Alexander's - Q4 2023
February 13, 2024
Transcript
Operator (participant)
Good morning, and welcome to the Vornado Realty Trust fourth quarter 2023 earnings call. My name is Andrea, and I will be your operator for today's call. This call is being recorded for replay purposes. All lines are in a listen-only mode. Our speakers will address your questions at the end of the presentation during the question and answer session. At that time, please press Star, then one on your touch-tone phone. I will now turn the call over to Mr. Steve Borenstein, Senior Vice President and Corporate Counsel. Please go ahead.
Steven Borenstein (SVP and Corporate Counsel)
Welcome to Vornado Realty Trust fourth quarter earnings call. Yesterday afternoon, we issued our fourth quarter earnings release and filed our annual report on Form 10-K with the Securities and Exchange Commission. These documents, as well as our supplemental financial information packages, are available on our website, www.vno.com, under the investor relations section. In these documents, and during today's call, we will discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations of these measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures are included in our earnings release, Form 10-K, and Financial Supplement. Please be aware that statements made during this call may be deemed forward-looking statements, and actual results may differ materially from those to these statements due to a variety of risks, uncertainties, and other factors.
Please refer to our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2023, for more information regarding these risks and uncertainties. The call may include time-sensitive information that may be accurate only as of today's date. The company does not undertake a duty to update any forward-looking statements. On the call today from management for our opening comments are Steven Roth; Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and Michael Franco; President and Chief Financial Officer. Our senior team is also present and available for questioning. I will now turn the call over to Steven Roth.
Steven Roth (Chairman and CEO)
Thank you, Steve, and good morning, everyone. We ended the year on a high note with a good fourth quarter. The quarter and the year were right on target, although, as expected, our results were negatively affected by the dramatic increase in interest rates. This will carry through next year, but I expect will reverse as interest rates recede. It's important to note that our business has continued to perform well. Michael will review the quarter and the year with you in a moment. This year, our New York City office leasing team won the gold medal. In the fourth quarter, we leased 840,000 sq ft. For the full year, we leased 2.1 million sq ft. Average starting rents for the quarter and the year were record-breaking at $100 and $99 per sq ft, respectively.
In more gold medal stuff, for the year, we leased 1.2 million sq ft at over $100 a sq ft rents. The office leasing market is on the foothills of recovery, but the capital markets still remain challenged and are even tightening slightly as we speak. The foreclosures and givebacks are still in front of us, and therefore, so is the opportunity. As Michael and I have said on the last few calls, retail in New York City has bottomed and is recovering rapidly. While rents have a way to go to reach peak pricing of five years ago, we feel very good about the activity, level, and strength of the retail recovery. And there's more big retail news.
In two blockbuster deals announced in December, major global luxury retailers, Prada and Kering, bought prime Upper Fifth Avenue properties for their own use as stores. One deal was $835 million, and the other was $963 million. So in round numbers, call it about $900 million for a half block front on Upper Fifth Avenue. So we now have the most important retailers in the world investing aggressively in real estate for their own use on the most important retail street in our country. This is only happening in the most important world cities, New York, London, Paris.
Now, we take this mark very personally because we own in our retail joint ventures, so 52% our share, a 26% market share of available Fifth, Upper Fifth Avenue in four block, half blocks, in four half blocks of similar triple-A quality. I'm sure you can all do the math here. We also own, in that same joint venture, the two best full blocks, so that would be four half blocks in Times Square, and we have the largest signed business in town. It's been a long ride, and we have now just about completed construction of our renovation of the double block wide PENN 2, and we are about 90% complete with the surrounding plazas.
The huge plaza in front of PENN 2, combined with the 33rd Street Promenade and the 33rd Street setback at PENN 1, have created an enormous open public space, which I might say will be quite majestic. Directly across, across 7th Avenue, the Hotel Pennsylvania is now down to the ground, creating our PENN 15 site. All this, taken together, is for sure a game changer. If you are a shareholder of Vornado or are interested in Vornado, this is an immediate must-go-see. The world turns in funny ways and creates opportunity. The retail apocalypse is now passing, having handily survived the e-commerce attack. But now we have a CBD office apocalypse involving the work-from-home threat and the total blacklisting of office in the capital markets. In the end, the major cities of America will continue to grow and thrive, with New York, our hometown, leading the pack.
Office workers will gather in offices with their colleagues rather than be alone at home at their kitchen table. In the end, the supply-demand equation will come into balance and bring on a landlord's market followed by a total cutoff of new supply. You can't build anything in these frozen capital markets, and in New York, the evaporation or irrelevance of, say, 100 million sq ft of old, obsolete, unrentable space. This cycle is not over yet. There remain challenges, but for forward-looking investors, the time is now. My colleagues and I at Vornado are optimistic and excited. Now over to Michael.
Michael Franco (President and CFO)
Thank you, Steve, and good morning, everyone. Though 2023 was a challenging year, our core office and retail businesses proved to be resilient. Our overall New York business, same-store cash NOI, was up a healthy 2.8% for the year and was up 2% in the fourth quarter compared to last year. Comparable FFO, as adjusted, was $2.61 per share for the year, down $0.54 from 2022, largely due to increased interest expense, which is in line with the expectations that we previously communicated. Fourth quarter comparable FFO, as adjusted, was $0.63 per share, compared to $0.72 per share for last year's fourth quarter, a decrease of $0.09. Overall, the core business was flat, and the entire decrease in the quarter was driven by increased G&A and lower FFO from sold properties.
We have provided a quarter-over-quarter bridge in our earnings release and in our financial supplement. We recorded $73 million of non-cash impairment charges during the fourth quarter, primarily related to joint venture assets that we intend to exit in the next few years. It should be noted that in accordance with NAREIT's FFO definition, this impairment charge is not included in FFO. Now turning to 2024. While forecasting remains challenging in the current economic environment, we expect our 2024 comparable FFO to continue to be impacted by higher interest rates and be down from 2023, which already seems to be in the market. We project a roughly $0.30 impact from higher net interest expense due to extending hedges at higher rates on our variable debt.
