Whitestone REIT - Earnings Call - Q4 2024
March 4, 2025
Executive Summary
- Q4 2024 delivered strong top-line and cash metrics: revenues rose to $40.8 million (+8.8% YoY), Core FFO per diluted share increased to $0.28 (+16.7% YoY), and Same-Store NOI rose 5.8% to $25.0 million as leasing spreads remained robust at 21.9% (new: 36.1%, renewal: 19.0%).
- GAAP diluted EPS was $0.33, aided by a $0.23 per-share gain on sale; EBITDAre reached $23.0 million (+9.5% YoY), and debt/EBITDAre improved to 6.6x from 7.5x in Q4 2023, reflecting portfolio quality and leverage progress.
- Initial 2025 guidance targets Core FFO per diluted share of $1.03–$1.07, SS NOI growth of 3.0%–4.5%, lower interest expense ($32–$33 million), and ending occupancy of 94%–95%; dividend was raised 9% to $0.135 per quarter for Q1 2025.
- Estimates context: S&P Global Wall Street consensus was unavailable due to data limits; no EPS/revenue comparison versus Street can be provided at this time (Values retrieved from S&P Global).
What Went Well and What Went Wrong
- What Went Well
- Sustained pricing power: 11th straight quarter with leasing spreads >17%; Q4 combined GAAP leasing spread 21.9%, with new lease spreads at 36.1% and renewals at 19.0%.
- Earnings and cash flow momentum: Core FFO/share up 11% in 2024 (to $1.01), Q4 Core FFO/share $0.28; CFO highlighted $58.2 million operating cash flow in 2024 vs. $24.9 million dividends, supporting growth reinvestment.
- Balance sheet progress: debt/EBITDAre improved to 6.6x; management targets further reduction toward high-5s/low-6s over time.
- What Went Wrong
- GAAP EPS boosted by dispositions: Q4 diluted EPS of $0.33 included $0.23 from gains on asset sales; underlying growth was strong but headline EPS benefited from non-operating items.
- Termination fees elevated: management noted higher-than-normal lease termination fees through 2024, a byproduct of proactive remerchandising; these may not recur at 2024 levels.
- Near-term guidance embeds moderation: 2025 SS NOI guidance (3.0%–4.5%) is below 2024’s 5.1% actual; G&A expected modestly lower, but organic growth easing from 2024 pace.
Transcript
Operator (participant)
Greetings and welcome to the Whitestone REIT Fourth Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce David Mordy, Director of Investor Relations. Thank you, sir. You may proceed.
David Mordy (Director of Investor Relations)
Good morning, and thank you for joining Whitestone REIT's Fourth Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. Joining me on today's call are Dave Holeman, Chief Executive Officer; Christine Mastandrea, Chief Operating Officer; and Scott Hogan, Chief Financial Officer. Please note that some statements made during this call are not historical and may be deemed forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from those forward-looking statements due to a number of risks, uncertainties, and other factors. Please refer to the company's earnings news release and filings with the SEC, including Whitestone's most recent Form 10Q and 10K, for a detailed discussion of these factors. Acknowledging the fact that the call may be webcast for a period of time, it is also important to note that this call includes time-sensitive information that may be accurate only as of today's date, March 4th, 2025. The company undertakes no obligation to update this information.
Whitestone's Fourth Quarter Earnings News Release and Supplemental Operating and Financial Data Package have been filed with the SEC and are available on our website in the Investor Relations section. We published Fourth Quarter 2024 slides on our website yesterday afternoon, which highlight topics to be discussed today. I will now turn the call over to Dave Holeman, our Chief Executive Officer.
Dave Holeman (CEO)
Thank you, David. Good morning, and thank you for joining Whitestone's Fourth Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. Yesterday, we released results wrapping up a very strong year in terms of earnings growth, and we are going to spend a lot of time this morning helping investors understand what enabled us to achieve those results and, more importantly, what the blocks of our future growth are that provide us confidence in terms of our trajectory. Let's start with who we are. We lead the peer group in concentration of high-value, high-return shop space, 77% of our ABR. That fact is a critical element in our overall strategy, allowing us to capitalize on change and deliver consistent earnings growth for investors.
