First Industrial Realty Trust - Earnings Call - Q1 2025

Executive Summary

• Q1 2025 was operationally solid with strong pricing power but modest headline misses vs S&P Global consensus: FFO/share $0.68 vs $0.70 consensus (miss), GAAP EPS $0.36 vs $0.37 (miss), and revenue of ~$177.1M slightly above ~$176.6M consensus (beat). Estimates from S&P Global are marked with an asterisk and described below.*
• Pricing and internal growth remained robust: cash same-store NOI +10.1% and cash rental rate change +41.7% on new/renewal leases; occupancy ended 95.3% (down 90 bps q/q as expected).
• 2025 guidance maintained at FFO/share $2.87–$2.97; net income guidance nudged lower ($1.52–$1.62 vs prior $1.57–$1.67), while occupancy (95–96%) and cash SS NOI growth (6–7%) assumptions are unchanged.
• Capital position strengthened: upsized/extended $850M revolver and refinanced $200M term loan in March; post-quarter priced $450M 5.25% senior notes due 2031, extending liquidity and term at attractive spreads.
• Key near-term catalysts/risk: timing of development lease-up (management pegs only ~$0.02/share risk if 4Q lease-up slips), tariff visibility impacting decision cycles, and activity improvement in SoCal as supply digests.

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

• What Went Well

  • Strong internal growth: cash SS NOI +10.1% y/y; cash rent change +41.7% on Q1 commencements; leases signed to-date for 2025 commencement imply ~30% cash rent uplift (36% ex the 1.3M sf fixed-rate renewal).
  • Portfolio/investments: acquired two 100%-leased Phoenix buildings (796k sf) at an effective 6.4% cash yield (above market cap rates per management), and secured two high-8% yield development starts in Dallas/Philadelphia for 2Q.
  • Balance sheet/liquidity: upsized revolver to $850M (SOFR+77.5 bps, no SOFR add-on); refinanced $200M term loan; both structured off BBB+/Baa1 level pricing with leverage covenant cushion.

• What Went Wrong

  • Modest consensus misses: FFO/share $0.68 vs ~$0.70; EPS $0.36 vs ~$0.37; revenue beat was marginal vs consensus. S&P Global consensus values marked with asterisks.*
  • Occupancy dipped to 95.3% (–90 bps q/q) with an expected trough in 2Q before rebuilding by year-end; leasing decision-making pacing slowed by tariff uncertainty.
  • G&A elevated by accelerated stock-based comp for tenured employees (nonrecurring nature noted on the call), contributing to higher reported G&A in Q1.

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good day, and welcome to the First Industrial Realty Trust Q1 2025 Results Call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star, then one on a touch-tone phone. To withdraw your question, please press star and then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Art Harmon, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations and Marketing.

Arthur Harmon (VP of Investor Relations and Marketing)

Thank you, Dave. Hello, everybody, and welcome to our call. Before we discuss our Q1 2025 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, April 17, 2025.

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-K 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 Baccile, our President and Chief Executive Officer, and Scott Musil, our Chief Financial Officer, after which we'll open it up for your questions. 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.

Peter Baccile (CEO and President)

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 million 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. 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 environment and decision-making on new investments and growth. At this point, it is too early to assess the specific impacts on leasing, as I'm sure there will be further developments in this area in the coming days, weeks, and months. Before getting into specifics of our performance, let me comment on the industrial market broadly. Based on CoStar data, vacancy in Tier 1 U.S. markets was 5.9% at the end of the Q1, unchanged since year-end. On the demand side, net absorption was 56 million sq ft, 24 million of which was in our target markets. Nationally, new construction start volume was 75% lower than the peak of 3Q 2022, with just 54 million sq ft breaking ground in the Q1.

In our 15 target markets, new starts were 29 million sq ft, and completions were 39 million. Base under construction totals 200 million sq ft, and that is 38% pre-leased. 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 2025 rollovers. 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%-40% and 35%-45% excluding the fixed-rate renewal. Moving now to development leasing.

We successfully expanded one of our tenants at our First 76 project in Denver by 99,000 sq ft, bringing that 200,000 sq ft building to 100% occupancy. On the new construction front, in the Q2, we plan to break ground on a 176,000 sq ft facility at our fully leased, 1.2 million sq ft First Park 121 in the Northwest Dallas submarket of Lewisville. Vacancy rates in this submarket have ranged from 4% to 5% since year-end 2022.