Additionally, there will be a ding to earnings as we turn over certain spaces, primarily at 1290 Avenue of the Americas, 770 Broadway, and 280 Park Avenue. This is temporary, as we have already leased up a good chunk of this space, but the GAAP earnings from these leases won't begin in 2024. We expect 2024 will represent the trough in our earnings and for earnings to increase meaningfully from there as rates trend down and as income from the lease up with Penn and other vacancies comes online. Now, turning to the leasing markets. New York is clearly leading the leasing charge nationally as the city continues to experience strong employment growth.
2023 leasing in Manhattan ended on a strong note, and as we enter 2024, market conditions are more favorable than any year since the pandemic ensued in March 2020, providing support for the continued recovery in the Class A office market. The economy is healthy. Most employers are back in the office at least three-four days per week. Competitive sublease space is thinning, and the market for higher-end space is tightening, fueled by a decline in the new development pipeline. Now that companies have greater clarity on their space needs, tenant demand is growing, which is translating into more leasing transactions. With new supply evaporating, tenants are increasingly focused on the highest quality redeveloped Class A buildings near Penn Station and Grand Central Terminal as they seek to attract and retain talent.
Activity in the best buildings has been strong, with vacancy at less than 10% and rents rising. Our best-in-class portfolio has been a major beneficiary of this trend, and the stats bear out this, that we consistently outperform the marketplace, as Steve mentioned earlier. In 2023, we leased 2.1 million sq ft at average starting rents of industry-leading $99 per sq ft, with 1.2 million sq ft at triple-digit starting rents. Importantly, we made significant strides in addressing our upcoming vacancy and tenant roll at some of our most important assets, with leases with the following important customers: Citadel at 350 Park Avenue, PJT Partners and GIC at 280 Park Avenue, King & Spalding, Selendy Gay, and Cushman & Wakefield at 1290 Avenue of the Americas, and Shopify at 85 Tenth Avenue.
Additionally, at PENN 1, we maintained strong momentum with another 300,000 sq ft of deals, highlighted by new leases with Samsung and Canaccord Genuity. Just as a reminder, since we started our redevelopment efforts in the PENN DISTRICT, we have leased over 2.5 million sq ft of office at average starting rents of $94 per sq ft, a significant increase from what these buildings achieved previously. Our fourth quarter activity led the overall market's leasing volume upturn as we completed 17 leases comprising 840,000 sq ft at starting rents of $100 per sq ft. Even with our very strong close to 2023, our leasing pipeline heading into 2024 is robust.
We currently have almost 300,000 sq ft of leases in negotiation, with another 2 million sq ft in our pipeline at different stages of negotiation, including a balanced mix of new and renewal deals. Turning to the capital markets now. While the financing markets for office remain very challenging as banks continue to deal with problem loans, we are starting to see some stability, with the Fed potentially cutting rates in 2024. Fixed income investors are constructive again on high-quality office, and unsecured bond spreads for office have tightened significantly over the past couple of quarters. That being said, we are still a ways away from a healthy mortgage financing market in office, and most office loans will have to be restructured or extended as they aren't refinanceable at their current levels.
More broadly, lenders have no appetite for construction financing across most property types, which should keep a lid on new supply. Conversely, the financing market for retail is now wide open now that the sector has bottomed. As always, we continue to remain focused on maintaining balance sheet strength. Even in this challenging financing environment, our balance sheet remains in very good shape with strong liquidity. We are actively working with our lenders and making good progress, pushing out the maturities on our loans, which mature this year. Our current liquidity is a strong $3.2 billion, including $1.3 billion of cash and restricted cash, and $1.9 billion undrawn under our $2.5 billion revolving credit facilities. With that, I'll turn it over to the operator for Q&A.
Operator (participant)
We will now begin the question-and-answer session. If you have a question, please press star then one on your touchtone phone. If you wish to be removed from the queue, please press star then two. If you are using a speakerphone, you may need to pick up the handset first before pressing the numbers. Once again, if you have a question, please press star then one on your touchtone phone. Please hold momentarily while we assemble the roster. And our first question comes from Steve Sakwa of Evercore ISI. Please go ahead.
Stephen Sakwa (Senior Managing Director)
Thanks. I guess first question for Michael or maybe Glen, just kind of on that, I guess, pipeline, the 2 million sq ft that you talked about. Could you maybe tell us a little bit, how much of that's for kind of the, the existing portfolio? How much of that is, is for the development, such as PENN 2? And, you know, in that discussion, can you just talk about the upcoming expirations in 2024? Are there any large known move-outs, this year that you might know about that you could share with us?
Glen Weiss (EVP of Office Leasing and Co-Head of Real Estate)
Hey, Steve, it's Glen. So of the pipeline that we mentioned in the opener's remarks, there is a good spread in there, including PENN 1 and PENN 2. So activity continues to strengthen at both properties. The reception at PENN 2 has been better than excellent. Tour volume is off the charts. Everyone thinks this thing is, oh, wow, nothing they've ever seen. So the pipeline does include activity at both PENN 2 and PENN 1. As it relates to the bulge in 2024, the expirations that we were facing, we've attacked it, I think, very well thus far. You know, at 1290, we've already leased more than 50% of the space that was expiring in 2024 between Ventable and Equitable.
At 280 Park, we've leased over 200,000 sq ft of the 275,000 sq ft expiring between 2024 and 2025, and put away PJT, which was expiring in 2026. In 770 Broadway, we continue to be in the market with. Now, that building, of course, is more of a big tech, big media building, but we expect that building to perform as we move along here, given its great location and great bones.
Stephen Sakwa (Senior Managing Director)
Sorry, just a quick follow-up. Are you saying 770, does that have a Meta expiration that-
Glen Weiss (EVP of Office Leasing and Co-Head of Real Estate)
It does. It has a Meta expiration of 275,000 sq ft in June of this year.
Stephen Sakwa (Senior Managing Director)
What's left? The rest of Meta.
Glen Weiss (EVP of Office Leasing and Co-Head of Real Estate)
Yeah, so Meta, after that expiration, Steve, we'll have another 500,000 sq ft long-term in the building.
Stephen Sakwa (Senior Managing Director)
Okay, great. Thanks. And then just on the second question, I noticed that you pushed out the stabilization of PENN 2 by a year, which certainly makes sense, just given the challenging market today. But you guys also kept the, I guess, you kept the yield unchanged. So just can you kind of help us think through that? And I guess from an accounting perspective, if leasing doesn't occur this year, somewhat soon, does that begin to create a potential earnings drag in 2025, just from the lack of ability to continue to capitalize costs on that project? Thanks.