I'll start off with what we've delivered over the past three years, then cover what we plan to deliver in the years ahead and the how in terms of our delivering peer-leading earnings growth. Over the past three years, we have delivered compound annual growth for core FFO per share of 5.5%. In any environment, we believe this is a strong achievement. However, the particulars we overcame are important. Over the past three years, interest rates, as represented by the 30-day SOFR curve, increased 380 basis points, causing a double-digit drag on earnings. In addition, we improved our leverage, represented by a 9.2 times debt-to-EBITDA RE in Q4 2021 to 6.6 times for Q4 2024. We simultaneously grew earnings while reducing leverage. The earnings growth also does not fully reveal the degree to which we've strengthened our portfolio both organically and inorganically.
The company's quality of revenue initiative is largely driving the organic growth, and one evidence metric is our bad debt as a percent of revenue improving from 1.2% in 2019 to 0.8% in 2024. The key component of our inorganic growth has been our recycling program, and our TAP score, increasing four points over the last year and a half, is a great measure to focus on there. Today, we are encouraging investors to focus not so much on turnaround elements, which we've talked about on our past calls, but rather on the strategic drivers that fueled our success and that set us up for continued outperformance. Over the next five years, we believe we can deliver consistent organic core FFO growth of 4-6%, driven by 3-5% same-store net operating income growth.
Beyond organic growth, we are targeting adding 100 basis points of core FFO growth uplift from acquisitions. Tangential to delivering the earnings growth benefit for investors are the benefits of scaling the model, lowering our fixed cost percentage, and broadening our investor base. However, I phase this in terms of per-share earnings growth. We have grown over the last three years in a disciplined fashion, and we will continue to grow in a disciplined fashion, delivering per-share earnings growth. Our same-store NOI growth has three basic components: one, contractual escalators; two, the spreads we achieve on new and renewal leases; and three, the returns on redevelopment capital that we spend. While the majority of the recent contracts for shop space have annual escalators in the 3-4% range, older and larger contracts bring our blended rate to 2.3%.
This is broken down to just under 3% for our shop spaces and just under 2% for our greater than 10,000 sq ft spaces. This is the base for our same-store NOI growth. Adding on to this, we looked at our new and renewal leases in terms of what we have achieved over the last three years. If we conservatively take 50-100% of what we've achieved in terms of cash leasing spreads over the last three years and multiply that times what we've got coming up over the next five years, we'll add 0.8-1.8% to same-store NOI growth per year. This is on top of the 2.3% contractual escalators. Looking at the fundamentals in our markets, we believe this is a very solid assumption.
We have chosen to be 100% in business-friendly states that are benefiting tremendously from population growth and new business starts and job growth as manufacturing is reshoring. This is combined with the fact that there is a growing supply-demand imbalance as new neighborhood retail centers have generally not been built in over a decade, and high construction costs are indicating this trend will continue. Phoenix is leading on this front. Contracts coming up have not even caught up with market increases that have occurred over the last three years, but this phenomenon is true in all of our markets. The third block of same-store NOI growth is redevelopment. We anticipate we will be able to add up to 100 basis points with a slightly higher redevelopment spend.
We have already begun the increased capital spend on redevelopment, which will lift same-store net operating income growth into the upper portion of the range starting in 2026. I'll have Christine dive into redevelopment more heavily in terms of our plans there. Shifting from organic growth to inorganic growth, we continue to see plenty of opportunities in terms of accretive acquisitions of centers. Our seven acquisitions since 2022: Lake Woodlands, Arcadia, Garden Oaks, Scottsdale Commons, two non-owned multi-tenant pads at Dana Park, and a non-owned pad site at our Anderson Arbor property have all been accretive and continue to provide upside in terms of leasing rates and redevelopment and development potential. We can be very selective in terms of our acquisitions. We've done approximately $125 million in acquisitions over the last 26 months.
Going forward, we will continue to use a disciplined mix of cash flow from operations, property dispositions, debt, and equity in terms of sources. Since 2021, our average same-store growth of 5.3% has been boosted by approximately 1% from occupancy gains. Our 3-5% long-term projection is perfectly in line with what we have demonstrated we can achieve. Our organic growth is the engine behind the 11% earnings growth we delivered in 2024. Now, about 3 cents of the growth in 2024 was higher than average termination fees from our quality of revenue focus, and our 2025 guidance incorporates replacing those tenants with stronger tenants producing higher NOI. I will have Scott talk about the guidance walk in greater detail. All in all, I would recommend looking at our combined 2024 and 2025 performance in assessing our longer-term sustainable core FFO target of 5-7% growth.
