First Industrial Realty Trust Q1 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
April 17, 2025

There are 16 speakers on the call.

Operator

Good day, and welcome to the First Industrial Realty Trust Inc. First Quarter twenty twenty five Results Call. All participants will be in listen only mode. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Please note this event is being recorded.

Operator

I would now like to turn the conference over to Art Harman, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations and Marketing.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Dave. Hello, everybody, and welcome to our call. Before we discuss our first quarter twenty twenty five results and our updated guidance for the year, please note that our call may include forward looking statements as defined by federal securities laws. These statements are based on management's expectations, plans and estimates of our prospects. Today's statements may be time sensitive and accurate only as of today's date, 04/17/2025.

Speaker 1

We assume no obligation to update our statements or the other information we provide. Actual results may differ materially from our forward looking statements, and factors which could cause this are described in our 10 ks and other SEC filings. You can find a reconciliation of non GAAP financial measures discussed in today's call in our supplemental report and our earnings release. The supplemental report, earnings release and our SEC filings are available at firstindustrial.com under the Investors tab. Our call will begin with remarks by Peter Bacilli, our President and Chief Executive Officer and Scott Musil, our Chief Financial Officer, after which we'll open it up for your questions.

Speaker 1

Also with us today are Jojo Yap, Chief Investment Officer Peter Schultz, Executive Vice President Chris Schneider, Executive Vice President of Operations and Bob Walter, Executive Vice President of Capital Markets and Asset Management. Now let me hand the call over to Peter.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Art, and thank you all for joining us today. We're off to a solid start in 2025, advancing our leasing objectives and closing on a few attractive new investments. On the capital side, we renewed our line of credit and $200,000,000 term loan, further pushing out their maturities. Scott will provide additional details during his remarks. Top of mind for everyone is the evolving landscape surrounding tariffs.

Speaker 2

Like all of you, we are closely monitoring the developments and their potential impact on business activity and the leasing market. We are all operating in unfamiliar territory, and whether we like it or not, we're being included in the geopolitical and economic sausage making. We have ringside seats to what looks to be an ongoing and volatile negotiation with our international trading partners. It stands to reason that if more clarity is slow to develop, it could further impact the operating and decision making on new investments and growth. At this point, it is too early to assess the specific impact on leasing, as I'm sure there will be further developments in this area in the coming days, weeks, and months.

Speaker 2

Before getting into specifics of our performance, let me comment on the industrial market broadly. Based on CoStar data, vacancy in tier one U. S. Markets was 5.9% at the end of the first quarter, unchanged since year end. On the demand side, net absorption was 56,000,000 square feet, 24,000,000 of which was in our target markets.

Speaker 2

Nationally, new construction start volume was 75% lower than the peak of 3Q 'twenty two, with just 54,000,000 square feet breaking ground in the first quarter. In our 15 target markets, new starts were 29,000,000 square feet and completions were 39,000,000. Base under construction totals 200,000,000 square feet, and that is 38% preleased. From a portfolio standpoint, our in service occupancy at quarter end was 95.3%, in line with our expectations. Since our last earnings call, we made further progress on our twenty twenty five rollovers.

Speaker 2

We have now taken care of 73% by square footage, and our overall cash rental rate increase for new and renewal leasing is 30%. If you exclude the large fixed rate renewal in Central PA we previously disclosed, the cash rental rate increase is 36%. For the full year, we continue to expect overall cash rental rate growth of 30% to 4035% to 45% excluding the fixed rate renewal. Moving now to development leasing. We successfully expanded one of our tenants at our First seventy six project in Denver by 99,000 square feet, bringing that 200,000 square foot building to 100% occupancy.

Speaker 2

On the new construction front, in the second quarter, we plan to break ground on a 176,000 square foot facility at our fully leased 1,200,000 square foot First Park 121 in the Northwest Dallas submarket of Lewisville. Vacancy rates in this submarket have ranged from 4% to 5% since year end twenty twenty two. The building can accommodate one or multiple tenants and will feature auto and trailer parking capacity above submarket standards. Estimated investment is $23,000,000 with a target cash yield of approximately 8%. We also closed a 61 acre site in Philadelphia's New Castle submarket for $16,000,000 The site is near our successful First State Crossing project that we leased last year shortly after completion.

Speaker 2

It's located within a mile of a full I-ninety FiveI-four 95 interchange. In total, we can develop 830,000 square feet. In the second quarter, we will start construction of a 226,000 square foot facility that is divisible and targets the 50,000 to 100,000 square foot tenant segment, where vacancy is around 5% today. Total projected investment is $31,000,000 with a target cash yield of approximately 8%. Moving on to investments.