Michael Franco (President and CFO)
Good morning, Steve, it's Michael. The answer with respect to stabilization is, we did push it out to 2026. You know, it's taking a little longer to get going on take up there, but as Glenn you know just referenced, the reaction as it's gotten to delivery here has been outstanding. So we expect that to pick up. But, you know, that being said, you know, we're trying to be realistic as well, and so we pushed it out. You know, the yield is, you know, is based on the $750 million cost, does not include carry. So that's, you know, based NOI over the original cost. So, yeah, that's a simple math for you. You know, create drag beyond 2025, if it's not done, I guess, potentially, but, you know, we feel good about the pipeline and what we have baked in right now.
Stephen Sakwa (Senior Managing Director)
Great. Thanks. That's it.
Operator (participant)
The next question comes from Michael Griffin of Citi. Please go ahead.
Michael Griffin (Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Great. Thanks. Steve, I know in your opening remarks, you talked about the stressed opportunities you're seeing out there in the market. Can you maybe quantify kind of what those opportunities could be? And when you look at kind of capital allocation priorities, would it make sense to take advantage of those, maybe relative to buying back your stock or starting new developments?
Steven Roth (Chairman and CEO)
There are three opportunities. Buying back our stock is the first one, or uses of capital allocation. The second is paying off debt and deleveraging a little bit, and the third is offensively acquiring new assets. We are only interested in acquiring new assets at distressed prices, and I think, as I've said, the foreclosures and the give backs have not really happened at an accelerating, accelerated pace. So the opportunities are still in front of us. I don't have any comment as to what we might do, but I think our number one priority is the debt expiries, and then after that, we go on the offense. The stock, we will react opportunistically to the stock price over time.
Michael Griffin (Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Great, thanks. And then I was wondering if you could comment on the recent news about a rent reduction from a tenant at 650 Madison Avenue. I know you only own 20% of this building, but, you know, is there a worry that we should extrapolate this in terms of kind of future rent roll and maybe a sign of things to come from a leasing and rent perspective?
Steven Roth (Chairman and CEO)
You know, the interesting thing is, some of the industry papers, you know, they always get it right, but in this case, they got it dead wrong. The facts are, that the $60 number was a net number, so if you gross it up, it's about $100 a foot. Glen is telling me it's a little less than $100 a foot, but... So it's, it's in the low 90s, I guess.
Michael Griffin (Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Great. That's it for me. Thanks for the time.
Steven Roth (Chairman and CEO)
Yes, sir. Thank you.
Operator (participant)
The next question comes from Camille Bonnel of Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Camille Bonnel (Director Equity Research)
Good morning. Can you talk a bit more to the retention levels of the overall portfolio in 2023? How did it track versus your expectations, and with the lack of new supply on the horizon, do you think this will pick up in 2024?
Glen Weiss (EVP of Office Leasing and Co-Head of Real Estate)
Hi, it's Glen. You know, our retention rate, you know, was strong. As I mentioned, the leasing that we've gotten done, the renewals, I think went better than we originally had thought at the beginning of 2023. And in our pipeline that we referenced, we have very good activity on forward lease expirations. We're definitely finding that CEOs and decision makers of these tenants who are expiring forward, are now coming to us earlier than they had been over the past few years, because there's less and less quality blocks and space available to them. So I would say definitively, the renewal, you know, program is stronger than it had been. We're in very good talks with many of our tenants going forward, and I think it's showing in our leasing activity numbers, especially with the volume we had during 2023 and what we're now seeing in 2024 already.
Steven Roth (Chairman and CEO)
You make a good point. I think you said, with the lack of supply. So the dynamics which are going to cause the office market to get very, very healthy, pretty soon, are you can't build anything in this capital market, so there will be no new supply coming on stream. The supply of buildings that were built in the last cycle, over the last number of years, that space is all being eaten up. And the next trend is that tenants seem to want high-quality buildings, which are either brand new or buildings which have been completely retrofitted, which is the older buildings, and I think I said the stock of those are somewhere around 100-150 million sq ft, those are just obsolete and irrelevant and will evaporate.
So what we're dealing with is not a 400 million, a 4 million—a 400 million sq ft marketplace. We're dealing with something which is somewhere in the high 200s, which is a totally different supply-demand equation.
Camille Bonnel (Director Equity Research)
Appreciate the color there. Given retail seems to be a bit of a bright spot in your portfolio, can you also talk about how your leasing pipeline is looking for that side of the business?
Michael Franco (President and CFO)
Sure. You know, appreciate you recognizing the retail is a bright spot. I think, you know, it feels like investors wrote it off and, and with everything that's happened in the marketplace, forgotten that we still own the most and highest quality retail in New York City, as Steve alluded to in his opening remarks. So, these are, these are scarce trophy assets. I think the value is being recognized. You know, we've talked about the last couple of quarters, and it continues. You know, our leasing pipeline, you know, we've got activity across the board, really, really on all our spaces, you know, where there's, where there's vacancy or rollover occurring, you know, we have tenant activity, in some cases, multiple tenants for those spaces, and rents are clearly rebounding.
So I, I would just sort of say, stay tuned— you know, we're optimistic in terms of what's coming down the pike based on, you know, what we're working on right now.
Steven Roth (Chairman and CEO)
There is definitely a finite supply of the highest quality retail space, which is what the marketplace wants. And then, I hope you notice I have a new financial metric for retail, which is called the half block price. And we got a lot of half blocks in the best place.
Camille Bonnel (Director Equity Research)
Appreciate that. And just finally, on the G&A side, you've managed to control those costs quite well since the pandemic, but it did pick up last year due to some additional stock expense. Is this a recurring event going forward? And are there any key considerations for 2024 that will keep your G&A at the current or higher levels? Just for instance, less capitalized interest from your development program now that PENN 1 out of the pool.
Michael Franco (President and CFO)
No, capitalized interest will be comparable. You know, G&A, you know, some of that'll roll off, given that was a one-time event. But, you know, I think what you're referencing, you know, generally is the compensation plans put in place, which we felt important to, you know, retain our talent in a difficult environment. And so, you know, we implemented those, one in June, you know, heavily tied to... entirely tied to stock performance over the next three-four years. And if the shareholders, you know, do quite well, then the employees will do quite well. So, you know, that expense was elevated in 2023. And, you know, that'll start to, I think, normalize, you know, as we get into this year.
