Hudson Pacific Properties - Earnings Call - Q1 2025

Executive Summary

• Q1 2025 revenue was $198.5M, down 7.3% year over year, as asset sales and lower office occupancy weighed on results; GAAP diluted EPS was -$0.53, and FFO (ex-specified items) was $0.09 per diluted share.
• The quarter missed Wall Street consensus on revenue and EPS: revenue $198.5M vs $201.2M consensus*, EPS -$0.53 vs -$0.41 consensus*; EBITDA also missed consensus ($56.4M actual vs $70.8M*)—driven by lower office NOI and one-time Quixote lease termination costs and a non-cash impairment.
• Leasing momentum was strong: 630K sf signed, GAAP rent +4.8%, weighted average lease term 128 months; in-service office ended 75.1% occupied and 76.5% leased (down sequentially due to a known vacate at 1455 Market), while stage occupancy improved to 78.7%.
• Guidance tightened: Q2 2025 FFO outlook set at $0.03–$0.07; full-year assumptions updated—interest expense raised by ~$12M and G&A reduced by ~$3M; debt risk moderated via $475M CMBS and subsequent hedges, and tender for full repayment of private placement notes.
• Near-term stock catalysts: continued asset sales ($97M executed or under contract) and improving studio pipeline aided by California and potential federal incentives; office leasing pipeline expanded to 2.1M sf with >700K sf late-stage deals.

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

What Went Well

• Strong office leasing activity: 62 leases totaling 630,295 sf; GAAP rent +4.8%; weighted average lease term 128.1 months; notable 232K sf/20-year lease with City and County of San Francisco at 1455 Market.
• Studio progress and cost actions: sequential improvement in stage occupancy to 78.7%; Quixote cost reduction initiatives underway, lowering breakeven show count toward ~95 shows per quarter per management.
• Balance sheet actions: closed $475M CMBS financing; post-quarter hedged SOFR (swap/cap) to lift fixed/capped debt to ~98.9% pro forma; tendered for full repayment of private placement notes, reducing near-term maturities.
• Quote: “Our team continues to execute… we continue to see signs of improving or stabilizing fundamentals” — Victor Coleman, CEO.

What Went Wrong

• Revenue and EPS miss vs consensus; EBITDA also below estimates; drivers included lower office occupancy, one-time Quixote lease termination fees ($5.9M), and a non-cash impairment tied to a potential asset sale.
• Same-store cash NOI fell to $93.2M (from $103.4M YoY), primarily due to lower office occupancy; sequential office leased percent declined to 76.5% (from 78.9%) given the known vacate at 1455 Market.
• Cash rent spreads -13.6% (driven by SF Bay Area backfills); excluding the large 1455 Market lease, cash spreads still -8.8%; AFFO compressed to $0.01 per diluted share on higher recurring capex and lower FFO.
• Analyst concern: debt metrics/coverage and refinancing risks discussed; management reiterated covenant compliance and proactive refinancing workstreams.

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good afternoon. My name is Alex, and I'll be your conference operator for today. At this time, I'd like to welcome everyone to the Hudson Pacific Properties First Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. If you'd like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you'd like to withdraw your question, please press star followed by two. At this time, I'd like to turn the call over to Laura Campbell, Executive Vice President, Investor Relations and Marketing. Please go ahead.

Laura Campbell (EVP of Investor Relations and Marketing)

Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for joining us. With me on the call today are Victor Coleman, CEO and Chairman; Mark Lammas, President; Harout Diramerian, CFO; and Art Suazo, EVP of Leasing. This afternoon, we filed our earnings release and supplemental on an 8K with the SEC, and both are now available on our website. An audio webcast of this call will also be available for replay on our website. Some of the information we'll share on the call today is forward-looking in nature. Please reference our earnings release and supplemental for statements regarding forward-looking information, as well as the reconciliation of non-GAAP financial measures used on this call. Today, Victor will discuss industry and market trends. Mark will provide an update on our office and studio operations and development, and Harout will review our financial results and 2025 outlook. Thereafter, we'll be happy to take your questions. Victor?

Victor Coleman (CEO and Chairman)

Thank you, Laura. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to our First Quarter Call. Our team continues to execute across the business, staying cognizant of the state of our markets, working to maximize flexibility, lease space, and grow occupancy. We are also closely monitoring the potential effects of tariffs on our core industries, and we continue to see signs of improving or stabilization of our fundamentals. We remain optimistic that the tariff negotiations will start to settle in the coming months and that pro-growth policies will phase in. Additionally, we're encouraged that the federal government is actively facilitating billions of additional investment into AI and implementing policies to redirect content production back to the United States, which could be a positive for Hudson Pacific.