Speaker 2

We acquired two fully leased developments from our joint venture in Phoenix, the 375,000 square foot Building A and the 421,000 square foot Building B. They are 100% leased to three tenants with a weighted average lease term of approximately seven years. These highly functional buildings include 40 foot clear heights, 200 foot truck courts, multiple access points, and prime frontage on Loop 303 in the Southwest Valley submarket. Our basis in the buildings is $120,000,000 adjusted for our share of JV profit with a cash yield of 6.4%, significantly exceeding market cap rates. With that, I'll turn

Speaker 1

it over to Scott. Thanks, Peter. For the first quarter, NAREIT funds from operations were $0.68 per fully diluted share compared to $0.60 per share in 1Q twenty twenty four. Our cash same store NOI growth for the quarter excluding termination fees was 10.1%. The results in the quarter were primarily driven by increases in rental rates, new and renewal leasing, contractual rent bumps, and slightly higher average occupancy.

Speaker 1

We finished the quarter with in service occupancy of 95.3%, down 90 basis points from year end and 20 basis points from the year ago quarter. Summarizing our leasing activity during the quarter, approximately 1,300,000 square feet of leases commenced. Of these, 400,000 were new, 800,000 were renewals, and 100,000 were for developments and acquisitions with lease up. On the capital side, we renewed and upside our senior unsecured revolving credit facility by $100,000,000 bringing the total commitment to $850,000,000 Including our extension options, the maturity date has been extended to March 2030. Pricing for the new facility removes the incremental 10 basis points over adjustment that was part of the previous facility's pricing structure.

Speaker 1

We also renewed a $200,000,000 unsecured term loan with an initial maturity date of March 2028. With two one year extension options available, we can extend the maturity date to March 2030. There was no change to the pricing structure of this renewal. We'd like to thank our banking partners for their continuing commitments and support. Lastly, we have given notice to our lenders that we are exercising a one year extension option in our $300,000,000 term loan, which will push its maturity to August 2026.

Speaker 1

We still have another extension option available by which we can push the maturity to August 2027. Post these transactions, and assuming we exercise the remaining extension option available to us in our $300,000,000 term loan, our next debt maturity is in 2027. Now moving on to our guidance. Our FFO and key guidance assumptions are unchanged compared to our last earnings call. Guidance range from NAREIT FFO for the year remains $2.87 to $2.97 per share.

Speaker 1

Our assumptions are as follows. Average quarter end in service occupancy of 95% to 96%. This range reflects approximately 1,500,000 square feet of development leasing soon to occur in the fourth quarter. Given this assumption and the fourth quarter leasing assumption for a 708,000 square foot building in Central PA, we expect in service occupancy to trough in the second quarter and then increase by year end. Cash same store NOI growth before termination fees of 6% to 7%.

Speaker 1

As a reminder, our same store guidance excludes the impact of the accelerated recognition of a tenant improvement reimbursement in 2024. Guidance includes the two the anticipated 2,025 costs related to our completed and under construction developments at March 31, plus the two new future development starts announced on this call. For the full year 2025, we expect to capitalize about $09 per share of interest. And our G and A expense guidance range is $40,500,000 to $41,500,000 Let me turn it back over to Peter.

Speaker 2

We're off to a good start in 2025. However, like all of you, we will continue to monitor the situation around tariffs and their impact on the levels and timing of tenant demand. We hope to have a more complete picture of its impact on our business in the next several months. As always, we will be focused on executing on our objectives to drive long term cash flow growth. Operator, we're ready to open it up for questions.

Operator

We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your touch tone phone. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. Our first question comes from Ki Bin Kim with Truist. Please go ahead.

Speaker 3

Thank you. Good morning. So going back to the tariff question or topic, if these trade negotiations end up taking to say extended amount of time to resolve, does this pose any kind of near term tangible risk for your tenancy perspective? For example, I'm not sure how many Chinese 3PLs you have and what this would mean for that $1,000,000 bad debt reserve. Thank you, guys.

Speaker 2

Sure, Jojo. You want to talk about our exposure to Chinese 3PLs?

Speaker 4

Yes, Ki Bin, this is Jojo. Basically, you total all of our spaces that's leased to Chinese 3PLs, they're approximately 450,000 square feet, so they're pretty de minimis. We actually have not done a lot of deals with Asian 3PLs in the past and turned them down because of credit.

Speaker 3

Okay, great. And how about just, maybe not the China 3PLs, but like your auto tenants or anything like that, do they do you see any kind of near term risk?

Speaker 4

So in terms of auto tenants, we don't have any tenants right now that are involved significantly in heavy, heavy manufacturing, there's a lot of design and assembly, and so right now, we have not really heard any big impact or any concern from our existing tenants.

Speaker 3

Okay, thank you.