Steven Roth (Chairman and CEO)
Tom, how many, how many years are we writing off the expense for the, comp plan? So it's four years. You were accelerated. So say that again? You were accelerated. So, so the expense for writing off the equity comp plan that we issued in June is over a four-year period. So the G&A will benefit enormously, shortly, as that rolls off. And I think I said in my remarks, you know, you climb the mountain and then you go to the other side of the mountain. So, the rise in interest rates have penalized our earnings actually, you know, pretty substantially. That is going to reverse somewhere, as the government begins to reduce rates, which they will. And then similarly... Well, I guess that's the big- those, those are the two, that's the big thing.
Now, similarly, Michael said that our earnings were going to be hit, or dinged, I think was his word, by turnover in the tenants from the bulge in expiry, lease expiry. But once again, those spaces will fill up, income will come on board. So these are temporary, reductions in our, in our earnings, which will, absolutely reverse.
Operator (participant)
The next question comes from John Kim of BMO. Please go ahead.
John P. Kim (U.S. Real Estate Analyst)
Thank you. Given all your commentary on street retail and how it's recovered, the pricing's been very strong, are you gonna be looking to sell into this strength, or do you think market rents are gonna improve, or is this really just, you know, telling us to update our NAV estimates?
Steven Roth (Chairman and CEO)
Hi, John. How are you? Well, the first thing is we're enjoying the bounce back from of the retail. I mean, the retail had a target on its back, threatened by e-commerce, etc.. And that has all evaporated, and now retail has become the vogue. We believe that the asset prices of the assets that we own has increased dramatically from the bottom, and we may take advantage of those prices by selling assets from year to year, every once in a while. We've already sold a chunk of assets that we really thought were not part of our core. So we've sold some, we may well sell some more, and we're absolutely convinced that rents are going to rise. Will they rise to the peak pricing, that they were five years ago? Probably not, but they're certainly gonna rise from here.
John P. Kim (U.S. Real Estate Analyst)
Okay, do you think we'll get—you'll get the same pricing that you got originally when you established a joint venture? In other words, have the pricing and assets reached peak, peak levels from-
Steven Roth (Chairman and CEO)
We're delighted with the pricing that we were able to achieve in a large joint venture. We're not gonna speculate on what the pricing will be.
Michael Franco (President and CFO)
John, Steve, that's speculation, but I think, I think, you know, what's... If you look at the pricing that Prada and Kering paid, and, Steve talked about the half blocks, you know, and, and you analyze what our portfolio could be worth, then, it's not a stretch to say that, you know, we're, we're back at those levels or get back to those levels, right? Now, and, and who knows over time. But I think what you're seeing is... I think the most important thing is you have two of the most important retailers in the world, who are saying: Fifth Avenue is critically important to us. We want to be there forever. We are prepared to pay-... a meaningful price to be there.
You know, I think that the history of these things is, you know, the animal spirits get going. You know, you don't think that other retailers are behind them saying, you know, "Maybe we need to make sure we have a place on Fifth and secure our position." So I don't think it's a stretch to think that these aren't the last two transactions that occur on Fifth.
John P. Kim (U.S. Real Estate Analyst)
Michael, you mentioned an impairment that you've taken this quarter related to joint venture assets you're looking to exit. Is it this retail joint venture that you're discussing, or are there other assets?
Michael Franco (President and CFO)
No.
John P. Kim (U.S. Real Estate Analyst)
And if so-
Michael Franco (President and CFO)
No.
John P. Kim (U.S. Real Estate Analyst)
Which ones are they?
Michael Franco (President and CFO)
Yeah. Not, not, not the retail. Retail, the worst is past us, as we've said. Now, these were just a handful of smaller, really all office assets that are in joint venture. You know, the accounting treatment, as you know, you guys should know well by now, given the street retail venture, you know, the accounting treatment, the impairment methodology is much different from joint ventures than for wholly owned assets. And this is a handful of assets that we intend to exit over the next, you know, two, three years, and that results in a different accounting approach, and thus the impairment. You know, it's an accounting convention, you know, what the ultimate proceeds will be realized, you know, TBD, but, but you know, again, it relates to a handful of smaller assets.
Steven Roth (Chairman and CEO)
There is no doubt that in this cycle, values have fallen. When interest rates go from, you know, 3.5% to 8%, that has an enormous effect on value. So therefore, I'm very pleased that the impairments were as small as they were actually.
John P. Kim (U.S. Real Estate Analyst)
Just to confirm, this does not include 1290 or 555 Cal?
Michael Franco (President and CFO)
No.
Steven Roth (Chairman and CEO)
That's correct.
John P. Kim (U.S. Real Estate Analyst)
Great. Thank you.
Steven Roth (Chairman and CEO)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
The next question comes from Dylan Burzinski of Green Street. Please go ahead.
Dylan Burzinski (Senior Analyst)
Hi, guys. Thanks for taking the question. Just two quick ones on occupancy for both the office and retail side of things. So it sounds like for New York office, that occupancy should bottom throughout 2024, and as you guys have already leased up some of the move-outs, that it should see a pretty swift recovery as we look out at the 2025 and beyond. Is that sort of a fair characterization?
Glen Weiss (EVP of Office Leasing and Co-Head of Real Estate)
Hi, it's Glen. I think that's fair. I think you'll see a dip over the coming quarters based on what we talked about earlier, and based on the pipeline, we'll come right back up. I think it's fair what you're, what you're characterizing.
Dylan Burzinski (Senior Analyst)
Yes. Probably flattish for 2024 though, overall.
Glen Weiss (EVP of Office Leasing and Co-Head of Real Estate)
Just a word in on the-
Steven Roth (Chairman and CEO)
Hang on. Hang on. Just a word about occupancy. So the market occupancy is in the high teens. So our occupancy is, give or take, around 90, a hair, a hair north or a hair south of 90. If you look back over our history, our normal occupancy is a hair over 95, in the 96, say, call it 96. The difference between 96 and 100 is kind of like structural vacancy. You never get to 100% on a large, you know, over 20 million sq ft portfolio. So our occupancy is really the difference between... our vacancy is really the difference between 96 and 90, let's say 6%, which we think is, we can do better, we will do better, but we think that's pretty good performance in a soft market.