One of the other catalysts we continue to monitor is venture investing, which in the first quarter set a new high watermark with deal value more than doubling year over year to $92 billion, which is also 92% above the 10-year average. The Bay Area squarely remains the epicenter of U.S. innovation, receiving nearly 70% of the funding, or $59 billion, the most in a decade and more than four-fold year-over-year increase. AI alone received 70% of the funding, including the five largest investments, with all but one of those companies headquartered in the Bay Area. The Stargate Project, a U.S.-based multinational artificial intelligence joint venture created by Oracle, SoftBank, and OpenAI, will invest $500 billion in AI infrastructure and jobs over the next five years, with $100 billion deployed immediately.

AI should remain a bright spot for tech and, by extension, for AI office leasing, which totaled over 500,000 sq ft in San Francisco alone in the first quarter, up significantly year over year. Clearly, San Francisco is leading the West Coast recovery, both in terms of tech leasing and the benefits of a more moderate, pro-business, tough-on-crime leadership. First quarter marked the second straight quarter of positive net absorption, and gross leasing was just under 3 million sq ft. Beyond continued AI investment, the election of Mayor Lurie has been a game changer for the city, with his focus on public safety, encampment cleanup, drug enforcement, and an array of other initiatives to promote economic activity.

Case in point, we welcomed two and a half million visitors to our Ferry Building in the first quarter alone, our best first quarter on record, and a 23% year-over-year increase. Another positive, with the city's new financial and zoning incentives for residential conversions, we're reevaluating and underwriting adaptive reuse of some of our office assets and expect to have one or more good candidates in the future. Downtown Seattle, too, is benefiting from political tailwinds. While direct vacancy increased 90 basis points in the quarter, gross leasing increased 15% to the highest level in a year. The election of Mayor Harrell and a more moderate city council significantly reducing crime and drug use and accelerated return to office for both public and private sector employees alike. Nowhere has this been more evident than in Pioneer Square, where year over year, our leasing activity, pipeline, and tours have notably increased.

We have successfully grown occupancy to 93% at 411 First from 78% in the first quarter last year, and we have another 225,000 sq ft in late-stage deals in our pipeline for the other assets in that market. We're also working closely with city officials to expedite the lease-up of Washington 1000, including a potential code amendment to allow building top signage and a partnership with the adjacent convention center to activate our retail spaces. The devastating fires and increasing budget woes made it more of a challenging quarter for Los Angeles. Fortunately, our Los Angeles portfolio is currently 97% leased, largely under long-term leases. On the studio side, average shows and production remained in the mid-80s.

This year, California has seen new production starts accelerate more so than other North American and U.K. markets, but the recovery has favored feature films as opposed to episodic TV shows, which is critical to Los Angeles production. That said, starting last quarter, we noted a higher percentage of inquiries coming from quality productions looking for multi-stage and multi-month or year leases with second and third quarter start dates. Importantly, this trend continues. Our leasing pipeline is as strong as it's been in the last two years, and thus far, as Mark will discuss, our sales team has been very successful at capturing an outsized share of those leads. The reality is that the gravity of Los Angeles challenges finally seems to have created some urgency for local officials to figure out what needs to happen for the city to thrive again.

A new district attorney has been the bright spot for public safety, and despite significant budget cuts elsewhere, both the police and fire departments received funding increases. The city is taking another look at Measure ULA, which has significantly impaired multifamily development, and last week passed a motion to reduce onerous regulations and permitting, unnecessary fees, and inconsistent safety requirements to make it easier and cheaper to film in Los Angeles. At the state level, the governor's budget proposal is on track to nearly double California's film and tax credit to $750 million to be voted on and adapted prior to July 1. Two companion bills have been introduced to enhance tax credits' appeal by raising the qualified expense cap, making credits transferable, and expanding eligible productions to include, among other things, episodic TV shows, which, as I mentioned, are so beneficial to the Los Angeles production marketplace.

While it's too early to know precisely what federal incentives will look like, it's extremely positive to see Washington, D.C., now fully engaged with Hollywood and well-positioned to receive the net benefit going forward. Finally, we continue to make good progress on non-strategic asset sales to generate liquidity and reduce leverage. In the first quarter, we closed on the previously announced Foothill Research Center and Maxwell dispositions for a combined total of $69 million, with the net proceeds used to pay down our revolver. Subsequent to the quarter, 625 Second in San Francisco went under contract to sell for $28 million, with closing expected in the second quarter of this year. Collectively, these three transactions have generated an additional $97 million of liquidity, and we continue to work on another approximately $125-$150 million of dispositions, of which we'll provide additional updates in the coming quarters.

Now I'm going to turn the call over to Mark.

Mark Lammas (President)

Thanks, Victor. We signed 630,000 sq ft of new and renewal leases in the first quarter, our highest quarterly leasing activity since second quarter 2022. New leasing accounted for 66% of activity and included execution of our second lease with the City and County of San Francisco at 1455 Market for 232,000 sq ft in 20 years. Our cash rents increased 4.8%, and cash rents decreased 13.6%. Excluding our large lease with the City and County at 1455 Market, a portion of which backfilled space previously leased at peak market rents, cash rents would have decreased 8.8%, roughly in line sequentially. Our first quarter trailing 12-month blended net effective rents were 4% higher year over year and only 7% lower than pre-pandemic. Net effective rents on new deals alone were up 22% year over year and only 4% below pre-pandemic on a trailing 12-month basis.