The building can accommodate one or multiple tenants and will feature auto and trailer parking capacity above submarket standards. Estimated investment is $23 million, with a target cash yield of approximately 8%. We also closed on a 61-acre site in Philadelphia's New Castle submarket for $16 million. The site is near our successful First State Crossing project that we leased last year shortly after completion.

It's located within a mile of a full I-95/I-495 interchange. In total, we can develop 830,000 sq ft. In the Q2, we will start construction of a 226,000 sq ft facility that is divisible and targets the 50,000-100,000 sq ft tenant segment, where vacancy is around 5% today. Total projected investment is $31 million, with a target cash yield of approximately 8%. Moving on to investment, we acquired two fully leased developments from our joint venture in Phoenix, the 375,000 sq ft Building A and the 421,000 sq ft 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 million, adjusted for our share of JV profit, with a cash yield of 6.4%, significantly exceeding market cap rates. With that, I'll turn it over to Scott.

Scott Musil (CFO)

Thanks, Peter. For the Q1, Nareit funds from operations were $0.68 per fully diluted share compared to $0.60 per share in Q1 2024. 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. 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 1.3 million sq ft 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 upsized our senior unsecured revolving credit facility by $100 million, bringing the total commitment to $850 million.

Including our extension options, the maturity date has been extended to March 2030. Pricing for the new facility removes the incremental 10 basis points SOFR adjustment that was part of the previous facility's pricing structure. We also renewed a $200 million 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 million term loan, which will push its maturity to August 2026. 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 million term loan, our next step 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-$2.97 per share. Our assumptions are as follows: average quarter-end in-service occupancy of 95%-96%. This range reflects approximately 1.5 million sq ft of development leasing soon to occur in the Q4. Given this assumption and the Q4 leasing assumption for our 708,000 sq ft building in Central PA, we expect in-service occupancy to trough in the Q2 and then increase by year-end. Cash same-store NOI growth before termination fees of 6%-7%.

As a reminder, our same-store guidance excludes the impact of the accelerated recognition of intended improvement reimbursement in 2024. Guidance includes the anticipated 2025 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 of 2025, we expect to capitalize about $0.09 per share of interest. Our G&A expense guidance range is $40.5 million-$41.5 million. Let me turn it back over to Peter.

Peter Baccile (CEO and President)

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 (participant)

We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press Star, then 1 on your touch-tone phone. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your question, please press Star and then 2. Our first question comes from Ki Bin Kim with Truist. Please go ahead.

Ki Bin Kim (Managing Director)

Thank you. Good morning. Going back to the tariff question or topic, if these trade negotiations end up taking just an 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 million bad debt reserve. Thank you, guys.

Peter Baccile (CEO and President)

Sir, Jojo, you want to talk about our exposure to Chinese 3PLs?

Johannson Yap (Chief Investment Officer)

Yes, Ki Bin, this is Jojo. Basically, if you total all of our spaces that's leased to Chinese 3PLs, they're approximately 450,000 sq ft, 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.

Ki Bin Kim (Managing Director)

Okay, great. How about just maybe not the Chinese 3PLs, but your auto tenants or anything like that? Do you see any kind of near-term risk?

Johannson Yap (Chief Investment Officer)

In terms of auto tenants, we do not have any tenants right now that are involved significantly in heavy, heavy manufacturing. There is a lot of design and assembly. Right now, we have not really heard any big impact or any concern from our existing tenants.

Ki Bin Kim (Managing Director)

Okay, thank you.

Operator (participant)

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

Craig Mailman (Director of Equity Research)

Hey, good morning. Just wanted to clarify, Scott, you had said the 1.5 million sq ft of development leasing is now 4Q. I recall it was second half 2025. Maybe that's just a nuance, but did you guys shift that out at all? Maybe what's the visibility on that?

Scott Musil (CFO)

Yeah, it was second half when we discussed it on the last quarter's call, but the vast majority of it still was in the Q4. We made some slight adjustments to development leasing, but nothing material. As we stand now, the 1.5 million sq ft is in 4Q. That's the assumption. Another material assumption is the 708,000 sq ft in Central PA is 4Q as well. If you want to do a sensitivity analysis of what the impact is of not leasing any of that up, it's only about 2 cents per share.

Craig Mailman (Director of Equity Research)

Okay. What does the visibility look like on that leasing pipeline today?

Scott Musil (CFO)

Turn it over to Peter and Jojo.