As you may have seen in our recent December press release, we raised the dividend by over 9%, bringing the dividend CAGR since 2021 to 6.5% growth per year while maintaining an approximately 50% core FFO payout ratio. The core long-term value proposition for those evaluating Whitestone stock is the current approximately 4% dividend plus 5-7% targeted core FFO growth, which we intend to translate into dividend growth as well. This team is focused on delivering that value proposition for investors, and we believe we have the right model and the right strategy to do it. Christine?
Christine Mastandrea (COO)
Good morning, everyone. As Dave indicated, we've delivered strong results for 2024, headlined by our 5.1% same-store NOI growth. Sequentially, our same-store NOI growth was 3.1% in Q1, 6.6% in Q2, 4.6% in Q3, and then 5.8% in Q4. I've spoken the last several quarters on the quality of revenue, and our strong same-store NOI growth is a result of that initiative. Our occupancy was relatively stable for the year at slightly over 94%, and the key driver of the NOI growth was proactively upgrading the strength of our tenants to the changing demographic spend. Today, I wanted to take some time and put together the larger picture that quality of revenue fits within, covering how this company was designed to proactively identify change, thrive as change occurs, and deliver consistent earnings as a result of change.
We have identified early on the centers with a high percentage of small shop space provided more flexibility to adapt to surrounding demand and more flexibility to a wider range of uses, and also works well with sophisticated multi-channel businesses. In addition, the smaller spaces require less capital versus a big box or anchor tenants. Complementing the physical design advantage of high-value shop space centers was our focus to use technology and the data that would allow us to constantly pay attention to the demand drivers that would translate into success for the businesses populating our centers. This matching to the demand drivers, utilizing strong local knowledge, supplemented with the data from Esri and Placer AI, is what we mean when we say connecting to the community. Our competitive advantage to connecting to the community isn't represented by one element of the business.
It is the foundation of our business. The acquisitions team utilizes the local knowledge and data to understand the community and the opportunity before we acquire a center. We have a very specific center profile, as shown on slide 9 for our acquisitions. Our leasing team specializes in understanding that community and determining the future demand gaps as part of the process in identifying new tenants. Our underwriting processes have additional elements in utilizing the data to understand the business's capability to take advantage of the surrounding demand. Our quality of revenue initiative is the willingness to constantly evaluate the capability of our tenants to meet demand and be far ahead enough of the changing demographic so that our driving center traffic replaces tenants rather than staying with a business that's not meeting the needs and aspirations of a surrounding community.
Our redevelopment dollars are proactive, spent as community demand grows and evolves, and our dispositions are done primarily if we believe there are limitations or the community has fully evolved. The next two components, setting Whitestone up to take advantage of change after a center configuration and threading the community connection through all of our processes, are intentionally shorter leases and are focused on service-oriented businesses. The shorter leases allow us much more flexibility in putting the puzzle pieces together as we properly curate a center in service-oriented businesses that are much less capital-intensive in meeting the new demography. All in all, adaptability of our centers, our ability to use local knowledge and data to assess the changes of demand and demography, plus the flexibility of our model provide us the confidence that we can strengthen our business if change occurs rather than in reverse.
In 2024, we continue to upgrade our tenant base, moving out non-performing tenants who then, in turn, paid termination fees and moving in new tenants, driving our center traffic up 3.5% in the fourth quarter versus the fourth quarter of 2023. That is the proactive result we have designed for and are pleased to deliver to our communities and shareholders. To put it in specific terms, the changes we are seeing right now in demographic trends are continuing to drive changing spending patterns. With higher-income groups, wealth is growing with the younger demographic, and that younger demographic is focused on self-care, fitness, and experiences in connecting with others, most notably around food. We are able to get ahead of the change as we shift to business owners serving the direction of consumer spend and sophisticated marketing to those needs.
The pace of this change is accelerating, and we're seeing it with a higher number of our communities because those are properties we've kept or acquired over the past several years. This evolution of certain communities is providing Whitestone with the opportunity to increase same-store NOI growth with selective redevelopment capital. We've already boosted our redevelopment capital and see this continuing years ahead. This will boost same-store NOI growth in 2026 and beyond, keeping us at the top of the peer group even without the occupancy gains that have helped us over the last several years. One of the more exciting of these redevelopments is already a good portion of the way through the process. That is our Williams Trace Center in Houston. Our improvements to that center and the replacement of an underperforming grocer with an EOS Fitness has boosted center traffic by 60%.