Our trailing 12-month blended lease term was up 96% year over year and 54% versus pre-pandemic. Even after removing our two roughly 20-year leases with the City and County of San Francisco, our trailing 12-month lease term was still up 16% year over year. Regarding TIs, we have seen no impact from tariffs to date. Our exposure to TI-related price increases should be minimal, as most of our materials are U.S. supplied or could be changed to a U.S. supplier. Furthermore, we have been extremely active with our vacant suite prep program in recent years, with most of the front and back of the house improvements behind us. Our in-service office properties were 76.5% leased as of the end of the first quarter, compared to 78.9% at the end of the fourth quarter last year.

170 basis points of that change, after accounting for square footage backfilled with a portion of the City and County lease, is attributable to a significant known vacate at 1455 Market that we have discussed for some time. During the first quarter, unique tour activity at our assets meaningfully accelerated up 18% to 1.7 million sq ft. The average requirement size also increased by 18% to 13,000 sq ft, a new post-pandemic high. Even after signing over 600,000 sq ft, our leasing pipeline increased 5% to 2.1 million sq ft, with an average requirement size of 19,000 sq ft. This included 716,000 sq ft of late-stage deals in leases or LOIs, a significant portion of which has subsequently been signed.

We have 50% coverage; that is, deals and leases, LOIs, or proposals on our remaining 1 million sq ft of 2025 expirations, 48% of which are in the second quarter alone. We have 76% coverage on our four remaining 2025 expirations over 50,000 sq ft, which collectively total 397,000 sq ft. While our elevated expirations in the first half of the year have impacted occupancy, starting in the third quarter, we expect occupancy will begin to stabilize and grow thereafter. This is because from the third quarter 2025 through year-end 2026, we have only 225,000 sq ft expiring on average each quarter, which favorably compares to our average trailing four-quarter leasing activity of 530,000 sq ft, 62% of which is comprised of new deals. Turning to our studios, as Victor noted, our pipeline remains robust, and our team continues to capture an outsized share of productions in the market.

At present, 46 of our 53 film and TV stages, or 88% of the related square footage, are either leased or in contract, compared to 35 stages, or 69% of the related square footage last quarter. Note for comparison purposes, we have adjusted our fourth quarter film and TV stage portfolio and associated square footage and leasing activity to exclude leases we terminated as part of broader COD cost-cutting initiatives. As examples of this strong activity, we are in contract on two longer-term multi-stage leases: one, a long-running soap opera, and another, a returning writer-producer with multiple successful shows. It is also worth highlighting that stages leased or in contract at Sunset Las Palmas since our last call are expected to bring occupancy at that asset to the highest level since early 2023. This strong activity is also reflected in the sequential improvement of our trailing 12-month studio lease percentages.

In the first quarter, our in-service stages were 78.7% leased, or 190 basis points higher on additional occupancy again at Sunset Las Palmas. COD stages were 43.4% leased, or 220 basis points higher after adjusting for the previously mentioned lease terminations due to increased occupancy at COD North Valley, as well as on our commercial stages at COD Griffith Park and West Hollywood. First quarter studio revenues were $33.2 million, or $2.2 million lower, primarily due to lower COD studio ancillary and transportation revenues related to production pauses during the fires. Studio expenses were up $3 million due to a $5.9 million termination fee associated with certain cost reduction measures at COD. If not for that one-time fee, our operating expenses would have decreased by $2.9 million, reflecting the benefit of completed cost reduction initiatives.

To that point, since our February call, we have proactively terminated certain leases and negotiated rent reductions that bring our total run rate savings to $14.2 million on an annualized basis, or $13.6 million at share. We remain committed to achieving cost efficiencies to accelerate COD's return to profitability and look forward to providing updates on these ongoing efforts. Regarding development, Sunset Pier 94 Studios is on track for year-end delivery with exterior components nearing completion and interior construction well underway. We expect no material impact from tariffs on cost for this project, given that the vast majority of materials are already on site or paid for and in off-site U.S. locations. We are in discussions with potential long-term tenants interested in one or more stages and are preparing to launch show-by-show leasing efforts this summer.

Studio leasing has largely moved to a show-by-show model and typically occurs two to three months prior to lease commencement. Given we are targeting first quarter 2026 for certificate of occupancy and productions must have certainty around space availability prior to committing, primarily due to talent schedules, we would expect show-by-show leasing to begin in earnest in the fourth quarter of this year. Finally, regarding lease of the Washington 1000, we remain in discussions with multiple large tenants, and during the first quarter, we saw an increase in tour activity from multi-floor tenants looking to upgrade their locations. The competitive landscape continues to improve, with Class A direct and large block sublease space being cleared from the inventory. Bellevue has only a few remaining Class A options over 100,000 sq ft.