Now, the next thing is that when we rent up the space, and as the markets revert to normal, from 90%-96%, that's a very significant increase in our earnings. So we have that in front of us for sure.
Dylan Burzinski (Senior Analyst)
Great. And I think that kind of sort of leads into my next question, is on the retail side of things. As we look at the portfolio today, I think in your disclosure, you guys say, occupancy is high 70s, pre-COVID, you were mid-90s. I guess just how do we think about the recovery there, given some of the comments you guys laid out regarding the leasing pipeline?
Steven Roth (Chairman and CEO)
Well, the retail occupancy is really sort of an anomaly. It includes the Manhattan Mall, JCPenney, who vacated a couple of years ago, and that's 11 points of occupancy. Is that right?
Michael Franco (President and CFO)
Yeah.
Steven Roth (Chairman and CEO)
What's the second one, Tom?
Michael Franco (President and CFO)
Yeah, Farley, the retail there.
Steven Roth (Chairman and CEO)
Then the Farley, we have slow going on the Ninth Avenue side. So between those two, we're somewhere in the, probably, mid-80s.
Dylan Burzinski (Senior Analyst)
That's helpful. Thanks, guys.
Operator (participant)
The next question comes from Vikram Malhotra of Mizuho. Please go ahead.
Vikram Malhotra (Senior Equity Reserach Analysts)
Morning. Thanks for taking the question. Just to, I want to just go back to your comment about FFO dropping in 2024. So just two clarifications to what you've said first. One is the Facebook lease, 770, was it clear that the 200,000 or so sq ft expiring, they're a move-out, but then the rest is their long-term? Number one. And number two, could you just roughly quantify the move-outs you mentioned? What is the FFO impact this year to that?
Glen Weiss (EVP of Office Leasing and Co-Head of Real Estate)
On the first question, the remaining Meta, 500,000 sq ft is long term. That's correct.
Michael Franco (President and CFO)
Right. So the 270,000 sq ft is just the one component this year. And the remainder, Vikram, look, we don't give guidance, right? There's a number of ins and outs. Yes, you can just quantify—you know, the specific three situations we mentioned, but, you know, there's other things that are going on as well. So I don't wanna isolate and say, you know, on these three, this is the impact, because it, you know, that doesn't give the full picture. You know, net-net, we expect it to be negative. How big? You know, we have to see, you know, what transpires across the whole portfolio.
Vikram Malhotra (Senior Equity Reserach Analysts)
And so I guess just a second question is to clarify, you're basically saying, with the move-outs, with the interest rate impact, et cetera, the ins and outs, you think FFO will go... occupancy will dip. You're assuming the lease rate will eventually come back, is what I'm assuming you were referring to, and then the impact of all that leasing will help 2025 recover FFO-wide. Is that fair? Is there any other big moving piece to that equation?
Michael Franco (President and CFO)
No, I think, I think that's fair. Obviously, look, as we lease up Penn, you know, which in some of the other vacancy that Steve mentioned, that if not just natural turnover, that's gonna power that as well. But I think your general comment is accurate.
Steven Roth (Chairman and CEO)
To summarize-
Vikram Malhotra (Senior Equity Reserach Analysts)
Yeah.
Steven Roth (Chairman and CEO)
Vikram, I agree it's accurate. So to summarize, interest rates have gone up and have been painful. They will go down. They're not gonna go down all the way to zero, but they will go down, and so that's going to increase our earnings from here. Our occupancy is gonna climb from, say, 90 to whatever, and so that's going to increase our earnings. And then the big thing is, over the next two years, PENN 2 will rent. The income from that will come online. Now, that's, you know, probably over $100 million. So these are fairly substantial numbers. But so overall, you're 100% correct. Thank you.
Vikram Malhotra (Senior Equity Reserach Analysts)
Okay, great. And then, Steve, just last one. You know, you mentioned external growth opportunities at some point, obviously, paying a delivering. I'm assuming FFO growth is important, but so as you look to, maybe as the board and yourself, you look to award executives, the LTIPs, going forward, you know, what are maybe one or two of the top metrics that could be different the next five years versus the last five years in terms of gauging those LTIP awards?
Steven Roth (Chairman and CEO)
I don't know how to answer that question. I, we don't give guidance for next quarter, and it's very difficult to predict what's going to happen over the next five years. But to talk around that very sophisticated question, Vikram. We are a New York-centric company. I don't imagine that we will open up a new beachhead, where we don't have the same kind of depth of experience, knowledge, and, franchise that we have. So basically, we're, we're a New York company. My guess is, is that, unless something that I'm, I'm not contemplating comes up, we will stay a New York company. Now, we opened up a beachhead in Washington, some years ago, spun that off into a separate company, which I think is a terrific opportunity.
Then we had a large, northeastern shopping center company, which we also spun off. So we have experience with different geographies, but my guess is the main company will continue to be New York-centric. The likelihood is we will continue to be a large, aggressive office company. But I think I've said this before, we will not make acquisitions of conventional office at full pricing. We will only be a buyer at, I don't want to call it distress. What's the right word, Michael? Okay, at distressed prices for office buildings, and we will only buy the finest office buildings. We have some residential, and we might do a little more of that.
And then what we will develop in the PENN DISTRICT is an extraordinarily important part of our company, and maybe, you know, arguably the most important development in the country as we go forward. That you can't build anything in the PENN DISTRICT today because of the frozen capital markets. You cannot do it. The math doesn't work. But as that begins to thaw, we will consider residential building and developing residential in that marketplace. And, you know, we might even sell a piece of land to a residential developer. So we can't predict what's going to happen, but in five years, we will be New York-centric, we will be a majority office company, and the PENN DISTRICT will be really important five years from now.
Operator (participant)
The next question comes from Alexander Goldfarb of Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.
Alexander Goldfarb (Managing Director)
Hey, good morning. Good morning, Steve, and Michael. Steve, just, you know, talking about the comp plan that you guys put in place around 350 Park Avenue, at the year-end. Obviously, in the middle of last year, the stocks were on their back and you guys, you know, revised your comp plan, understandably, just given, you know, how the stock was depressed and, and I think we all understood that. At the end of the year, though, the, the 350 Park Avenue comp plan definitely surprised, and especially that, you know, shareholders have to wait till the end of, of this year to, you know, figure out their dividend for 2024, you know, the stub, the $0.30 stub aside.