Operator

And the next question comes from Craig Mailman with Citi. Please go ahead.

Speaker 5

Hey, good morning. Just wanted to clarify, Scott, you'd said the 1,500,000 square feet of development leasing is now 4Q. Recall it was second half twenty twenty five, maybe that's just a nuance, but did you guys shift that out at all? And maybe what's the visibility on that?

Speaker 1

Yeah, so it was second half when we discussed it on the last quarter's call, but the vast majority of it still was in the fourth quarter. We made some slight adjustments to development leasing, but nothing material. So as we stand now, the 1,500,000 square feet is in 4Q, that's the assumption. Another material assumption is a 708,000 square foot in Central PA is 4Q as well. And if you want to do a sensitivity analysis of what the impact is of not leasing any of that up, it's only about $02 per share.

Speaker 5

Okay. And what's the visibility look like on that leasing pipeline today? Turn it

Speaker 1

over to Peter at Jojo.

Speaker 6

Good morning, Craig, it's Peter. So activity continues to be the market continues to see good activity. As we talked about on our last call, we continue to see deals getting made. A fair amount of tenants are obviously concerned about the impact and the timing and the resolution of the tariffs, so some of those are going slower, and some have paused. But in general, we have more prospects today for the majority of spaces than we had at sixty, ninety, one hundred and twenty days ago.

Speaker 6

In terms of this building in Pennsylvania specifically, we've been marketing that, and we've seen some interest from partial and full building users, but nothing really actionable today. Continue just

Speaker 4

to add a little bit to Peter, we continue to see increased RFPs. Now this is pre tariff, at the same time, one thing I only add is that in our Chicago asset, recently we've been seeing also an increased RFPs from manufacturers.

Speaker 5

Okay. And then maybe Peter, bigger picture, I know you guys are planning on starting two developments in the second quarter and that yield on the Dallas start seems pretty high at 8%. Could you walk through just kind of thoughts here on incremental starts beyond these two and how you guys are kind of underwriting with the potential upward kind of push in input and labor costs?

Speaker 2

Yeah. So big picture, Craig, in terms of new investments for growth. Why don't we look at it that way because that could be developments or cash flowing deals? We're going to remain opportunistic. Clearly, the tariff questions, are going to be disruptive to the markets in a lot of different ways, so we're going to be cautious with that from that standpoint.

Speaker 2

But, where we have these new starts that we've just talked about, we're really going to be serving some pockets of unmet demand in those markets, so that's the focus. In terms of the geographies, we've said a couple of times in the past couple of calls, it's still going to be places like Texas, Florida, Pennsylvania, Nashville. So, yeah, we're going to continue to focus there and look to make good risk adjusted returns, but also factoring in what we're learning as we all learn about the way forward with the discussions on tariffs.

Speaker 5

Great. Thank you.

Operator

And the next question comes from Todd Thomas.

Speaker 7

AJ on for Todd. Scott, first one probably for you just around guidance. So what was the amount in G and A this quarter related to stock based comp that was non recurring?

Speaker 1

I don't have the dollar amount in front of me, but you're exactly right that the increase in the G and A had to do accelerated stock based comp due to tenured employees that was forecasted in our guidance as you saw. Our G and A guidance for the year was unchanged compared to last quarter, but I can get back to you on the exact amount after the call.

Speaker 7

Okay, perfect. And then on the larger picture, are you seeing any short term activity on vacant warehousing related to inventory stocking? And what, if anything, are you hearing about larger spaces in the Inland Empire?

Speaker 4

Jojo? Okay. In terms of short term, there continues to be requests on short term leasing. We typically do not like to do short term leasing, so we don't have much of that. In terms of larger requirements, I think you asked about larger requirements.

Speaker 4

The 750,000 to 800,000 square feet and up in Inland Empire is actually pretty active. In fact, just in the first quarter, there were two big leases, over a million feet. This was first quarter that got signed in the first quarter for Inland Empire.

Speaker 3

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

And the next question comes from Rob Stevenson with Janney. Please go ahead.

Speaker 8

Hi. Good morning, guys. Are there any markets today that you're seeing notable change either up or down operating fundamental wise over what you would have expected three or six or nine months ago of note?

Speaker 2

No, not really. We continue to like South Florida and Nashville and certain submarkets in Dallas, even Houston, Lehigh Valley, etcetera, and there's been a few too many alternatives for our taste in a market like Denver. That hasn't really changed. Denver's getting better, having said that. But no, there's been no big change in the dynamics around any of the 15 target markets that we're focused on.

Speaker 8

Okay. So nothing in Southern California especially?

Speaker 2

I mean, Jojo can comment. It's slowly getting better methodically and slowly. The alternatives are becoming leased. But go ahead.