Seattle's Class A sublease supply has been reduced from 2 million sq ft to less than 300,000 sq ft, none of which offer contiguous space of 100,000 sq ft or greater. Washington 1000 is the only new construction alternative in Seattle, and with no further supply coming online in the near to midterm, the project remains well-positioned to capture large trophy class users. With that, I'll turn the call over to Harout.

Harout Diramerian (CFO)

Thanks, Mark. Our first quarter 2025 revenue was $198.5 million compared to $214 million in the first quarter of last year. The change is due to both asset sales and lower occupancy within our office portfolio. Our first quarter FFO, excluding specified items, was $12.9 million, or $0.09 per diluted share, compared to $24.2 million, or $0.17 per diluted share a year ago. Specified items for the first quarter totaled $0.07 per diluted share, consisting of one-time COD cost-cutting expenses of $0.05 per diluted share, a loss on early extinguishment of our Element L.A. debt of $0.01 per diluted share, and a non-cash derivative fair value adjustment of $0.00 per diluted share. By comparison, specified items for the first quarter of 2024 consist of transaction-related expenses of $0.01 per diluted share.

Excluding these specified items, the year-over-year change in FFO was mostly attributable to factors affecting revenue. Our first quarter same-store cash NOI was $93.2 million compared to $103.4 million in the first quarter last year, mostly due to lower office occupancy. Turning to our balance sheet, in the first quarter, we completed a CMBS financing for a portfolio of six office properties for $475 million and used the net proceeds to fully repay our $168 million loan secured by Element L.A., with the remainder paying down amounts outstanding on our credit facility and for general corporate purposes. After successfully hedging the entire financing shortly following the transaction, the loan now bears an all-in rate of 7.14%, or 50 basis points below corresponding rates at the time of closing. As one of the largest office-backed CMBS transactions completed this year, this was a significant win for our team.

As of the end of the first quarter, we had $838.5 million of liquidity, comprised of $86.5 million of unrestricted cash and cash equivalents, and $752 million of undrawn capacity under the unsecured revolving credit facility. We also had another $31.4 million at HPP share of undrawn capacity under Sunset Pier 94 Studios construction loan. We have routinely discussed various paths to enhance our balance sheet and maturity schedules, including the repayment of our unsecured notes. Subsequent to the quarter, we intended to repay all $465 million outstanding under our Series B, C, and D private placement notes. To date, we have repaid $254 million of the Series B notes and $50 million of the Series C notes, with the balance to be repaid on or before May 9th.

We are also now in the process of refinancing our only other 2025 maturity, the loan secured by 1918 8th, which is fully leased to a leading investment-grade tech tenant through 2030. Those conversations have been constructive, as expected, and we look forward to providing additional updates. Turning to outlook, for the second quarter, we expect FFO per diluted share to range from $0.03-$0.07 per diluted share. Compared to the first quarter FFO of $0.09 per diluted share, based on the midpoint of our second quarter guidance, we anticipate office NOI approximately $0.05 lower due to the full impact of first quarter leasing expirations and, to a lesser extent, recent and pending asset sales. We expect full quarter impact of higher interest expense from the six-asset CMBS transaction of approximately $0.04.

The lower office NOI and the higher interest expense will be partially offset by $0.03 of higher combined studio NOI and $0.02 of lower G&A expense. Regarding our full-year guidance metrics, most amounts remain unchanged from those provided last quarter, with the only exceptions being an increase to our full-year interest expense of $12 million stemming from the recent CMBS financing and a decrease to our full-year G&A expense of $3 million. Our full-year weighted average shares outstanding is also expected to be approximately 500,000 higher. Lastly, compared to our initial 2024 G&A guidance, our previously announced 2025 G&A guidance reflected a projected savings of approximately $10 million. We continue to implement further cost-cutting measures, resulting in the $3 million additional G&A reduction noted earlier.

Apart from 625 Second, which was held for sale in the first quarter, and the early repayment of the private placement notes, our outlook excludes the impact of any potential dispositions, acquisitions, financings, and/or capital markets activity. Now, we'd be happy to take your questions. Operator?

Operator (participant)

Thank you. As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. Our first question for today comes from Seth Bergey of Citi. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Seth Bergey (Senior Analyst)

Hi. Thanks for taking my question. I just wondered if you could comment a little bit on the cash rent spreads that you kind of achieved in the quarter. Were those kind of in line with expectations? Any color you can provide on concessions and kind of how those are trending. Thanks.