So can you just walk through, you know, how we should think about that comp plan for a development project that doesn't deliver for another decade, while, you know, you're talking about earnings still going down this year and shareholders, you know, having to wait another year for the dividend? Just want to understand that, especially in light of, you know, the, the mid-year update that you guys did for the senior executives and, and upper, you know, generation last summer.
Steven Roth (Chairman and CEO)
Sure. How are you, Alex? Let me go backwards first. Your comment about the dividend. We have had an enormous number of incomings from shareholders, analysts, et cetera, and industry peers saying what we did with the dividend was correct. To continue to pay, by the way, we will rightsize the dividend, but to continue to pay and overpay a dividend, et cetera, in this capital markets, is just not the most efficient use of capital. So you seem to be on the other side of that. I can tell you that most of your friends and peers think that what we did was the correct thing. Pardon me. Now, I need some my holy water. So now let's go to the.
Alexander Goldfarb (Managing Director)
I'd bring you a cup if I was there.
Steven Roth (Chairman and CEO)
Well, I'm not gonna get into that. Now let's talk about the development fee comp plan. So this is something that we've been thinking about a long time. So the first thing is, its objective is retention, reward, to increase motivation, and to incent our most important employees. Retention, reward, motivation, and incent. So the first thing is that anything that is paid out in, on that comp plan, comes from joint venture development projects. Now, we don't do a lot of those. 350 Park is probably, in my memory, the first one. We did 220, 100%. So we don't do a lot, and we own the PENN DISTRICT 100%. So this doesn't come into being until there is a joint venture partner that pays a development fee.
Now, I talked about incentives and motivation. We think that it's shoulder to shoulder with our shareholders, that we do this kind of, of investing, and we think it's also shoulder to shoulder with our shareholders, that we bring in outside third-party capital to fund us, which has become most of our, most of our peers in the industry, are using outside capital. We haven't done that in the past, so we want to do that in the future. So that's, that, that's the beginning of it. By the way, it's a very small plan. We don't expect it to be, substantial in any way. And as we look at it, and as we review, our senior management compensation, and even down the line, we find that our compensation is lower than almost all of our peers.
So this is a way to have performance-based comp, a small amount, a small amount, by the way. And this is other than stock-based comp, because we can't control the stock price, but we can control our performance in joint ventures. It's only payable out of third-party development fees, not development fees that Vornado would be paying. And we think it's highly appropriate. We probably made a mistake. We did a good job of socializing the June comp plan. We sort of didn't do it with this development comp plan because we thought it was very small. We thought shareholders would get it, and frankly, I made a mistake. We should have told our shareholder base what we were going to do. I myself am ex- Hang on.
I myself am extremely unhappy to get any negative comments about that. But there it is. We think it's right. We think it's a good way of comping our people. We do not think our people are underpaid, certainly at the high, you know, at the highest level and at the highest level. And by the way, doing a 2 million sq ft building in New York City is backbreaking work. It's nights, it's weekends, it's backbreaking work, and we think that the team deserves it.
Alexander Goldfarb (Managing Director)
So, Steve, but to that point, if it's a small amount, you know, it would seem like something that's just part of, you know, the annual comp committee. Like, "Hey, you guys did a great job. As part of your bonus for your 2023 or 2024, we're rewarding." So if it's a small number, it doesn't seem like that much of an incremental incentive. And two, it just seems like ordinary course that management is expected to do to drive value for shareholders and would be part of their regular course compensation. It's not clear why it would be a standalone.
Steven Roth (Chairman and CEO)
Obviously, I don't agree with you.
Alexander Goldfarb (Managing Director)
Okay.
Steven Roth (Chairman and CEO)
But this, this is... I would like to agree with you. I would like you to agree with me, but, but I'd like you to agree with me rather than me agree with you. But anyway,
Alexander Goldfarb (Managing Director)
I-
Steven Roth (Chairman and CEO)
... No comp in this plan is paid unless it goes through the comp committee of the board, and they take all circumstances into account. So, there you have it.
Alexander Goldfarb (Managing Director)
Okay, let me switch. Glen, on PENN 2, I believe you guys switched brokers from your original one to a new one. Just curious, the progress that you guys had on PENN 1 seemed, you know, pretty good. You toured us last year, the project. It certainly seemed impressive what you guys have done with PENN 1. It seemed like leasing was going well. What happened with PENN 2 that you found it necessary to switch brokers?
... And is that sort of a repositioning of the asset, different tenants, or was there something else that you learned through the process that caused you to switch brokers on, on PENN 2?
Glen Weiss (EVP of Office Leasing and Co-Head of Real Estate)
So we did not switch brokers. The Cushman & Wakefield team is additive to my team. Something we do not do often, as you know, but here we decided to do it, to cover the entire market, both regionally, locally, and nationally. We brought in a great team. The team had just, you know, done all the leasing over in Manhattan West, so it's additive, not a switch. At PENN 1, it remains the Vornado team, and that was the reasoning for doing the PENN 2 add of Cushman & Wakefield, but no switch, no change, normal course of business.
Steven Roth (Chairman and CEO)
Alex, I'm confident. I'm confident that the gold medal team of Glen and the rest of his team, in-house, have the strength, the ability, the franchise to do the job. But we're in the no stone unturned business, and so we thought that adding Cushman to have that extra look into the marketplace was a good piece of insurance, and it's working out.
Operator (participant)
The next question comes from Caitlin Burrows of Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Julien Blouin (VP of Real Estate Global Investment Research)
Hi, thank you. This is Julien Blouin in on for Caitlin. Thank you for taking the question. Steve, regarding the dividend, and adding to Alex's question, last quarter, you provided a really helpful breakdown of your 2023 expected taxable income. I was wondering if you could provide the same for 2024, and should we assume that the fourth quarter dividend will be again set at sort of the minimum required taxable income level?