Speaker 4

Yeah. For the first quarter, construction pipeline, for IE and LA came down. Vacancy actually ticked down 30 basis points, for IE. So that's good. Delivery is actually very small at under 2,000,000 square feet for large market.

Speaker 4

For IE, the starts were very small for the Q1, it was only 1,100,000 square feet. So all the stats in terms of supply is trending the right way in terms of absorption, Island Empire had like a 3,000,000 square feet net absorption, which is also good trending the right way. IE West was particularly stronger, than, IE East. Rents were pretty flat and IE West did not come down. There was a slight reduction in IE East.

Speaker 4

Overall, it really feels like we're in a trough, you know, depending on what happens in terms, but right now, it seems like we're in a trough.

Speaker 8

Okay. Then I guess sort of dovetailing with that, in terms of tenant demand today, are you seeing better demand at certain square footage levels Or is the demand fairly even spread across the various buckets of sub-one hundred thousand, one hundred thousand to 200,000, etcetera? Any sort of bifurcation that you're seeing in terms of demand today and what's moving faster?

Speaker 6

Rob, it's Peter. I would say smaller midsize tenants, as we've commented about previously, continues to be active. And as Joe just said, there's demand for the larger buildings in Southern California, but demand continues, Rob, to be pretty broad based. Our smaller spaces release quickly, we're not seeing any weakness there, so we feel overall good about the level of activity. We just need more persistent decision making, and hard for all of us to forecast when will that be given the tariff turbulence and headwind that that's creating.

Speaker 4

Okay.

Operator

And the next question comes from Vikram Malhotra from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Speaker 9

Thanks for taking the question. Wanted to two things, just first of all, so one of your peers has said leasing velocity of volumes kind of were down 20% the first two weeks of April, and then they sort of carried out a stress test, including GFC type scenarios and said they can kind of hit the low end. So two parts I know, kind of what have you seen kind of velocity or volume wise in your markets the last two or three weeks? And then have you done any sensitivity analysis on like if we have a fairly steep drop off in occupancy events in the next few quarters, what happens to your FFO?

Speaker 2

Scott, you wanna take the sensitivity question?

Speaker 4

Right. So Vikram, it's Scott. I I I

Speaker 1

think for us, when you looked at the material leasing assumptions that I talked about before, the 1,500,000,000 square feet that we've got assumed in the fourth quarter and the 708,000 square foot in the fourth quarter. If that doesn't get get leased up, that's about 2¢ per share. So not a material impact to our guidance. I'd say the other thing we looked at was bad debt expense. When we look back to COVID, that was about $1,800,000 compared to our guidance of $1,000,000 You have to realize that back during COVID that was two tenants.

Speaker 1

And the reason that that number was that high is because of the restrictions the government put on us in California to evict tenants. So that's what we've done from a stress test point of view, and I think we stack up pretty well. Peter?

Speaker 2

And from a tone standpoint, look, came into this year with good momentum, a lot more foot traffic, more RFPs, fewer alternatives for tenants, and more tenants looking at spaces just in terms of gross numbers. That hasn't changed. What isn't going to be helpful for decision making now is all the uncertainty around tariffs. It's just another, headwind, I suppose, you know, on top of all the headwinds we've had in the past. We're built for this.

Speaker 2

It's fine. We're gonna I'll get through this, and and we're gonna come out looking good in the end. So, the tone is still positive, but the conversations have a lot of the conversations have paused until people have more clarity on what's going to go forward with the tariffs.

Speaker 9

Got it. So just sort of building on that in terms of pause, I mean, guess you kept the guide intact, but when you say the conversations pause, does that mean like new leasing that you anticipated in the second quarter kind of get might get pushed out in the third? Is that something you've baked in? And can you just clarify, like when you say pause, have any have there been folks who are kind of at the finish line, and have just sort of walked away?

Speaker 2

So first of all, our objectives for the first half of the year were a hundred thousand feet, and we've done that, already. The rest of the leasing is in the end of the year, as Scott mentioned, so none of that has changed. Our forecasts on that remain the same. With respect to pause, largely, that's a general comment. We are seeing some of the conversations pause in our own portfolio.

Speaker 2

We're hearing about it from the brokerage community and other players that we talk to in the business. It doesn't necessarily mean those requirements have gone away. It just means that, with respect to pulling the trigger on investing in growth, some of the prospects have decided to wait.

Speaker 9

Got it. Okay. And then just last quickly, clarification. Can you remind us the so both the Federal Mogul and the Boohoo space, when did you get the Federal Mogul space back? Was it the end of 1Q or the beginning of 2Q?

Speaker 9

And then just prospects for both those spaces?

