

the occupancy back up

[Michael Lewis, Cyber Security Group Manager at Truist Securities]

and the higher occupancy back up and the higher costs, I don't think you give guidance for FAD, but should we expect FAD and cash flow to be under pressure in the near term, at least until you kind of stabilize the occupancy or is that not the case?

[Michael LaBelle, EVP, Treasurer & CFO at Boston Properties]

I'm not going to give a projection for 20 6 and 20 7 for FAD. I think for 2025, I feel pretty good about it. I think it will probably be a little bit lower than this year, in line with kind of the FFO drop that we had this year. We do have free rent that is burning off. So as I mentioned, the cash flow from the portfolio is increasing.

[Michael LaBelle, EVP, Treasurer & CFO at Boston Properties]

I don't expect our CapEx and TI to be significantly different than they were in 2024. TI could be a little bit higher than it was in 2024. But I don't expect a meaningful change.

[Operator]

Thank you. And I show our next question comes from the line of Omotayo Okusanya from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

[Omotayo Okusanya, Managing Director at Deutsche Bank]

Yes. Good morning. Just a very quick one. In regards to all the leasing activity kind of leasing up on renewal early renewals of leases that are going to expiring in next year or a year or 2 and reducing leasing risk in 2025 and 2026. Just curious how you think about balancing the certainty of renewal today versus maybe again waiting 6 to 9 months where the leasing environment may feel a little bit better and maybe you can kind of get better economics from a renewal.

[Omotayo Okusanya, Managing Director at Deutsche Bank]

I'm just kind of curious how you think through those two things to make the ultimate decision to kind of renew a little bit earlier.

[Doug Linde, President at Boston Properties]

So the BXP mentality is that we are not market timers. We would never have been and we never will be. And if we have a client that wants to engage, we will constructively attempt to do a renewal with that client. I mean, the fact of the matter is and everyone understands this, downtime is a cost of any transaction. And to the extent that you can eliminate downtime between a lease if the tenant were to leave and or the tenant were to stay, that's a value and that value can be split in a way with the renewal that it cannot be split with waiting for the next best tenant.

[Doug Linde, President at Boston Properties]

And so from our perspective, we try and be commercial and thoughtful and we try and work with our clients. And if our clients are interested in renewing, we do everything we can to renew them. Obviously, we have to be cognizant of what we think the market conditions are and where we think market rents are and where they might be going, but we never are going to be greedy and we are never going to try in the market time.

[Operator]

Thank you. And I show our last question in the queue comes from the line of Jamie Feldman from Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

[Jamie Feldman, Managing Director, Head of REIT Research at Wells Fargo]

Great. Thanks for taking the follow-up from our team. So we want to get your thoughts on how the rest of this office recovery may play out. The Park Avenue recovery was pretty unique this cycle with JPMorgan and Citadel's investments in leasing there. It's also encouraging to hear you say the Back Bay is tightening also.

[Jamie Feldman, Managing Director, Head of REIT Research at Wells Fargo]

But do you think other submarkets across your portfolio are structured to tighten up in the same way as the cycle continues? Or do you think it will be more about filling specific buildings rather than submarkets tightening in the future? And against that backdrop, can you also comment on the impairments taken in the quarter? Are these signals you don't expect these submarkets to get better? Are they building specific?

[Jamie Feldman, Managing Director, Head of REIT Research at Wells Fargo]

Or are they a function of JV accounting rules? We found the Santa Monica impairment particularly interesting since our local market context indicate local schools are looking at the office campuses there as potential relocation options.

[Owen Thomas, Chairman and CEO at Boston Properties]

I'll take the first part

[Owen Thomas, Chairman and CEO at Boston Properties]

of that Jamie and I'll turn it over to Mike for the impairments. Look, the office market is recovering. It's recovering because of what we've been talking about on this call, which is increased corporate confidence as well as return to office behavior. It's certainly the most acute in our portfolio in Midtown and in the Back Bay, but there's clearly spillover benefits. I mean, Doug talked about the action that we have at 599 Lex, that's a spillover from Park Avenue.

[Owen Thomas, Chairman and CEO at Boston Properties]

There's leasing going on, on Third Avenue. There's leasing going on, on Sixth Avenue. So it depends on the strength of the market, but there's clearly benefits away from these 2 markets that we're talking about. So look, how does it all shake out at the end of the day? It's hard to actually forecast.

[Owen Thomas, Chairman and CEO at Boston Properties]

I do think there's probably some reduction in overall office demand because of the remote work phenomena. What percentage that is? I don't know. But don't forget, you have that impact, but you also have a growing economy. So all these companies are growing, they're adding employees and at some point, the growth will make up for all of that.

[Owen Thomas, Chairman and CEO at Boston Properties]

So, I think those are the forces that you have at work. And as we've been talking about over and over again, DXP is positioned as the premium office provider in the market and we're seeking to have clients that are leaders in their industries that will pay the premium rent that we're seeking. And that segment of the office industry is outperforming materially the rest. And that's one of the keys to our stability that we've experienced throughout this whole office phenomenon.