Peter Baccile (CEO and President)

Good morning, Craig. It's Peter. 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. Some of those are going slower, and some have paused. In general, we have more prospects today for the majority of spaces than we had at 60, 90, 120 days ago. In terms of this building in Pennsylvania specifically, we've been marking that, and we've seen some interest from partial and full building users, but nothing really actionable today.

Johannson Yap (Chief Investment Officer)

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

Craig Mailman (Director of Equity Research)

Okay. And then maybe, Peter, bigger picture. I know you guys are planning on starting two developments in the Q2, 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?

Peter Baccile (CEO and President)

Yeah. So big picture, Craig, in terms of new investments for growth, why do not we look at it that way because that could be developments or cash-flowing deals. We are going to remain opportunistic. Clearly, the tariff questions are going to be disruptive to the markets in a lot of different ways. We are going to be cautious from that standpoint. Where we have these new starts that we have just talked about, we are really going to be serving some pockets of unmet demand in those markets. That is the focus. In terms of the geographies, we have said a couple of times in the past couple of calls, it is still going to be places like Texas, Florida, and Pennsylvania, Nashville. Excuse me.

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.

Craig Mailman (Director of Equity Research)

Great. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from Todd Thomas.

Hey, Jon, for Todd. Scott, first one probably for you just around guidance. What was the amount in G&A this quarter related to stock-based comp that was non-recurring?

Scott Musil (CFO)

I don't have the dollar amount in front of me, but you're exactly right that the increase in the G&A had to do with accelerated stock-based comp due to tenured employees. That was forecasted in our guidance. As you saw, our G&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.

Okay. Perfect. On the larger picture, are you seeing any short-term activity on vacant warehousing related to inventory stocking? What, if anything, are you hearing about larger spaces in the Inland Empire?

Peter Baccile (CEO and President)

Jojo?

Johannson Yap (Chief Investment Officer)

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 do not have much of that. In terms of larger requirements, I think you asked about larger requirements. The 750-800,000 sq ft and up in Inland Empire is actually pretty active. In fact, just in the Q1, there were two big leases over 1 million feet just for the Q1 that got signed in the Q1 for Inland Empire.

Okay. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

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

Rob Stevenson (Managing Director)

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?

Peter Baccile (CEO and President)

Nope, not really. We continue to like South Florida and Nashville and certain sub-markets in Dallas, even Houston, Lehigh Valley, etc. There has been a few too many alternatives for our taste in a market like Denver. That has not really changed. Denver is getting better, having said that. No, there has been no big change in the dynamics around any of the 15 target markets that we are focused on.

Rob Stevenson (Managing Director)

Okay. So nothing in Southern California especially?

Scott Musil (CFO)

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

Johannson Yap (Chief Investment Officer)

Yeah. For the Q1, the under-construction pipeline for IE and LA came down. Vacancy actually ticked down 30 basis points for IE. That's good. Deliveries are actually very small at under 2 million sq ft for a large market. For IE, the starts were very small. For the Q1, it was only 1.1 million sq ft. All the stats in terms of supply are trending the right way. In terms of absorption, Inland Empire had like a 3 million sq ft net absorption, which is also good, trending the right way. IE West was particularly stronger than IE East. Rents were pretty flat in IE West, did not come down. There was a slight reduction in IE East. Overall, it really feels like we're in a trough, depending on what happens in tariffs, but right now, it seems like we're in a trough.

Rob Stevenson (Managing Director)

Okay. 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-100,000, 100, 200, etc.? Any sort of bifurcation that you're seeing in terms of demand today and what's moving faster?

Peter Baccile (CEO and President)

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

Rob Stevenson (Managing Director)

Okay. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

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

Vikram Malhotra (Executive Director)

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

Peter Baccile (CEO and President)

Yeah. You want to take the sensitivity question?

Scott Musil (CFO)

Right. Vikram, it's Scott, I think for us, when you looked at the material leasing assumptions that I talked about before, the 1.5 million sq ft that we've got assumed in the Q4 and the 708,000 sq ft in the Q4, if that does not get leased up, that's about 2 cents per share. 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 $1.8 million compared to our guidance of $1 million. You have to realize that back during COVID, that was two tenants. The reason that number was that high is because of the restrictions the government put on us in California to evict tenants. That is what we've done from a stress test point of view, and I think we stack up pretty well. Peter?

Peter Baccile (CEO and President)

From a tone standpoint, look, we 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 has not changed. What is not going to be helpful for decision-making now is all the uncertainty around tariffs. It is just another headwind, I suppose, on top of all the headwinds we have had in the past. We are built for this. It is fine. We are going to all get through this, and we are going to come out looking good in the end. The tone is still positive, but a lot of the conversations have paused until people have more clarity on what is going to go forward with the tariffs.