Speaker 6

Vikram, it's Peter. So the federal mobile lease expired at the end of the first quarter, so it is now vacant in the second quarter. We've seen some interest in full and partial building, building users for that space, nothing specific to comment on this morning. The Boo Boo Building, as you know, they are marketing that entire building for sublet. They do have

Speaker 6

do We continue to view that building very favorable where it's positioned in the market, not a lot of competition, great location in terms of proximity to parcel hubs, and there's not a lot of options for users of that size. They are current on their rent, and as a reminder, we have a security letter of credit that covers us for another twelve months of rent or so, so we don't view that as a risk today.

Speaker 9

Great, thank you.

Operator

And the next question comes from Michael Carroll with RBC Capital

Speaker 7

I want to circle back on some of your earlier comments on current tenant activity. I know you said that activity seems to be pretty healthy right now, but some tenants have decided to pause. I mean, should we assume from that that the majority of tenants are still kind of actively moving forward and there's a much smaller percentage that's kind of delaying and not making a decision? I mean, is there a possibility to kind of quantify or provide some guidelines on how many tenants have decided to pause?

Speaker 2

No. Can't quantify how many. All I would say is that the interest, the pent up demand to invest in growth that we came into the year with still exists. The question for them now is when? You know, what's the world gonna look like?

Speaker 2

How much product are they gonna need to store and ship? And that all depends on the tariff outcome. So some conversations have paused. It's a little too early to say whether those conversations or those tenant requirements have gone away. We can't say that now.

Speaker 2

Right now, it looks like a pause. Not all of them. I'm not going to get into how many. That's just not something we're gonna track.

Speaker 3

Okay.

Speaker 2

Renewal I can say renewal tenants, are we still renewing about six months in advance, and that's a good sign. They wanna transactions done, they're confident in their business. This tariff thing doesn't impact everyone, don't forget. And, in fact, the majority of the business, that we do is not impacted by this. So, this is just another factor on the margin that impacts development, leasing for sure, and, we're gonna work through it.

Speaker 7

No. I appreciate that. Now related to the few tenants or some tenants decided to pause, are any common themes? Like are they in specific industries or specific markets or anything like that?

Speaker 6

No. I would say, to echo some of Peter's comments, Mike, right, a number of tenants are continuing to move forward irrespective of the tariff turbulence, but the pace continues to be somewhat measured. But no, we haven't really seen any specific concentration, if you will, and I think it's still too early to tell. A lot of our tenants let's use the example of the lease we just signed in Denver. That company is in the heavy crane and rigging business.

Speaker 6

They have nothing to do with tariffs. It's all domestic based. So we have plenty of examples of companies who are moving forward. It just might take a little bit longer, just given some of the noise in the world today.

Speaker 7

Okay, great. And then just last for me, I know that you've already addressed about 73% of your 2025 expirations. I mean, can you kind of describe what's remaining? Is there anything lumpy within the remaining 27%?

Speaker 2

Chris? Yes. No, what we have in

Speaker 10

the remaining is they're basically under 100,000 square feet. We really don't have anything bigger than that rolling. Pretty pretty granular.

Speaker 3

Okay. Great. Appreciate it.

Operator

And the next question comes from Nicholas Yulico with Scotiabank. Please go ahead.

Speaker 11

Thanks. Just going back to the guidance, I realize it's a difficult time to be trying to forecast the world. But you talked about the impact in the second half or in the fourth quarter from if you don't get certain leasing done, it's going to be $02 on the year. So I mean, should we assume then that that's sort of the bottom end of the FFO guidance range reflects that. I'm not sure what else sort of reflects that just as we're thinking about potential downside scenarios for your guidance, which didn't change this quarter.

Speaker 1

Nick, it's Scott. Those are the material lease up assumptions. There's other new leasing we have baked in guidance that could be another upside or downside and also bad debt expense. I think we had a question about that earlier. So those are two other items that could be variables as well.

Speaker 11

Okay. But but and just again going back to, I mean, the the idea here is that if if things stay tough as things were to stay tough on the on the on the market, you guys still feel good about hitting the bottom end of your FFO guidance range?

Speaker 1

Yes, yes, yes. Correct.

Speaker 11

Okay, great. And then can you just also just remind us in terms of sort of what's assumed for retention in your expirations for the remainder of this year? I know you've already addressed a lot of them and also just a reminder on the move outs that are assumed.

Speaker 2

You know, as far as retention, we're anticipating the year to

Speaker 10

be about, you know, 70%, seventy five %. That's pretty much what we've been averaging in the last, you know, several years, so no no surprises there. And again, we have very little, you know, under 100,000 square feet, more of majority of the remaining, rollover. So, very little, you know, pretty pretty very little variability there.

Speaker 11

Okay. Thanks.