[Doug Linde, President at Boston Properties]

Yes. And before Mike talks about the impairments, Rod, you can just you should comment on sort of what the activity level is for these schools and also whether they're really able to take space in the current configurations and for how long they're looking to sort of do these transactions and how that's sort of playing out in the West Valley market?

[Rodney Diehl, Executive VP of West Coast Regions at Boston Properties]

Yes. Okay. So, it's true there are schools that are in the market that are looking for some temporary space. We're talking with one of them. We've actually got a space in one of our buildings that is a sublease space that this particular school is going to be occupying.

[Rodney Diehl, Executive VP of West Coast Regions at Boston Properties]

So it's a temporary deal until they can figure out what they're going to do with the rebuild. Obviously, this is all pretty fresh and there's been just a lot of chaos down there. And so we're doing our best possible to help the community. We've done it with this effort with the school. We also housed over 450 firefighters from Oregon and Utah at our Santa Monica Business Park.

[Rodney Diehl, Executive VP of West Coast Regions at Boston Properties]

They just recently left, but they had been there and they had all their trucks and they were sleeping there and it was we've been very much engaged in trying to help support the community. But these schools, I mean, there's a few other ones that are out looking. We've heard there's a few other buildings in town that are talking to them. So that will absorb some portion of space at least in the short term.

[Michael LaBelle, EVP, Treasurer & CFO at Boston Properties]

Congratulations Jamie for getting 3 questions in on one question. But we will I will touch on the impairments. So impairments for consolidated assets are unusual because of the way the GAAP rules govern assets and the way that you value those if you're going to have a long term hold on effectively an undiscounted basis. Where we have unconsolidated joint ventures, there's different accounting rules that we have to abide by. So every quarter, we have to look at the valuations over unconsolidated joint ventures and determine whether there's a change that has impacted what we think is what we think might be other than temporary and a change.

[Michael LaBelle, EVP, Treasurer & CFO at Boston Properties]

And so on these West Coast assets, there is a combination of things where we haven't completed additional leasing in the vacant space at Colorado Center. We talked about the life science market at South San Francisco being slow. And in Seattle, we've talked about we didn't talk about it on this call, but the market is slower and we haven't achieved positive absorption at Safeco Plaza. So every quarter we evaluate this and look at the cash flows and value the assets and it tripped our test this quarter. And so when it trips the other than temporary test, you basically have to bring it down to the fair market value, which is using a more kind of distressed discount and cap rate environment, which is why the numbers are bigger than they were.

[Michael LaBelle, EVP, Treasurer & CFO at Boston Properties]

So it is an accounting issue. It is non cash. It does not reflect any change in our outlook for these assets or any change in kind of what is going on in these assets right now.

[Doug Linde, President at Boston Properties]

And just one last point on this, Jamie. So obviously, our joint venture partner had their call yesterday on and they, as I understand, didn't mention anything on their gateway investment. So it's consolidated on their books, it's unconsolidated on ours. So same asset, our plans and their plans are the same. And we were in a position where we felt we had taken impairment and obviously they didn't.

[Doug Linde, President at Boston Properties]

So again, these are accounting rules that we have to follow.

[Operator]

Thank you. That concludes our Q and A session. At this time, I'd like to turn the call back over to Owen Thomas, Chairman and CEO for closing remarks.

[Owen Thomas, Chairman and CEO at Boston Properties]

We have no closing remarks. We've gone an hour and a half and we want to wish all of you a Happy New Year and thank you for your interest in BXD.

[Operator]

Thank you, sir. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.

Participants

Executives

• Helen Han, Vice President, Investor Relations
• Owen Thomas, Chairman and CEO
• Doug Linde, President
• Michael LaBelle, EVP, Treasurer & CFO
• Hilary Spann, Executive Vice President of New York Region
• Bryan Koop, Executive Vice President of Boston Region
• Rodney Diehl, Executive VP of West Coast Regions
• Jake Stroman, Executive VP, Co-Head of the Washington & DC Region

Analysts

• Steve Sakwa, Senior Managing Director & Senior Equity Research Analyst at Evercore ISI
• Andrew Berger, Equity Research Associate at Bank of America
• Alexander Goldfarb, Managing Director at Piper Sandler Companies
• John Kim, Managing Director - US Real Estate at BMO Capital Markets
• Nicholas Yulico, Managing Director at Scotiabank
• Michael Goldsmith, Equity Research Analyst at UBS Securities LLC
• Floris van Dijkum, Managing Director at Compass Point Research & Trading
• Michael Griffin, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Citigroup
• Richard Anderson, Managing Director - Equity Research at Wedbush Securities
• Blaine Heck, Executive Director & Senior Equity Research Analyst at Wells Fargo Securities
• Caitlin Burrows, Vice President at Goldman Sachs
• Upal Rana, Director - Senior Equity Research Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets
• Dylan Burzinski, Equity Research Analyst at Green Street Advisors, LLC
• Michael Lewis, Cyber Security Group Manager at Truist Securities
• Omotayo Okusanya, Managing Director at Deutsche Bank
• Jamie Feldman, Managing Director, Head of REIT Research at Wells Fargo