Mark Lammas (President)

Yeah. No, this is Mark. In line, for sure. You heard on our prepared remarks the impact of the City deal at 1455. Adjusted for that, we would have been negative 8.8% as opposed to the 136% you see in the supplemental. It had a fairly sizable impact. That is really the mark against 90,000-plus sq ft of expiring Uber and some square footage with B of A, which were the Uber space especially was peak market rents from last cycle. Yeah, in line with our expectations, I would say maybe the easiest way to appreciate how overall these economics are holding up, our net effectives are holding up quite well. We mentioned in the prepared remarks that year-over-year, on a trailing 12-month basis, net effectives are higher year-over-year 4% and only 7% lower than trailing 12-month pre-pandemic net effectives.

You could dissect that a number of different ways. I would just say the overall picture as it relates to rents and lease economics is that they have continued to hold up extremely well, especially by comparison to pre-pandemic amounts.

Harout Diramerian (CFO)

Yeah. If I could put a finer point on that, Seth, on a per square foot per year basis, the LTIs and commissions are down about almost $1, call it $0.97.

Seth Bergey (Senior Analyst)

Per foot per annum.

Harout Diramerian (CFO)

Yeah.

Seth Bergey (Senior Analyst)

Thanks. That's helpful. I guess just on the recent news with tariffs, are you seeing that impact the studio business or any change in behaviors from tenants if there are tariffs implemented on foreign films?

Harout Diramerian (CFO)

First of all, I think on a global basis, it's still early to tell what's the impact on tariffs. As they keep moving around, as a company, we're acutely aware of the downside, which obviously could be a recession or even maybe worse, a stagflation. As a result, we're preparing ourselves for the negative or the positive flip side on that and watching to see what tenants are signing versus not. On a global basis, we really have seen no impact of loss of tenants or interest level in any of our assets up and down the West Coast. In terms of the tariff news on the federal level from the studio side, for good or for bad, it's an awareness that I think we're very happy that it's got to the federal level.

As you well know, the state has proposed that there's a $750 million tax credit that is implemented hopefully by July 1, and it's on track to being approved. That now enhanced with either a tariff or some form of federal support for the studio industry only makes it, I think, a more heightened aware aspect of the need for additional support. We feel that it will be a positive at the end of the day. It may come in the form of a federal relief fund on tax overall to benefit production in the United States, which we would welcome greatly.

Seth Bergey (Senior Analyst)

Great. Thanks.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question comes from John Kim of BMO. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

John Kim (Managing Director)

Thank you. Can you just discuss the paydown of the private placement notes? Only the Series B is due this year. Presumably, you're using the revolver to prepay this and the remaining $211 million that's outstanding. If that's the case, how do you plan to address the revolver going forward?

Harout Diramerian (CFO)

Hey, John. This is Harout. Thank you for asking the question. You're right. We are using the revolver. I think we stated earlier when we did the CMBS, it was to address maturities in 2025. This was just a two-step process. Once you pay down the Series B notes, you only have a little bit of private placements left, which have more restricted covenants. It kind of clears the path of our unsecured through essentially 2027 without the revolver. We are in constant discussions. I think we've stated in the past that we have a very good relationship with our lead line bankers. We see that instrument as an evergreen instrument. We're going to continue to have it beyond 2026. Once we get close to that maturity, we will extend that one in due course.

John Kim (Managing Director)

Okay. Your guidance of $125 million-$150 million of asset sales for the remainder of the year seems a little light. I realize you're not selling your best assets. 625 Second sold for a pretty big discount to book value as a result of that. Is this realistically what you're going to sell? How many assets does that contemplate?

Harout Diramerian (CFO)

John, as you know, we don't identify the assets until they're under contract. I can just say we're going to be consistent in that process. The range that was quoted on the prepared remarks is three assets. They are assets that are non-core to the portfolio and similar to what we've sold in the past. I would say that's a conservative number. We've been approached on and looking at evaluating potentially other assets, but those are the three that we're working on right now.

John Kim (Managing Director)

Okay. So something like Sunset Walton Cross, I know that's already being repositioned. Is that part of this guidance, or is that something that may be sold this year or in a subsequent year?

Harout Diramerian (CFO)

As I said, we're not going to talk about assets until they're under contract.

John Kim (Managing Director)

Okay. Understood. Thank you.

Harout Diramerian (CFO)

Thanks, John.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question comes from Connor Mitchell of Piper Sandler. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Connor Mitchell (Equity Research Analyst)

Hey, thanks for taking my question. I guess just following along that line of thinking, I'm just curious how your thought process and how the team has discussed maybe adding some additional asset sales or thinking of different properties that might kind of fall into that bucket or on a different path, maybe you've removed some potential sales. Just kind of wondering how the team has thought about the whole process since you kind of put this plan into motion and how the environment has changed throughout.