Now, with a new focus on leasing activity, we target businesses for an active and upwardly mobile demographic new to that community as well, and we're driving returns from increased traffic to the center. Another center where the evolution of community around the center is driving change is Lyon Square, which is the heart of the Asian community in Houston. This community is thriving, has almost no occupancy available anywhere near our center. We have the opportunity to modernize the center and transform it with strong traffic up to 18 hours a day. We'll do this at the same time additional development is going on around the center. Importantly, we can do it efficiently without interrupting the center's cash flow. We provided detail on the redevelopments on the horizon in slides 20-21.
Importantly, we can do most of this redevelopment for $10-$20 per sq ft and deliver very high returns. I started with Whitestone's foundational approach to change and our redevelopment efforts, but I'd be remiss if I didn't talk about what we delivered in 2024. This is our 11th consecutive quarter with leasing spreads in excess of 17%. In the fourth quarter, we've achieved renewal leasing spreads of 19% and new leasing spreads of 36.1% for a combined overall positive leasing spread of 21.9%. Year-over-year, net effective average base rent increased 5% to $24.51 a sq ft, demonstrating a marked increase in the value of our real estate. We have major new deals, including our second deal with EOS Fitness now under construction at Windsor Park in San Antonio after opening the first EOS at Williams Trace earlier this year to great success.
We have exciting new restaurants opening across the portfolio, including Farman Family Kitchen in Quinlan Crossing in Austin and Alvarez at Market Street in Phoenix. We have also just signed our second Pickler deal at the Terraveda Center in Arizona. The community around Terraveda is evolving as Phoenix's booming job market is causing what were once high-end vacation homes to change into homes occupied by younger, up-and-coming professionals. The Pickler is a perfect fit to capitalize on this change and drive traffic to the center. This continued leasing success not only drives results and increases the value of our real estate as we prove exactly what our type of center can do in the right hands. Our covering analysts continue to increase their NAV assessment of our portfolio as we deliver growth. I'd like to congratulate the leasing and operations team on finishing the year strong.
We have a very dedicated team, and they're part of the big reason that we have a robust growth lined up in the runway ahead. Scott.
Scott Hogan (CFO)
Thanks, Christine. We delivered very strong results both for the fourth quarter and for the year. Let me start with the 2024 highlights. We delivered $1.01 in core FFO per share versus $0.91 in 2023, representing 11% growth. The bi-quarter breakdown for 2024's core FFO was $0.24 in the first quarter, $0.24 in the second quarter, $0.25 in the third quarter, and $0.28 in the fourth quarter. That's about what we anticipated in terms of seeing growth during the year with some additional revenues in the fourth quarter from percent sales clauses that typically help accelerate things in the fourth quarter. We anticipate a similar distribution in 2025. We delivered same-store NOI growth of 5.8% for the fourth quarter and 5.1% for the full year.
The EOS opening at Williams Trace helped boost same-store NOI growth, and we anticipate their Windsor Park opening will boost 2026 same-store NOI growth. We also expect several other large tenants we signed at the end of 2024 or so far this year to do the same. Occupancy came in at 94.1%. As a reminder, we only include tenants in our occupancy when they take possession, not when the contract is signed. Both our process and our heavier mix of shop space tenants equates to a much lower signed-not-occupied list, and we view the quicker turnaround as one of our competitive advantages. Turning to slide 4, I'll discuss a few items on the walk in terms of what we anticipate for growth from 2024 to 2025. As I mentioned, we finished the year at $1.01.
Similar to 2024, I anticipate the majority of our growth will come from same-store NOI, which is anticipated to add $0.07 to core FFO per share. While we plan to continue our pace of acquisitions, our guidance makes no assumptions in terms of non-same-store NOI growth, as we do not yet know the timing. G&A is anticipated to reduce earnings by $0.01 per share, and we are projecting a $0.03 per share improvement in interest expense due to lower leverage levels and interest rates. On the balance sheet front, we hit a long-term goal of getting our debt-to-EBITDA RE ratio under 7 times. We anticipate we will continue to reduce our leverage and improve this metric. The fourth quarter is our strongest quarter, so the metric has some predictable quarter-to-quarter variability.
In terms of Whitestone's liquidity, we have $15 million in cash, and we have $125 million available under the credit facility. In 2024, cash flow from operations was $58.2 million, and dividends were $24.9 million, leaving strong cash flow after dividends to fund growth in 2024 and to fuel earnings growth in the years ahead. We have no remaining maturities in 2025. However, we're in position to be opportunistic if rates drop, and we're able to ladder out maturities further. Our dividend remains one of the most secure, highest-growing dividends within the peer group, and we believe we have the right plan in place to continue the growth trajectory. With that, we'll open the line for questions.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. We will now conduct a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in a question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. Once again, that's star one to ask a question at this time. One moment while we pull our first question. The first question comes from Mitch Germain with Citizens Capital Markets. Please proceed.