Operator

And the next question comes from Caitlin Burrows with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Speaker 12

Hi, maybe a couple of questions on development. So on the Philadelphia land deal that you did, but even more broadly, I imagine the ideal situation would be to like buy the land and then start construction pretty quickly. So I guess just could you clarify if that's correct? But then could you go through how possible that is? So for the Philadelphia deal it seems like it would be tough to time a land acquisition exactly when you want to start a development but it did happen so maybe it's not that difficult.

Speaker 12

But just wondering if you could go through that process broadly and then specific to the Philadelphia deal.

Speaker 6

Caitlin, good morning, it's Peter Schultz. So that site has been under contract for a number of years, an infill location across from the New Castle County Airport, but we had to get it rezoned and fully entitled as well as deal with all the agency approvals, and as you can appreciate, that continues to take longer pretty much anywhere around the country, and we were happy to close on that when we did. We thought it would have been sooner, but that process continues to be elongated, and given what it is and where it is, the infill nature of the site, the population density, the road access, Delaware being a lower cost market compared to some of the competition, the building's designed to be single or multi tenanted, and as Peter said, this is a pocket of underserved demand, so we're happy to proceed with that now and close, and we're going to start on the first of the two buildings.

Speaker 12

Got it. Okay, so that makes sense. Okay, and then on development yields, it seems like the average yield for recent and under construction projects is in the 6% to 7% range. I think you mentioned the 2Q starts would be targeting around 8%. I feel like we hear a lot about higher construction costs, maybe land costs and rent growth not necessarily keeping up.

Speaker 12

So just wondering if you could comment on how sustainable you think that 6% to 7% plus yield is, recognizing a backdrop of like higher costs and possibly lower rents?

Speaker 2

So, Caitlin, it's Peter. We, on a regular basis, look at our land holdings and evaluate new opportunities, building in current day construction costs and rental rates. Our most recent update shows that we can put out about $1,000,000,000 at over a seven yield on what we have today. Of course, you're not going to do that into markets where there are too many alternatives right now, but, that's the opportunity that we have. So, yeah, we have a great opportunity to grow going forward just on the on the property that we own.

Speaker 2

You know, Peter talked about the Pennsylvania transaction. Where we can, and that's a good example, we tie up real estate that we don't have to necessarily buy until all of that hard work is done that takes, in some cases, several years to get done, and that's a good example and one of the reasons the yield on that deal is so high.

Speaker 12

Got it. Thanks.

Operator

The next question comes from Blaine Heck with Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

Speaker 13

Great. Thanks. Good morning. Just another kind of big picture question. In conversations you're having with tenants that might have hit the pause button on leasing given the uncertainty around tariffs, do you get the sense that a near term resolution of trade agreements could bring about enough confidence to get them kind of to return to normal leasing activity quickly?

Speaker 13

Or do you think the indecision and mixed messages from the administration could cause a delayed leasing recovery even if agreements are reached?

Speaker 2

What I would say is that if you want to use the word recovery, and I guess we're still recovering from too much supply and too much leasing during COVID. That pace, as you know, from these calls over the past couple of years has been slow methodical, and probably on every call we say that decision making is slow. Not sure that that means that all of a sudden we're gonna break the dam and leases are gonna get signed left and right if the tariff thing clears up, in the short term. So when you say go back to where we were, we may still go back to a market where the pickup is methodical. And now, as I said a bit earlier, the number of alternatives does continue to shrink, and that's a very good thing.

Speaker 2

So predicting the pace of uptake once the tariff question has been settled is a pretty tough thing to do.

Speaker 13

Okay, great. That's really helpful commentary. And then, Scott, I think you've pointed out that a delay in the development leasing expected in the fourth quarter would only have a $02 impact this year, which makes sense given the timing. But can you talk about what that impact would be on more of an annualized basis as we think towards, you know, ahead towards potential impact to 26 numbers?

Speaker 4

I'll get back to you on that, but

Speaker 1

I think an easy way to do it is I would just take that impact, that $2,000,000 and just times by ten or eleven months, and you'll probably get pretty close to the potential impact in 02/1926. That would be the easiest math.

Speaker 3

Great. Thank you.

Operator

And the next question comes from Rich Anderson

Speaker 8

here with Wedbush. So getting back to the impact from leasing and particularly development leasing, looking at your development chart on Page 21 of the supplemental. If you were to get the $1,500,000 done, what is the pre leasing or what is the percentage lease look like in looking at those seven projects in isolation? It's 43% today, you got four of them that are 0% leased. Do you see activity across the board?

Speaker 8

And would that number be 70%, eighty % if you get it all done or more or less? Just curious what your thoughts are there.