Harout Diramerian (CFO)

I think we've been very consistent as to the number. Last quarter, I think it was 100, we said it was $150 million-$200 million of dispositions. We're saying it's roughly around $100 million-$150 million now because we've already sold $95 million of disposition. It's consistent with what our plan has been. As I said in prior comments, we're not looking to sell core assets in the portfolio. We're looking to sell assets that are non-core, and we think that they're executionable and they don't have any type of material impact on FFO. That's the direction we're going in. In terms of the market change, the assets that we're looking at selling right now are pretty much consistent with what we sold in the past. It's users, it's high net worths, it's small investment funds.

The demand for these type of assets for those type of buyers has been pretty constant. There is not a tremendous amount of product in the marketplace in our markets of any quality assets. These fit into the marketplace and the demand ratios of where people are looking right now.

Connor Mitchell (Equity Research Analyst)

Okay. Appreciate that, Coller. Mark, you gave a lot of pretty good information on some of the expirations coming due with 2025 and then the coverage associated with that. I think it was 50% coverage for the remaining expirations during the year. I'm just wondering if you could give us any more color on maybe how we should think about occupancy and the cadence throughout the remainder of the year, along with some of the information on the coverage, expirations, and then the leasing pipeline and the late stages of some of those deals you discussed.

Mark Lammas (President)

Yeah. I'll give a little bit of response to that. And then Art can unpack some of the further details on it. But our occupancy expectations remain on track for what our expectations were in the last phone call. Heading into the end of the fourth quarter, heading into the new year, we knew we had a considerable amount of square footage expiring in the first quarter, still a significant amount in the second, less than the first, but still a relatively high amount. And then it was going to significantly taper off in terms of expirations in the back half and beyond. And on account of that, even though the pipeline was quite significant and Art and team managed to get 630 over the line, which is obviously a monster quarter, we still had a lot of expirations more than even that 630.

The occupancy you are seeing or the lease percentage you are seeing at the end of the first quarter is right on track, actually slightly better than what our own modeled expectations were. We believe that could be the bottom. There is a very good chance it could be the bottom in terms of lease unoccupied percentage. Starting as early as the end of the second quarter, certainly by the time we get to the end of the third quarter, we expect to see sequential improvements on lease unoccupied percentage. We expect that trend, given how low expirations are all the way into 2026 and beyond, should continue for some time.

Art Suazo (EVP of Leasing)

Hey, Connor with Art. As Mark talked about in his prepared remarks, our pipeline obviously grew 5% to almost 2.2 million sq ft. This is after the 630,000 sq ft that we transacted. What gives us confidence going forward isn't just that this number appears out of nowhere. It's the leading indicator, which is tours. The tours grew by 18% to 1.7 million sq ft. Not only did the number increase, but the average tour size increased, which tells us that kind of single-floor, multi-floor deals are out in the market in a bigger way, a larger way than they have been in the past. That gives us the confidence with the pipeline of the 2.2 million sq ft that we have currently.

We also mentioned that just over 700,000 sq ft are late-stage LOI or in leases that we feel extremely confident about closing, certainly in the next couple of quarters, in addition to just the deals and proposals that have really come out since the quarter ended. All those things said, we continue to refill the pipeline and continue to transact at a high level going forward.

Mark Lammas (President)

Okay. Thanks, everyone.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question comes from William Catherwood of BTIG. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

William Catherwood (Managing Director and Reit Analyst)

Thank you. Art, I want to go back to the comment you just made on large block leasing. Obviously, you got the big deal done with the City of San Francisco at 1455 Market. Can you walk us through activity on other large block vacancies, maybe specifically Hill 7, Met Park North, 11601 Wilshire, and kind of any other kind of real material ones?

Art Suazo (EVP of Leasing)

Yeah. I mean, I'll start with your lead-off hitter, which was Hill 7. HBO vacating. They're actually downsizing into Discovery Space in Bellevue. That is 112,000 sq ft. We have 58,000 sq ft in negotiations right now. We have great coverage on that. At 505, as you know, our floor plates are about 45,000 sq ft, non-divisible. We are in negotiations for about 145,000 sq ft on that, and we're very close. At 11601, we currently have about 60,000 sq ft in negotiations, 40,000 sq ft of which are in leases about ready to sign. Close to 95% leased in 11601. Sorry. I got tongue-tied with my math. I was so excited.

William Catherwood (Managing Director and Reit Analyst)

No, I'm sorry. What was that number on 11601?

Art Suazo (EVP of Leasing)

11601, we're very close to getting to about 95% leased very shortly.

William Catherwood (Managing Director and Reit Analyst)

Okay. Got it. Got it. Got it. Thank you for that, Art. Maybe for the debt on the Hollywood Media portfolio, I get that it doesn't come due till next August. Given uncertainty, the market is likely assuming the worst. What, in your view, is the actual downside risk for the studio refinancing? With higher California tax credits and Victor, which you mentioned, potential federal relief, is selling your stake one of the options under active consideration?