Vikram Malhotra (Executive Director)

Got it. Just sort of building on that in terms of pause, I mean, I guess you kept the guide intact. When you say the conversation's paused, does that mean new leasing that you anticipated in the Q2 kind of might get pushed out in the third? Is that something you've baked in? Can you just clarify? When you say pause, have there been folks who kind of at the finish line and have just sort of walked away?

Peter Baccile (CEO and President)

First of all, our objectives for the first half of the year were 100,000 sq ft, and we've done that already. The rest of the leasing is in the end of the year, as Scott mentioned. 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 conversation pause in our own portfolio. 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.

Vikram Malhotra (Executive Director)

Got it. Okay. And then just last quickly, clarification. Can you remind us, 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 is it beginning of 2Q? And then just prospects for both those spaces.

Peter Baccile (CEO and President)

Vikram, it's Peter. The Federal-Mogul lease expired at the end of the Q1, so it is now vacant in the Q2. We've seen some interest in full and partial building users for that space. Nothing specific to comment on this morning. The Boohoo building, as you know, they are marketing that entire building for sublet. They do have a subtenant in about a third of the building today, and that duration is a couple of years with the ability of Boohoo to terminate that. We continue to view that building very favorably 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.

As a reminder, we have a security letter of credit that covers us for another 12 months of rent or so, so we do not view that as a risk today.

Vikram Malhotra (Executive Director)

Great. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from Michael Carroll.

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 % that's kind of delaying and not making a decision? I mean, is there a possible to kind of quantify or provide some guidelines on how many tenants have decided to pause?

Peter Baccile (CEO and President)

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. What's the world going to look like? How much product are they going to need to store and ship? That all depends on the tariff outcome. 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. 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 going to track. I can say renewal tenants. Are we still renewing about six months in advance? That's a good sign. They want to get their transactions done. They're confident in their business. This tariff thing does not impact everyone, do not forget. In fact, the majority of the business that we do is not impacted by this. This is just another factor on the margin that impacts development leasing for sure, and we are going to work through it.

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

Johannson Yap (Chief Investment Officer)

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. No, we have not really seen any specific concentration, if you will. I think it is still too early to tell. Right? 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. They have nothing to do with tariffs. Right? It is all domestic-based. 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.

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%?

Peter Baccile (CEO and President)

Chris, yeah. No, what we have in the remaining is they're basically under 100,000 sq ft. We really don't have anything bigger than that rolling. So pretty granular.

Okay. Great. Appreciate it.

Operator (participant)

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

Nicholas Yulico (Managing Director)

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 Q4 from if you don't get certain leasing done, it's going to be two pennies on the year. 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.

Scott Musil (CFO)

Nick it's Scott, those are the material lease-up assumptions. There is 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. Those are two other items that could be variables as well.

Nicholas Yulico (Managing Director)

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

Scott Musil (CFO)

Yes. Yes. Yes. Correct.

Nicholas Yulico (Managing Director)

Okay. Great. 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. Also just a reminder on the move-outs that are assumed.

Peter Baccile (CEO and President)

As far as retention, we're anticipating the year to be about 70-75%. That's pretty much what we've been averaging in the last several years, so no surprises there. Again, we have very little under 100,000 sq ft, majority of the remaining rollover. So very little variability there.

Nicholas Yulico (Managing Director)

Okay. Thanks.

Operator (participant)

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

Caitlin Burrows (VP)

Hi. Maybe a couple of questions on development. On the Philadelphia land deal that you did, but even more broadly, I imagine the ideal situation would be to buy the land and then start construction pretty quickly. I guess just could you clarify if that's correct? Could you go through how possible that is? 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. Maybe it's not that difficult. Just wondering if you could go through that process broadly and then specific to the Philadelphia deal.

Peter Schultz (EVP)

Caitlin, good morning. It's Peter Schultz. That site has been under contract for a number of years, an infill location across from the New Castle County Airport. We had to get it rezoned and fully entitled as well as deal with all the agency approvals. As you can appreciate, that continues to take longer pretty much anywhere around the country. We were happy to close on that when we did.

We thought it would have been sooner, but that process continues to be elongated. 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. As Peter said, this is a pocket of underserved demand. We're happy to proceed with that now and close, and we're going to start on the first of the two buildings.