Speaker 1

So you're looking at the developments under construction? Yes. At March 31. None of that is embedded in our 02/2025 guidance. That that is forecasted for us post that time.

Speaker 1

So any lease up that impacts '25 would be incremental to FFO.

Speaker 8

Okay. Okay. Excuse me. I I I understand that. But I guess when I think of this speculative leasing cap, 800,000,000, rough math, about 10% of your enterprise value, at what point do you start sort of reconsidering that?

Speaker 8

Have you reconsidered that? And is that sort of the way you look at that 800 as a 10% number? Or how do get to it? Under what circumstance would you start to consider reducing it?

Speaker 2

Yeah. So it is a formula. It is based on our equity and debt market cap. It is a cap and not a target. We're going to operate according to the strength of the markets and not because we have cap space.

Speaker 2

I think the good thing about the cap is that in bull markets, you don't get out over your skis, but we're only using about $470,000,000 of it today, including the two new developments, so reducing it is not really, a topic of discussion for us, and as we continue to grow, obviously you've seen us in the past increase it. So yeah, there's really no reason to reduce it because we don't execute on new starts based on how much availability we have. We do it based on the opportunity to earn great risk adjusted returns in the submarkets that we're targeting.

Speaker 8

Okay. Great. And let me reformulate my first question because I butchered it. The exposure that you have there, even though it's apples to oranges to the $02 that you talked about, Does it give you any pause at all, in this environment? And does it lead you to think more about, more in the way of build to suits versus speculative development?

Speaker 8

Again, is any of that sort of entering mind at this point?

Speaker 2

So we we are we are in a place where we will execute on starts again where the markets are are strong and where there's unmet demand in those submarkets. In terms of volume, okay, we're not gonna get into a position where we would somehow impair our balance sheet or, otherwise be in a rough capital position. So again, looking at good risk adjusted returns there. No, it doesn't concern us. If we got to the point where nothing was leasing for a period of time, we would probably pause, but then the rest of the market's probably having a bigger issue as well.

Speaker 6

Rich, the other thing I'd add maybe more granular to your question is, as you look at each of those projects, they're all designed for multi tenant as well as single tenant, so we have a lot of flexibility. So it's not a binary output.

Speaker 8

Okay. Fair enough. Thanks very much.

Speaker 2

We're always we're always open for business on the build to suit front. You've seen us execute on those, and we have some in the hopper now. So

Speaker 8

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

And the next question comes from Mike Mueller with JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Speaker 8

Yes, hi. And if there's a lot of background noise here, apologize. I'm not in like an ideal situation for this. But two questions on development. Number one, for the land parcel that

Operator

you bought, how do you

Speaker 8

think pricing has changed for that over the past year or so? And then the second question is, was there any consideration to pausing the 2Q development starts just given what's been going on in the past couple of weeks? Or do you think it just made sense regardless of the current environment?

Speaker 6

So Mike, it's Peter Schultz. In terms of the pricing on the land parcel that we just closed on, it's probably the market value is probably double what we paid for it, given that we put it under contract a number of years ago. And as we talked about earlier, we had to work through some prolonged rezoning and entitlement and agency approvals.

Speaker 2

And these two projects are not necessarily gonna be trade related tenancies. These are gonna be smaller tenants, local regional guys, so, yeah, that's Anything else, Mike? Think we lost Mike.

Operator

And the next question comes from Vince Tibone with Green Street Advisors. Please go ahead.

Speaker 14

Hi, there. Could you just clarify the cap rate on the Phoenix acquisitions? Is the 6.4% cap rate based on the net purchase price of 120,000,000 or the gross purchase price of 140,000,000 if you were to add back the incentive fees you would have earned, I imagine otherwise?

Speaker 4

Sure. Vince, this is Jojo. Basically, the 6 point that's the price that we base to get us at 6.4% cap. The market price, the valuation for the property is about a 5.3, and so we basically had third party market opinion on the asset, and then the resulting 6.4 is net of our profit, JV profit.

Speaker 14

Makes sense. That's what I yeah. Yeah. No. That that's what I figured.

Speaker 14

Are you able to share kind of when that five three valuation would set just given all the volatility in terms of a read through to other deals?

Speaker 4

Sure. When that valuation was set, it was Q1 of this year. We had a good amount of comps that point into a valuation of 5.25 cap, and it's really hard to tell going forward, you know, on this situation with tariffs, there's very few trades to market, but again, this is a, you know, when you look at the valuation of Q1, there's a lot of long term investors who are investing in Phoenix today at high force, low buys because of, you know, the location of the asset in the market.

Speaker 2

I think it's safe to say based on the trading environment a month ago, the market clearing cap rate was 5.25%. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. So that's pretty recent, Vince.