Mitch Germain (Managing Director of Real Estate Research)
Thank you, guys, and congrats on the year. I wanted to circle back on some of the redevelopment opportunities that you talked about. Obviously, there were some pad sites, but I know you have some bigger redevelopment opportunities that are attached to a couple of your centers, whether it be expansion of the existing shopping center or some sort of other use. When do you foresee the potential for some of those opportunities to begin to materialize?
Thanks for the question, Mitch. Let me break it out really in a couple of different parts. Yes, we've had pad sites, but there are also a number of centers that I would consider well-placed, a little bit older. We also have them at a basis that is a relatively practical basis to be able to reinvest in those locations and re-merchandise. We've actively been doing that, so I consider those sort of your bread-and-butter centers where over time, I have to stack them, right, to make sure that we match the timing of delivery for the team and also for execution and cash flow. I would say there's a larger group of that that we'll be working into. The other centers that we've been talking about, some of the bigger ones, we've been actively positioning tenants to make those changes and to move forward.
Those have a little bit longer time frame, but yeah, they definitely have some upside opportunity to it. We are actively moving in that direction as well on three of our larger centers.
Great. That's helpful. Maybe circling over to the capital plan. We've got redevelopment. Dave spoke about how it appears that you would anticipate acquisition activity to begin to materialize in a greater extent. Scott, in his comments, talked about a further reduction of leverage. How does this entire picture fit together where you are able to continue to deliver leverage reduction while also increasing your external or deployment efforts?
Dave Holeman (CEO)
Hey, Mitch. Good question. This is Dave. I think for me, it starts with the core engine of this business. If you look at what we're doing and the momentum we have, I think Scott mentioned the cash flow and the amount of free cash that we're producing. I think we have a balance sheet that's in very good position. We have opportunities. We have growing leasing spreads. With that, we're in a very attractive space. We have a number of opportunities. We're going to be disciplined. I think we've always said we're going to focus on growth as defined by earnings growth and value growth. We have opportunities in the REIT area; Christine mentioned some of the larger development areas that are working. Scott mentioned continuing to improve leverage. I think we've also begun looking at opportunities to grow and scale this business.
I think there's going to be some opportunities that we're now in position for. Our focus is always on, are we going to do that in an accretive fashion? We've done some recycling. You've seen probably over the last couple of years where we've done that at a positive spread on what we've bought versus what we've sold. We still think there's some opportunities there. Just a number of opportunities in this business, and you've got a team that is firing on all cylinders and is very focused on making sure all of those add to our earnings growth. I think we gave some visibility into what we think are the longer-term targets for FFO growth. All of that's part of that strategy. We look forward to reporting more on future calls as we execute some of those things.
We want to today give a bit of a vision as to what we see the opportunity ahead.
Mitch Germain (Managing Director of Real Estate Research)
Dave, you talked about acquisitions. I mean, I'm curious about the competitive environment. Indications appear some of that capital that was sitting on the sidelines is now becoming a bit more active, though that doesn't seem to be changing your enthusiasm. Maybe if you can just provide some perspective as to what you're seeing out there.
Dave Holeman (CEO)
Sure. I think there is clearly more interest in the space we're operating in today with a number of capital sources. That doesn't damper our enthusiasm as a team. I think we believe that we have a little bit of the secret sauce and that we're in these markets. We're very deep in the markets we're in. We have deep relationships with a number of folks in the market. While we see more competition, Whitestone's always been looking for opportunities that are a little different. I think in our slide deck, we've got some of our drivers for acquisitions. We talk about being a bit agnostic on the grocery-anchored part. I think that separates us a bit. We talk about our focus on the smaller shop spaces being a larger component. That differentiates us.
While there's more competition, I think that means there continues to be a very good dynamic as far as the supply, supply being limited in our markets. I think we remain positive on our ability to find assets and apply our model.
Mitch Germain (Managing Director of Real Estate Research)
Seems like to buy smaller—sorry, let me say tenants with smaller assets, you need to have a really good operating platform in those markets, and not everyone can attest to that. Last one for me is, Scott, any one-timers this quarter that need to be called out? I mean, obviously, management and transaction and other income seem to be a bit high. I don't know if that includes percentage rent, but is there anything that needs to be referenced in our model that we should be aware of?