Caitlin Burrows (VP)

Got it. Okay. That makes sense. Okay. On development yields, it seems like the average yield for recent and under-construction projects is in the 6-7% 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. Just wondering if you could comment on how sustainable you think that 6-7% plus yield is, recognizing a backdrop of higher costs and possibly lower rents.

Peter Baccile (CEO and President)

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 $1.9 billion at over a 7% 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.

Yeah, we have a great opportunity to grow going forward just on the property that we own. Peter talked about the Pennsylvania transaction where we can, and that's a good example. We tie up real estate that we do not have to necessarily buy until all of that hard work is done that takes, in some cases, several years to get done. That's a good example. One of the reasons the yield on that deal is so high.

Caitlin Burrows (VP)

Got it. Thanks.

Operator (participant)

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

Blaine Heck (Executive Director)

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

Peter Baccile (CEO and President)

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 all these calls over the past couple of years, has been slow or methodical. Probably on every call, we say that decision-making is slow. Not sure that that means that all of a sudden we're going to break the dam and leases are going to get signed left and right if the tariff thing clears up in the short term.

When you say go back to where we were, we may still go back to a market where the pickup is methodical. As I said a bit earlier, the number of alternatives does continue to shrink, and that's a very good thing. Predicting the pace of uptake once the tariff question has been settled is a pretty tough thing to do.

Blaine Heck (Executive Director)

Okay. Great. That's really helpful commentary. Scott, I think you've pointed out that a delay in the development leasing expected in the Q4 would only have a 2% impact this year, which makes sense given the timing. Can you talk about what that impact would be on more of an annualized basis as we think ahead towards a potential impact to 2026 numbers?

Scott Musil (CFO)

I'll get back to you on that, but I think an easy way to do it is I would just take that impact, that $2 million, and just times it by 10 or 11 months, and you'll probably get pretty close to the potential impact in 2026. That would be the easiest math.

Blaine Heck (Executive Director)

Great. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from Rich.

Richard Anderson (Managing Director)

I think they said me. Rich Anderson here with Wedbush. 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 1.5 million done, what is the pre-leasing or what does the percentage lease look like in looking at those seven projects in isolation? If it is 43% today, you got four of them that are 0% leased. Do you see activity across the board? Would that number be 70-80% if you get it all done or more or less? Just curious what your thoughts are there.

Scott Musil (CFO)

You're looking at the developments under construction?

Rob Stevenson (Managing Director)

Yes.

Scott Musil (CFO)

31st March. None of that is embedded in our 2025 guidance. That is forecasted for most of that time. Any lease-up that impacts 25 would be incremental to FFO.

Richard Anderson (Managing Director)

Okay. Excuse me. I understand that. I guess when I think of this speculative leasing cap, $800 million, rough math, about 10% of your enterprise value, at what point do you start sort of reconsidering that? Have you reconsidered that? Is that sort of the way you look at that $800 million as a 10% number? How do you get to it? Under what circumstance would you start to consider reducing it?

Peter Baccile (CEO and President)

Yeah. 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. I think the good thing about the cap is that in bull markets, you don't get out over your skis. We're only using about $470 million of it today, including the two new developments. Reducing it is not really a topic of discussion for us. As we continue to grow, obviously, you've seen us in the past increase it. There is 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.

Richard Anderson (Managing Director)

Okay. Great. 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 2 cents that you talked about, does it give you any pause at all in this environment? Does it lead you to think more about more in the way of build-to-suits versus speculative development? Again, is any of that sort of entering your mind at this point?

Peter Baccile (CEO and President)

We are in a place where we will execute on starts again where the markets are strong and where there is unmet demand in those submarkets. In terms of volume, okay, we are not going to get into a position where we would somehow impair our balance sheet or otherwise be in a rough capital position. Again, looking at good risk-adjusted returns there, no, it does not concern us. If we got to the point where nothing was leasing for a period of time, we would probably pause. The rest of the market is probably having a bigger issue as well. Hey, Rich, the other thing I would add, maybe more granular to your question is, as you look at each of those projects, they are all designed for multi-tenant as well as single-tenant. We have a lot of flexibility. It is not a binary output.

Richard Anderson (Managing Director)

Okay. Fair enough. Thanks very much.

Peter Baccile (CEO and President)

Yeah. I mean, 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.

Richard Anderson (Managing Director)

Okay. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

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

Michael Mueller (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Yeah. Hi. If there's a lot of background noise here, I apologize. I'm not in an ideal situation for this. Two questions on development. Number one, for the land parcel that you bought, how do you think pricing has changed for that over the past year or so? 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? Do you think it just made sense regardless of the current environment?