Speaker 14

Yeah. No. That's helpful. And then just switching gears to the development. I mean, the projects you announced seem to cater to smaller tenants, to multiple tenants, smaller suite sizes.

Speaker 14

Were those just more idiosyncratic or is this potentially the First Industrial going to pursue more light industrial development going forward than maybe the company has historically?

Speaker 2

No. I think it's First of all, we always try to deliver the size and amenities to the market that are going to meet the deepest part of the demand in that market. These particular submarkets are suited to this kind of demand, and that's really what drives it. We're going to continue to do that across our 15 target markets, and sometimes that's going to mean 100,000 feet, and sometimes it's gonna mean a million feet. Now this is not light industrial space.

Speaker 2

You mentioned that. It's it's so maybe you're using that term just to reflect the size, but it's not light industrial.

Speaker 4

Also, just to add, we actually overinvest in some of our products. I'll give you an example. For the 175,000 footer, which is the last building on the fully leased Sparkle 1.2 Buildings, which comprise five buildings, there are fully leased buildings exceeding single tenants exceeding 175. The reason we always multi tenant design our buildings is for future proofing and added flexibility. And you know what happens is that as we have the highest functional building there, and we can demise the multiple tenants, that actually increases the functionality of the building.

Speaker 14

No, thank you for clarifying that. That's helpful. Appreciate it.

Operator

And the next question comes from Brendan Lynch with Barclays. Please go ahead.

Speaker 15

Great. Thanks for taking my question. There are some press reports about Amazon having a $15,000,000,000 expansion plan. I wonder if you're seeing any difference in their approach to requesting RFPs or if they're doing anything different than they had in the past and if you get any sense that maybe they're changing their approach to warehousing, perhaps like bringing more capacity in house?

Speaker 2

So they want to fulfill same day, so they're very focused on that, and that's what this big investment that you've read about is about. You might recall a number of years ago, they did a similar thing looking at multi story and put it out to bid. We'll see what they get back on this in terms of economics, whether they like it or not, but the thrust for this is just to build out their same day delivery capability.

Speaker 6

Brenda, this is Peter. The other thing I'd add is we are seeing them very active in several markets today.

Speaker 4

And that just includes leasing space and not actually having, you know, doing a financial transaction just like the $15,000,000,000 that you mentioned.

Speaker 15

Okay, great. That's helpful. And maybe a second question. Can you talk us through what is the minimum percent of rent that you'd ideally like to drive in any of your given markets to kind of drive some of the local scale that you've talked about in the past?

Speaker 2

I wouldn't say we have a minimum allocation. We're really focused on the markets that we think are going to generate the highest rent growth and therefore the highest value accretion. South Florida is a great example. We had maybe 1% of our space there, and that's heading to double digits, and it's because it's a great market with obviously natural barriers to entry with the Atlantic on one side and the Everglades on the other. So no, we don't have a minimum now.

Speaker 2

We have one building in Salt Lake. I wouldn't say that that's primary market for us, but we really like the building, so we're keeping it. So we do want to have some kind of critical mass wherever we go, but we don't have a minimum percentage target for the portfolio allocation.

Speaker 4

Also, just to add to what Peter said, we also measure scale in terms of our organizational capabilities. In all of the 15 target markets, we have full management, asset management, leasing, development, and acquisition abilities.

Speaker 3

Great. Thank you for the color.

Operator

And the next question comes from Caitlin Burrows with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Speaker 12

Hi again. Just back to the development and land acquisitions. Maybe this is just a question that's not for now but I was curious, so I figured I would ask. So you mentioned on that Philly project how the land value probably doubled over the past few years. So whether it's that one in particular or just a general example, can you go through how that land purchase works in that you can agree to a price being contract for a few years, maybe the market changes, but then the terms don't change?

Speaker 12

It seems like it works out great for you. So I'm just wondering what indicates the timing of closing in that sort of situation. Is it up to you, part of the original agreement? Is it more of like an option? I guess I'm wondering also like how the seller agrees to that seeming uncertain situation.

Speaker 6

So Caitlin, our local team, this is our expertise. And this was an off market deal with a relationship that we cultivated with the owner of the property, and that's typically how we like to approach it, where we buy subject to getting all the entitlements derisk that process. It took longer, and we were able to negotiate some extensions as well, so I give a lot of kudos to our team on how they structured that.

Speaker 12

Got it. Okay, that makes sense. Thanks.

Operator

This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Peter Facili for any closing remarks.

Speaker 2

Thank you, operator, and thanks to everyone for participating on our call today. If you have any follow ups, from the call, please reach out to Art, Scott, or me. Have a great weekend.

Operator

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.

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Earnings Conference Call
First Industrial Realty Trust Q1 2025
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