Scott Hogan (CFO)
Sure. Yeah. We always have higher % rents in the fourth quarter than we do in other quarters because of tenants hitting their breakpoints. We also had some termination fees in the quarter and in the year. They're a little higher than normal. Anytime we have a tenant move out, we're always looking to maximize that event. The spaces are very good. I think we're excited to have them back, but we did have some termination fees that were higher, and those are reflected on the walk on page four.
Mitch Germain (Managing Director of Real Estate Research)
Was that recorded in the fourth quarter?
It was recorded throughout the year.
Yeah, throughout the year, Mitch.
There were a couple in the fourth quarter.
I guess what I'm asking is, is there anything in 4Q that I need to worry about with regards to my forward run rate?
Christine Mastandrea (COO)
No. I mean, Mitch, remember at the beginning of last year, I said that we'd re-merchandise and the activity that we'd take doing that?
Mitch Germain (Managing Director of Real Estate Research)
Yeah.
Christine Mastandrea (COO)
That's been active throughout the year, and that includes termination fees. That's part of the re-merchandising that we do. I don't see much different now than you're going to see next year or this year. We'll plan to have termination fees every year, Mitch. I think I'd take a look at the trajectory that we had in the quarterly earnings in 2024 and expect a similar trajectory in 2025.
Mitch Germain (Managing Director of Real Estate Research)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
The next question comes from Anthony Hau with Truist Securities. Please proceed.
Anthony Hau (VP of Equity Research)
Good morning, guys. Thanks for taking my question. I noticed that the Regis lease is expiring this year. Just curious, where are you guys in the negotiation process, and what's their plan, and what's the mark-to-market opportunity for this space?
Christine Mastandrea (COO)
I think a couple of things that are really important to talk about, that this is one portion of our business that's not as big as the rest of it, but it is office, but it relates to mixed use. What we've seen, especially in certain areas, in particular in Houston, where you have boutique office opportunities and where the pricing is starting to adjust and change for that upper end of the market, especially in this area, it's Uptown Galleria. It's not downtown. You have a number of tenants that are moving from downtown. They're moving out to town and country area and city center, and they're also moving out to the Galleria. That's where the demand is.
We want to make sure that we're managing appropriately towards those upside opportunities as they come because there is a change in the need of a specific type of office space, specifically people that are looking for mixed use, and also because the demand for talent. This is also in a neighborhood where you have, if you really want to attract a good workforce, this is the location to have it. I just say that to be careful in talking about these things, as you know, but we see a real positive upward dynamic in this market towards that type of space.
Dave Holeman (CEO)
Yeah. Just to echo, Christine, this is a great property, great location, and we feel very good about it. I think if you look at our top tenant list, they're a 0.4% of revenue, and so we're welcoming a role like this at the spaces we have.
Anthony Hau (VP of Equity Research)
Gotcha. My second question is, I understand the proceeds from Pillar Stone's not part of guidance, but can you provide any color on the or any update on the liquidation process?
Dave Holeman (CEO)
I'll start out, and Scott may want to provide some more details. Hey, Anthony, we feel it's a long process, but we're nearing the end, I feel like. I think we've reported previously that this is a collection mode. There's a plan of liquidation in place. Currently, all of the properties that are part of Pillar Stone are either sold under contract or have offers. We feel very good about moving forward, about receiving those proceeds. I think, frankly, we wanted to concentrate on the core business today and not talk as much about some of the turnaround elements or Pillar Stone. We feel very good about collecting that. I think Scott can report, but we've got it on our balance sheet at roughly $45 million, I believe.
Given what I just described, we feel very comfortable about the proceeds being well north of that.
Scott Hogan (CFO)
Yeah. Anthony, as we start to receive those liquidation proceeds, we'll revise our guidance to reflect that. It is just very hard to predict the timing in a bankruptcy court situation, quarter by quarter.
Anthony Hau (VP of Equity Research)
Okay. Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Rob Mettet with Alliance Global Partners. Please proceed.
Rob Nepo (Analyst)
Thank you. Good morning. I wanted to go back to your comments around redevelopment. Just to clarify, are you expecting any capital spend associated with redevelopment in 2025?