Steven Roth (Chairman and CEO)
The answer to that is that we have a broad idea of what the 2024 taxable income will be, as you would expect, but it is not a number that we are comfortable enough with disclosing publicly. So that's the first point. The second point is, at this time, it's a financial policy of our board to pay out the minimum dividend because, from a capital allocation point of view, that's the right decision. We have had, as I said before, numerous investors, shareholders, analysts, peers, tell us that's the right decision. The dividend, the most interesting part of the dividend, however, will likely be gains on asset sales, because all of our assets have very low basis. So if we choose to sell an asset or two or three or four in 2024, that will determine, more than anything, what the dividend would be.
Julien Blouin (VP of Real Estate Global Investment Research)
That's, that's really helpful. Thank you. And then maybe switching gears to PENN 1, the ground lease renewal. I think you mentioned at the beginning of last year that you thought the final number could come in lower than the original $26 million estimate, just based on evolving sort of market conditions. Is that still your expectation? And I guess, what is the latest update on that process?
Steven Roth (Chairman and CEO)
Well, that's absolutely my expectation, but there's somebody on the other side that disagrees with that. So we're in the middle of the process, the arbitration process, to determine what the number will be. And that's something we can't speculate on.
Julien Blouin (VP of Real Estate Global Investment Research)
Okay, great. Thank you.
Steven Roth (Chairman and CEO)
Yes, sir.
Operator (participant)
The next question comes from Nick Yulico of Scotiabank. Please go ahead.
Nicholas Yulico (Managing Director)
Thanks. Just first, a question on PENN 1. You know, based on the, you know, the incremental yield you gave last quarter in the supp, I know it's now in the, I guess, the more stabilized pool, but, you know, it looks like there was eventually $59 million of future NOI, assumed they're on a cash basis. Can you just let us know, like, how... you know, if any of that's already been captured yet, and just how to think about, you know, the impact of any, any of that, if there's any of that benefit assumed for, for this year?
Michael Franco (President and CFO)
Yeah, Nick, it's Michael. I can't give you the exact numbers offhand. The answer is, some of that is factored in 2024, but, you know, this is a rolling program and so, it'll, you know, continue to come in next year as well. Obviously, there's vacancy there, as that gets leased up, that'll come online as well. So the answer is, you know, some of that's there. You know, I can tell you is, and it's not in the development yields anymore, just because the project is done, but, you know, our the last one we had published, you know, we're confident in terms of, you know, hitting that and hopefully exceeding it.
But you know, we can sort of circle up, you know, and get a little more specifics, but some of that's in 2024, but it'll roll in, you know, over the next, you know, year or two as well.
Nicholas Yulico (Managing Director)
Uh, I, I-
Julien Blouin (VP of Real Estate Global Investment Research)
Okay, thanks.
Steven Roth (Chairman and CEO)
I'd like to... Hang on. I'd like to make a couple of comments. The first is that all of us focus on what the initial yield is on an asset. I think it's a very interesting exercise to say: What can that asset produce in terms of revenue, three, five, seven years out? So we believe, for example, in the PENN DISTRICT, we believe in the West Side of Manhattan. We believe that when you combine PENN DISTRICT with Manhattan West and Hudson Yards, I mean, that's a hell of a neighborhood. Highly sought after and whatever. So we believe that these assets will return a very satisfactory return at the get-go, and will grow from there as we continue to own them over the next period of time. So there's that.
We also believe that—I mean, there's some question about which is more important, Penn or Grand Central? Well, the answer is, obviously Grand Central is at the foot of Park Avenue, so that's very important. I, and I think everybody considers Park Avenue to be the principal business boulevard in the country, maybe in, maybe even in the world. We have a representation of, you know, multiple assets on Park Avenue, too. But it's interesting to note that New Jersey Transit comes into only Penn Station, and New Jersey is the fastest growing suburb of New York. So we are very, very happy with our position.
Nicholas Yulico (Managing Director)
Okay, thanks for that. Just second question is on PENN 1 and PENN 2. You know, you guys give only the occupancy numbers in the sup, and I'm just wondering if there's any way that you can give us a feel for the... Like, a lease rate for those assets, or even think about, you know, how much of the leasing you've achieved so far, of what your ultimate plan is on getting to these, you know, stabilized cash yields you talk about for the projects?
Michael Franco (President and CFO)
So much, you wanna go through how much PENN 1 lease, how much to go?
Glen Weiss (EVP of Office Leasing and Co-Head of Real Estate)
I mean, as Michael said, PENN 1 is a multi-year program. When we set out on the project, there were over 200 tenants in the property, which were rolling over the next, call it five, six, seven years. We've leased a considerable amount of space in PENN 1 to date, and we continue to cycle through as these tenants expire year to year. So and it's been very successful. You know, we've leased over 30,000 sq ft this year. You know, it runs north of 90, and we have a lot of action in the pipeline now. Similarly, at PENN 2, we talked about the pipeline. We have deals coming to fore at PENN 2 as we speak, and you can stay tuned on that activity as we roll into the first, second quarter of 2024.
Nicholas Yulico (Managing Director)
Okay. Yeah, no, I appreciate all the commentary on the re-leasing. It's just honestly a little bit hard to understand, you know, where you guys are at in terms of the re-leasing of those projects and, you know, at what point you're getting the, the NOI benefit, because, you know, there's no, like, bridge provided anymore about the rolling out and the rolling in of, of NOI. So it's honestly very difficult to quantify what the benefit to the company is gonna be over the co- over the next couple years.
Michael Franco (President and CFO)
I mean, I would-
Glen Weiss (EVP of Office Leasing and Co-Head of Real Estate)
Good job.
Michael Franco (President and CFO)
I would say, Nick, let's go through it, right? PENN 2, we've got 1.4 million to lease up, okay? PENN 1, we've probably taken care of, I'm gonna rough guess, going half the square footage to date, right? So there's probably another 1.2 million to go in terms of rolling that up to market and at to market, all right? Between those two assets, in a short period of time, and let's call it, let's just, let's use the outside, three years, right? There's going to be an incremental $200 million that comes from an NOI that comes from those assets, maybe a little less from Farley too, in terms of remaining retail. But the bulk of that is PENN 1, PENN 2. That's probably a net on capitalized interest, another $150 million, right?
So that's, that's as crisp as I can give it to you. Whether I'm a little bit early, a little bit late on the timing, that's the magnitude, and it's gonna happen.