Harout Diramerian (CFO)

Listen, I do not know what the potential risk is given the fact that it is fully leased in terms of the office side. It is 775,000 sq ft till 2031 or 2032. The occupancy and the sound stages, with the exception of two, are also master leased for a long period of time. The option of selling is not on the table at this time from our standpoint. It really has not come across for consideration. I do think that we have mentioned this before. We and our JV partner own the bottom tranche and a piece of the next tranche of the debt. That could be converted to equity, and that takes care of any downside potential if there was some form of additional capital needed to get financing done on that asset. It is already in place in the form of debt that we can convert to equity.

I think we're very comfortable that the market will adhere to us refinancing that. Make no mistake. I mean, we are in the market having conversations as we speak. We're not waiting until the end for us to look at our options. We're evaluating them now. To date, we've had some very good interest via our existing lenders and new lenders are coming to the table.

Art Suazo (EVP of Leasing)

Yeah. I mean, that's right. I think the other thing just to add is that maybe in the last year or so, we have some vacancy on Sunset Las Palmas. As Victor and Mark indicated, we've kind of shortened up that occupancy, which helps the NOI on that asset and therefore makes it even more refinanceable, at least making the refinancing easier.

William Catherwood (Managing Director and Reit Analyst)

Okay. Let me just clarify, Victor. It sounds like your comment is if there is a paydown required, you do not expect it to be more than the B piece that is held by you and your partner. Is that what you were saying?

Harout Diramerian (CFO)

What we're saying is that we're expecting no paydown. That's what we're going to the market with. Who knows what happens at the end of the day? We have that as a fallback already in place as opposed to bringing new equity into the deal.

Art Suazo (EVP of Leasing)

Yeah. Just to put a finer point on it, the debt that Blackstone and Hudson own collectively would in and of itself constitute a 15% remargin. So even if some remargins in store rear away, we've already addressed what would be the lion's share of that.

Harout Diramerian (CFO)

Yeah. Maybe to give an example, we're in the market for 1918. As of right now, that requires no remargin. Obviously, the Hollywood Media debt is further away and obviously a different setup. The point being is that we have a long time to go. Either it could be a larger remargin or no remargining. It's kind of too early to know right now.

William Catherwood (Managing Director and Reit Analyst)

Got it. Appreciate the answers. Thanks, everyone.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question comes from Young Ku of Wells Fargo. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Young Ku (Equity Reseach Analyst)

Great. Thank you. Just want to touch upon your debt covenants a little bit. It looks like your NOI to interest expense coverage fell a little bit quarter over quarter. I was just wondering if you can provide some color on what we should be expecting for the rest of the year, given that there are so many moving parts.

Art Suazo (EVP of Leasing)

Sorry, what was the last part?

Harout Diramerian (CFO)

What do you expect?

Expectations for the rest of the year.

Art Suazo (EVP of Leasing)

Okay. No, I think we've—feel like I'm on broken record at this point. We continue to be covenant compliant. We expect to be covenant compliant. We project out every quarter. Just like this quarter, our expectations were exceeded in terms of our coverage, meaning we came in better than our underlying expectations. I think we expect to do the same in the future quarters.

Young Ku (Equity Reseach Analyst)

Are you able to kind of renegotiate some of the covenant minimum finance plans with the lenders?

Art Suazo (EVP of Leasing)

We just did. I mean, we recently completed a second amendment at the end of last year that improved both the ratios themselves, but also underlying definitions that worked through those ratios. Those are for the credit facility. The bonds, we have not attempted to. I think those have more room in them.

Young Ku (Equity Reseach Analyst)

Got it. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for that. Then just turning to 2026, you guys talked about just the lease expiration for the whole year, about 800,000 sq ft. Can you kind of provide some color on whether there are some potential move-outs that you potentially have to look at? Or how do you feel about the retention for 2026? I know it is kind of early.

Art Suazo (EVP of Leasing)

Yeah. I mean, you hit the nail on the head with the low expiration year. There are really three large tenants that we're tracking in that market. Wild Gods Shaw is a three-floor tenant at Towers by the Shore. Three-floor tenant, we're renewing them in two floors, so 53,000 sq ft of the 75,000. At Met Park North, we have 24 Hour Fitness, which is 45,000 sq ft. We're working on a renewal to keep them there as well. The last one is at 875 Howard, Pivotal Software. They're in 80,000 sq ft, and they're already out of the market. We're currently marketing the space. Those are the large three. The rest of those are smaller tenants that we will be discussing over the next kind of six to nine months.

Young Ku (Equity Reseach Analyst)

Got it. Great. Thank you. And then just one last—I think you guys talked about a couple of production leads that you guys are looking at on the studio side. Can you comment on the size of those lease financing?

Harout Diramerian (CFO)

The two we were talking about are executed, and we'll make formal announcements once they start filming. Both are two stages with support space and mill space. One is, as Mark mentioned, a three-plus-year term with options. The other is an existing production company that we've done multiple deals with. It just shows the stickiness that we're seeing. Some of the support coming back from, yes, its majority is show-by-show, but we've, I think, beaten the market in terms of these outsized longer-term leases.