Peter Schultz (EVP)

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

Peter Baccile (CEO and President)

These two projects are not necessarily going to be trade-related tenancies. These are going to be smaller tenants, local regional guys. Yeah, that's anything else, Mike? I think we lost Mike.

Operator (participant)

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

Vince Tibone (Managing Director)

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 million or the gross purchase price of $140 million if you were to add back the incentive fees you would have earned, I imagine otherwise?

Johannson Yap (Chief Investment Officer)

Sure. This is Jojo. Basically, that's the price that we paid to get us a 6.4% cap. The market price, the valuation for the property is about a 5.3%. We basically had third-party market opinion on the asset. The resulting 6.4% is net of our profit, JV profit.

Vince Tibone (Managing Director)

Makes sense. That's what I—yeah. Yeah. No, that's what I figured. Are you able to share kind of when that 5.3 valuation was set, just given all the volatility in terms of read-through to other deals?

Johannson Yap (Chief Investment Officer)

Sure. Sure. When that valuation was set, it was Q1 of this year. We had a good amount of comps that pointed to a valuation of 5.25% cap. It's really hard to tell going forward on this situation with tariffs. There are very few trades to market. Again, when you look at the valuation of Q1, there are a lot of long-term investors who are investing in Phoenix today at high fours, low fives because of the location of the asset in the market.

Peter Baccile (CEO and President)

I think it's safe to say based on the trading environment a month ago, the market clearing cap rate was 5.25%.

Vince Tibone (Managing Director)

Yeah. Yes. Absolutely.

Johannson Yap (Chief Investment Officer)

Okay? That's pretty recent, Vince.

Vince Tibone (Managing Director)

Yeah. No, that's helpful. Then just switching gears to the developments, I mean, both the projects you announced seem to cater to smaller tenants or multiple tenants, smaller suite sizes. Were those just more kind of idiosyncratic, or is this potentially a First Industrial going to pursue more light industrial development going forward than maybe the company has historically?

Peter Baccile (CEO and President)

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. That's really what drives it. We're going to continue to do that across our 15 target markets. Sometimes that's going to mean 100,000 sq ft, and sometimes it's going to mean 1 million sq ft. Now, this is not light industrial space. You mentioned that. Maybe you're using that term just to reflect the size, but it's not light industrial.

Johannson Yap (Chief Investment Officer)

Also, just to add, we actually over-invest 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 First Park 121 buildings, which comprised five buildings, there are fully leased buildings exceeding single tenants that exceed 175. The reason we always multi-tenant design our buildings is for future proofing and added flexibility. What happens is that we have the highest functional building there, and we can demise the multiple tenants. That actually increases the functionality of the building.

Vince Tibone (Managing Director)

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

Operator (participant)

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

Brendan Lynch (Director)

Great. Thanks for taking my question. There are some press reports about Amazon having a $15 billion 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. If you get any sense that maybe they're changing their approach to warehousing, perhaps like bringing more capacity in-house.

Peter Baccile (CEO and President)

They want to fulfill same-day. They're very focused on that. 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. The thrust for this is just to build out their same-day delivery capability.

Peter Schultz (EVP)

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

Johannson Yap (Chief Investment Officer)

That just includes leasing space and not actually doing a financial transaction just like the $15 billion that you mentioned.

Brendan Lynch (Director)

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

Peter Baccile (CEO and President)

I would not say we have a minimum allocation. We are 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. That is heading to double digits. It is because it is a great market with obviously natural barriers to entry with the Atlantic on one side and the Everglades on the other. No, we do not have a minimum. We have one building in Salt Lake. I would not say that is a primary market for us, but we really like the building, so we are keeping it. We do want to have some kind of critical mass wherever we go, but we do not have a minimum % target for the portfolio allocation.

Johannson Yap (Chief Investment Officer)

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.

Blaine Heck (Executive Director)

Great. Thank you for the call.

Operator (participant)

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

Caitlin Burrows (VP)

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

It seems like it works out great for you. I am 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 an option? I guess I am wondering also how the seller agrees to that seeming uncertain situation.

Peter Schultz (EVP)

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

Caitlin Burrows (VP)

Got it. Okay. That makes sense. Thanks.

Operator (participant)

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

Peter Baccile (CEO and President)

Thank you, operator. Thank you 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 (participant)

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