Nicholas Yulico (Managing Director)
Great, thanks. I know, I appreciate that extra commentary, Michael.
Michael Franco (President and CFO)
Okay. Yep.
Operator (participant)
The next question comes from Anthony Paolone of JPMorgan. Please go ahead.
Anthony Paolone (Co-head of U.S. Real Estate Stock Research)
Thanks. I just have one. Michael, if I got your comment right earlier, I think you mentioned debt markets are pretty open right now for retail, and so I was wondering if that creates any opportunities for you all to get paid back on your preferred interest in the JV in the near term at all?
Michael Franco (President and CFO)
You know, Tony, good morning. You know, we're pleased that the markets are opening, and the answer is, you know, we're starting to look at it. But, you know, we've got some leasing to do on a couple of those assets as well, right? If you think about 689 Fifth or, you know, the old space at 1540. So there's a little bit of leasing that has to get accomplished, stabilize, you know, two or three of the assets. But, you know, as opposed to something that was sort of not on the table as a possibility, I think it's emerging as a possibility. And, you know, as the markets continue to improve, the answer is we are absolutely focused on it.
And, you know, we're sort of gathering data and looking at it. But, you know, it's one of those things where we gotta do leasing. There's also a size limitation in terms of, you know, how much you can put through the system. But, our goal is to repatriate that capital over time, and that, and opportunities emerging.
Steven Roth (Chairman and CEO)
I look at it differently. The markets are open, which really means that lenders are prepared to give you money at 8%. That's not open to me because the cost of that capital is just too high, and this is not the time to be aggressively borrowing, unless you absolutely need it. So the answer is we look at it from an academic point of view, but it would be very surprising to see our company aggressively refinance the preferred or anything else in this market at these interest rates. Now, just a minute about our liquidity. We have $1 billion some odd in cash. We consider, at some point in time, that the preferred is a source of liquidity, not at 8%, but lower.
But if we had to, it's a source of liquidity, and that's $1.8 billion. The next is, remember that Penn Plaza has no debt on it. So we've got PENN 1, debt-free. PENN 2, debt-free. Farley, debt-free, and the Hotel Pennsylvania site, debt-free. So we have an enormous source of liquidity, which, we think is, pretty interesting.
Anthony Paolone (Co-head of U.S. Real Estate Stock Research)
Okay, thank you.
Steven Roth (Chairman and CEO)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
The next question comes from Ronald Kamdem of Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Ronald Kamdem (Managing Director and Head of U.S. REITs and CRE Research)
Great. Just one from me as well. I was just looking at the 10-K, in a footnote, you put some really helpful details about, where you expect to release some of the maturities on the office portfolio. I think it looks like flat or, and some of the retail at, at sort of over 30%, which I thought was helpful. But in trying to connect the dots between those releasing spreads, I think we talked earlier on the call about occupancy potentially dipping in the H1 part of the year before picking up. Can you put that all together for us and into a same-store NOI number? I know you don't give guidance, but is there some broad strokes that we should be thinking about same-store NOI? Is it flat? Is it slightly down? How should we think about those pieces? Thanks.
Michael Franco (President and CFO)
You know, it's probably a little bit down in the aggregate. But again, it depends a little bit on what spaces and when happens. Hard to give you any more guidance than that. But I think your overall characterization in the office on an average basis, flat, is probably accurate. But you know, as Glen and his team have a history of doing, you know, we pull forward a number of leases that are gonna roll and deal with those. You know, it's sort of hard to give you that number.
Ronald Kamdem (Managing Director and Head of U.S. REITs and CRE Research)
Got it. Thanks so much.
Operator (participant)
The next question is a follow-up from Steve Sakwa of Evercore ISI. Please go ahead.
Stephen Sakwa (Senior Managing Director)
Yeah, thanks. Just two quick follow-ups. Michael, I think on the G&A, you and Steve had provided some color, but I just wanted to see, are you saying that in 2024, you think the G&A will be flattish with 2023, or it actually comes down in 2024 versus 2023?
Michael Franco (President and CFO)
Well, it's gonna come down. You know, the development fee bonus are not gonna be there, right? I mean, that was a last-year item that's not gonna reoccur this year, so that's going down. So, you know, the answer is yes. We think it will be down.
Stephen Sakwa (Senior Managing Director)
Okay, but, but just basically stripping that out, that's really the only kind of one-timer that would sort of come off the 23 number?
Michael Franco (President and CFO)
Yeah. There's a little bit more in terms of things that were accelerated that aren't gonna reoccur, just based on, you know, historical vesting for, you know, certain people. But, you know, on... So the answer is net-net between development fee, that, you know, I don't know, Tom, we're talking $10 million total, that neighborhood, probably somewhere in the neighborhood, that comes off the books in 2024.
Stephen Sakwa (Senior Managing Director)
Okay, great. Thanks. And then just second follow-up, just on, I think you've got a big refinancing that you're working on with your partner at 280 Park Avenue. Just any kind of color. I think that might have gone into special servicing. I assume that that was maybe part of the mechanics of getting that loan refinanced, but just any color or commentary you could provide on that refinancing would be great. Thanks.
Michael Franco (President and CFO)
Sure. Yeah, I'm not gonna say too much, given we're still in the middle of the process. But what... It is a CMBS loan. You know, going into special servicing is part of the process of working that out. And you know, we and our partner are making good progress on that, and we expect to get to a successful resolution with you know, terms that we think are attractive. So, you know, more to come shortly there. But you know, we've been hard at work, you know, for the last six-nine months. These CMBS loans are painful, complicated, given you know, the way they're set up. But you know, you have the right sponsorship, and you know, I think they recognize that. You know, we're getting closer to the finish line.
Stephen Sakwa (Senior Managing Director)
Great. That's it for me. Thanks.
Steven Roth (Chairman and CEO)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
That concludes today's question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Steven Roth for any closing remarks.
Steven Roth (Chairman and CEO)
Thank you, everybody. We appreciate your interest in our company. We learn from you every call. This was an interesting call, and it's snowing in New York, and we'll see you at the next call. When is the next call?
Michael Franco (President and CFO)
May seventh.
Steven Roth (Chairman and CEO)
May, on, on May seventh. Have a good day.
Operator (participant)
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating, and you may now disconnect.