Dave Holeman (CEO)
Yeah. Hey, Gaurav, it's Dave. Yes. I think Christine mentioned, I think in our slide deck on pages 20 and 21, we show kind of our bread-and-butter development. I think we gave a number of $20-$30 million that's probably over a couple of years, but traditionally, we have done kind of that normal amount of development you'll see in our cash flow statement for the year end. We anticipate that same level of activity and slightly starting to ramp up. As Christine mentioned, the larger projects are in process, but it takes a bit longer. We will report on those as we get closer to the time where we will start to see some results. Yeah, we're going to have redevelopment activity. We're going to have some pad sites, probably just a little bit more than our historical spend.
Rob Nepo (Analyst)
Okay. Can you guys remind us what kind of yields you're underwriting on these redevelopments?
Christine Mastandrea (COO)
Okay. A couple of things. This is a pretty intensive process that we go through the portfolio, and we look for those opportunities. It is an evaluation of what the comp set is in the market, what the upside opportunities are for rents. Also, I like to keep the in-place existing cash flow, so some of these can take place over six months or they can go over 18 months just to make sure that we structure it appropriately. I'll give you an example of this, and this might give you a little bit of an idea of how we work. When we evaluated the opportunity at Williams Trace, where we had an underperforming grocer, we started into the process, which is a design process.
It takes a little bit of time working through what you're going to do to the center and tinker your way towards what I would consider an optimal result. In that, we already started targeting a certain tenant type that we thought would fit well in the center and drive traffic because we saw that traffic had fallen off significantly with an underperforming grocer. That being said, when we targeted EOS and brought them into the market, we also saw that there was a way to start crafting a tenant mix also around that type of strength and user. Along the way, we started adding in one case, we started adding some patio space. We improved the walkability of the center, the overall look of the center, and then applied some of the rights, what I would consider TI, towards turning and re-merchandising existing tenants.
We have had a real improvement in performance, not just traffic, but also performance as well, while keeping a lot of the existing cash flow in place. We target, we look for double-digit returns for this, and we also look for the ability to push 20%-30% in increase in rents.
Rob Nepo (Analyst)
Okay. Thanks for that color. Last question on your maintenance CapEx. The $4.1 million maintenance CapEx that you reported in Q4, going forward, what kind of run rate should we expect for 2025? Should we expect similar CapEx numbers that you guys reported overall for 2024?
Dave Holeman (CEO)
I think I look at the last two or three years and expect a run rate similar to the average of the last two or three years. It may have been a little higher in 2024.
Rob Nepo (Analyst)
Okay. Thank you. That's all I had.
Dave Holeman (CEO)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Thanks. From Mitt Kabucha with Lucid Capital Markets. Please proceed.
Yeah. Hey, good morning, guys. First, does the guidance include any capital recycling assumptions?
Dave Holeman (CEO)
It does not.
Okay. Gotcha. Changing gears, you go back to the years coming out of the pandemic, I think your occupancy was in the high 80% range. Now you're pushing towards 95%. Is that optimal for pushing leasing spreads in the 20% range, or do you think you can take occupancy further than 95%, or is that just sort of a natural ceiling?
Christine Mastandrea (COO)
I think we can, but I think, quite frankly, again, when you have such a strong market, I'm trying to take, I'm trying to get vacancy, quite frankly, so I can turn the rental rates upward. I would say 95 is good. Could I get higher than that? Yeah. I will tell you that we're also going to be looking for opportunities where there's lease-up opportunities or re-merchandising opportunities in our acquisitions. I think we've demonstrated that we're good at this, and I think we want to stay consistent with what we do well in our business, which is looking for how do you keep adding value, all right? Part of that is looking whether it's re-merchandising, was looking for acquisitions where we can do their re-merchandising, that upgrading.
In addition to that, where we see new opportunities to, I'd say, add additional value through the redevelopment like we've talked about. Yes, but again, I think I mentioned this for the last two years, we're going to be taking Space Tech where we can and turn it because that's where the opportunity for growth is.
Okay. Great. Just one more for me. I think you sold Providence in Houston this quarter. Can you talk about the cap rate on dispositions?
Dave Holeman (CEO)
Yeah. Hey, Craig, we did sell Providence, which was one of the assets that was in the portfolio for a bunch of years, was one of the original assets of Whitestone. Part of our discontinuing to upgrade the quality of our portfolio was recycling out of assets like that, solid asset, just in an area of town that we do not see evolving at the rate that we do other areas. Our totals, we are not reporting, excuse me, individual cap rates on sales, but if you look at everything we have sold, I think it is in the mid-sixes, and Providence was kind of in line with that group, I think, from a sale cap perspective. Good center, just a little bit lower ABRs than our historical portfolio.