Young Ku (Equity Reseach Analyst)

Okay. You can't really comment on the size yet?

Harout Diramerian (CFO)

I said they're both two stages with support staff. We don't talk about square footage and the likes of that.

Young Ku (Equity Reseach Analyst)

Oh, got it.

Harout Diramerian (CFO)

Yeah. Each show is two stages.

Young Ku (Equity Reseach Analyst)

Gotcha. Okay. Great. Okay. Perfect. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question comes from Peter Abramowitz from Jefferies. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Peter Abramowitz (Senior Vice President and Equity Research Analyst)

Yes. Thanks for taking the questions. It looks like in the FFO reconciliation here, you added back some of the expenses related to cost-cutting initiatives at Quixote. I guess, could you just kind of dig into what those expenses were, sort of the efforts that you're making to cut expenses in Quixote, and then what you incurred in the quarters as the cost of doing that?

Art Suazo (EVP of Leasing)

Yeah. The costs are largely early lease termination costs. In some instances, there are stages. Last year, we exited three stages in New Orleans, for example. We've since exited some stages that were underutilized here in Los Angeles. That's a fairly healthy amount of the overall cost-cutting initiative. I'll get to the aggregate number in a minute. We were able to eliminate some obsolete parts of our transportation fleet that enabled us to exit out of parking areas for that part of the transportation fleet. Then there's headcount and other things correlating to that downsizing that also contributes to the overall costing. In aggregate, to date, we've been able to cut about $14 million in costs. We think pro forma to last year's results that should improve NOI on the order of about nine-ish million dollars on a run rate basis.

In terms of just looking ahead relative to those cost-cutting initiatives, we think our current show count levels on, say, 90-ish—we were at 92 last year—we think that negative $19 million of NOI, cash NOI, would pro forma have been more like a negative $10 million. I think maybe the best takeaway is our view was to get back to break even in Quixote. We thought show counts needed to be somewhere close to 100. We still show positive NOI, somewhere on the order of $8-$9 million of positive NOI at 100. Based on those cuts, we think now we can get to break even at closer to 95 shows. By doing the cuts, we have been able to lower the bar, if you will, to getting that business back to break even.

Peter Abramowitz (Senior Vice President and Equity Research Analyst)

Okay. That's helpful. Thank you for the clarification there. I guess then just one other question to follow up on that. It looks like non-Same-Source Studio expenses were about $29.5 million in the quarter. Presumably, that's almost entirely Quixote. I guess, what is sort of the run rate going forward either quarterly or annually after those expense reductions?

Art Suazo (EVP of Leasing)

I think if you just take out the $5.9 million that we highlight—and I think you can see that on page—sorry, real quick.

Peter Abramowitz (Senior Vice President and Equity Research Analyst)

The studio page.

Art Suazo (EVP of Leasing)

Yeah, the studio page on—sorry, I'll get there quickly.

Harout Diramerian (CFO)

Page 20 of the supplemental.

Art Suazo (EVP of Leasing)

Yeah, page 20. We kind of have it laid out there. You cut down the 5, you're back to like $23.5 million, I think, roughly, right? $29.1 million less $5.9 million, roughly. That gets you to a potential normalized. We still have some other work that we're working on. From the perspective of what we've disclosed, that's the number to use.

Harout Diramerian (CFO)

Yeah. Maybe. I mean, once you adjust for those one-time expenses, your NOI for the Quixote business goes to $7.5 million. Average show counts for the first quarter were in the low 80s. Again, getting back to the commentary about show counts, if we think we get to 90, that number should be annualized more like a negative $10 million. If we get to 95, we should be at break even. If we get to 100, we should be at somewhere approaching $10 million, maybe a touch high of $10 million of positive NOI.

Peter Abramowitz (Senior Vice President and Equity Research Analyst)

Got it. Thank you. I guess just one more while we're on the topic of expenses. It looks like you lowered the G&A guide. Just wondering if you could comment on what you're doing there and what drove that.

Art Suazo (EVP of Leasing)

In the theme of cost-cutting and we're continuing to cost-cut. I think we've commented last quarter and last year. We just cost-cut initiatives and just lower payroll-related costs is what we're doing.

Peter Abramowitz (Senior Vice President and Equity Research Analyst)

All right. That's all for me. Thanks.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I'd like to turn the call back to Victor Coleman, CEO and Chairman, for closing remarks.

Victor Coleman (CEO and Chairman)

Thanks to everybody for participating in this quarter's call. We look forward to speaking to you all soon again. Goodbye.

Operator (participant)

Thank you all for joining us today, as well.

Laura Campbell (EVP of Investor Relations and Marketing)

Goodbye.

Operator (participant)

We'll disconnect your line.