Ross Cooper
President, Chief Investment Officer at Kimco Realty
Thank you, Connor, for the kind words. I'm honored and excited about being added to the Board and could not be more enthused about the future of our company. First, I'd like to highlight our capital allocation achievements during 2024, starting with the most notable transaction we undertook, which was the RPT Realty acquisition as we recently celebrated the one-year anniversary of its closing. Reflecting back, the speed and efficiency of our integration has enabled us to exceed our expectations in all facets. It is even clearer today that this was an incredibly opportunistic purchase with an implied cap-rate of 8.5% equating to approximately $165 per square-foot at pricing that could not be replicated in today's market. Beyond our initial underwriting assumptions, we were able to improve cost synergies by approximately 13% to $36 million.
Integral to our success was the swift disposition of 10 former RPT properties, which did not fit our strict investment criteria for $248 million for the same cap-rate we bought RPT. During the year, our operations team did a remarkable job with this portfolio, signing 57 new leases with an average pro-rata cash rent spread of 52% and completed 98 renewals or option exercises at a blended 9.9% spread. Overall, we increased RPT's occupancy 120 basis-points with anchors rising 140 basis-points and small shops 50 basis-points, which helped drive the RPT same-site NOI growth to 6.2%. As we put a bow on 2024, I wanted to quickly summarize our 4th-quarter activity. As previously-announced, Kimco acquired Waterford Lakes Town Center in Orlando, Florida, in October, and we have already started to benefit from the purchase. In our view, the timing of this acquisition was ideal as larger assets and portfolios were priced at a discount compared to smaller, less complex properties.
Since that time, that pricing dynamic has shifted. Throughout 2024, we talked about institutional retail capital curiosity and questioned at what point that would convert to action. The ROIC acquisition announcement by Blackstone in November seemed to be the turning point, given the sector an aggressive stamp of approval that the shopping center sector is one of the top convictions for investment opportunities. This sentiment and excitement for our asset class has continued through year-end and into 2025. As capital has gotten more aggressive on open-air retail and investors have greater comfort making bigger investments, Waterford Lakes would likely trade at a higher price today. On the structured investment side, we continue to see significant deal flow and potential to grow this platform responsibly. Since the inception of this program in 2020, we have touted its benefits for Kimco.
It is a strategy that allows us to get our foot in the door on high-quality real-estate, generating outsized returns on a very safe and comfortable basis, while retaining a right to acquire in the future if the borrower elects to sell. To those points, in January of 2025, we successfully converted our first structured investment into an equity ownership position. We accretively purchased the Markets Town Center in Jacksonville, Florida for $108 million at a low 7% cap-rate using the proceeds we raised from our ATM program in December. Originally sourced as a mezzanine financing in late 2021, we underwrote this property with the premise that it would be a great core acquisition candidate and aligned well with our owned portfolio. While our borrower did a great job in the time they own the asset, we believe there remains a meaningful opportunity to create additional value.
We see significant long-term upside as we continue to push rents and further enhance tenant quality, benefiting from the property's location, which is adjacent to the Simon Owen St. John's Town Center and the bullseye of the rapidly-growing Jacksonville trade area. The competitive advantage we have is that the all-in rents, including common area pass-throughs are at a fraction of what St. John's Town Center is able to command. We are confidently looking ahead to 2025 with our outlook establishing us as a net acquirer, inclusive of structured investments. The markets and Town Center acquisition has given us a strong start toward this objective. We will continue to be selective on core acquisitions and structured investments, selecting opportunities accordingly. From a disposition perspective, our portfolio is performing exceptionally well and we don't see the need for any significant disposition activity. Instead, we will focus on the opportunity to further enhance our growth profile and accretively recycle capital with two new initiatives in 2025.
The first initiative is the disposition of several long-term flat ground leases in the portfolio at aggressive cap rates. The second focus is on monetizing select development entitlements where we believe the most prudent approach is to mitigate risk and sell the rights to a developer and still benefit from the densification of our centers. We plan to redeploy the capital from these flat growth and non-income producing assets into core investments that offer a growing recurring income stream and value-add opportunities. We will continue to provide updates on our progress as we move through the year. I will now pass it on to Glenn for the financial update and outlook.