As part of our continuing to quality of revenue upgrade the portfolio, I think you saw one of the things, the third-party measures, our TAP scores continue to improve. If you look at the progress we've made, not only organically, but through recycling, I think we've really continued to upgrade the portfolio.
Okay. Thanks.
Thanks, Craig.
Operator (participant)
The next question comes from John Massocca with B. Riley. Please proceed.
John Massocca (Senior Research Analyst)
Good morning.
Dave Holeman (CEO)
Morning, John.
John Massocca (Senior Research Analyst)
Sorry if I missed this earlier in the call. Is there a leverage range you're either looking at or expecting in 2025 or by year-end 2025?
Dave Holeman (CEO)
I think ultimately we'd like to be in the low sixes, maybe high fives. The timing of that, John, is going to be difficult to predict just because a bit of it's going to depend on liquidation proceeds. I think that's the range where we would like to end up eventually, high fives, low sixes.
John Massocca (Senior Research Analyst)
Okay. Any impacts from some of the smaller recent retailer bankruptcies, specifically, I think Party City and Joann's, just because that would impact one-key numbers if you had any exposure?
Christine Mastandrea (COO)
No, we don't. We focused at, as we've talked about, our model is different than others. We stayed away from a lot of those large spaces. That's why we went into the smaller formats, smaller spaces. We saw the disbursement of risk, and we've always favored that. We stayed away from that type of tenant model where it's really I look at if you really look what's not making it out there, it's restaurants, it's retail that is not focused on the changing demographic, right? These are older business models. They're somewhat tired business models. It's rather unfortunate that they weren't able to adapt to the change. That being said, what we're seeing is quite a bit of demand in leasing right now, and it's mostly because it's focusing on a new demography of spend.
We do not have that exposure, and that was by design from the very beginning.
Dave Holeman (CEO)
John, I'd just add that we really do not have a high concentration in any one tenant. 2.2% of revenue is the highest tenant concentration we have. In the few cases we have bankruptcies, I think we are happy to have the space back, and we can usually get higher rents.
John Massocca (Senior Research Analyst)
Okay. A couple of clarifying ones on guidance. How much impact, if any, on G&A this year comes from stuff related to Pillar Stone that maybe is not run rate starting in 2026?
Dave Holeman (CEO)
In 2024, we had about $1 million in bankruptcy cost, and I think we expect to have a similar level in 2025. It is hard to say where 2026 will be, but I think we expect to see that start tapering off in 2026.
John Massocca (Senior Research Analyst)
Okay. Last one for me, on the lease termination fees, any reason that's not going to kind of be similar to 2024 and 2025, just given it seems like there is continued kind of portfolio refreshing, reshaping? I mean, is it just you don't want to put that in guidance till it actually occurs, or is it just something different about the portfolio and the lease expirations this year?
Dave Holeman (CEO)
I think we're forecasting it at a lower level, but it certainly could, if you have a few tenants go out, it certainly could be at a higher level in 2025. But we don't have that many on our radar right now for 2025.
John Massocca (Senior Research Analyst)
Okay. I guess, were the terminations in 4Q kind of anticipated at the time of 3Q earnings or 2Q earnings, just in guidance?
Christine Mastandrea (COO)
No, most of that, I mean, those kind of deals you work throughout the year. It is always a timing as to when, so let me just explain how we go about this, and maybe that'll help a little bit. We identify through sales where we see that quite in a market where we know where performance should be. In most of our markets, we know where performance should be, especially with the high HHIs that we have in our neighborhoods. We can determine from those sales where a tenant should be performing. When we see that there's the lack of performance or they're struggling, it's at a point in time where you need to have a discussion. Those discussions take place, they don't happen overnight. They take a little bit of time. At the same time, we're already looking to see where the replacement will be.
There is very little downtime even between the timing of the lease termination to the new lease execution. That could take anywhere. Sometimes it can take several months to six months or so. It is just a matter of negotiating a termination fee and then the handover to the next tenant. We do not do a termination fee just on the gap of the timing. It involves an investment. We look back as to what that investment was, and then we negotiate a position from that because we expect a return on our real estate.
John Massocca (Senior Research Analyst)
That's interesting. I'm just thinking.
Christine Mastandrea (COO)
Yeah. I just want to mention too, it's really important because you brought this up earlier that there is a change in demographic spend right now. Leaning into that new spend and where it's going is an important place to be right now, especially for the demand for this type of space.
John Massocca (Senior Research Analyst)
No, that makes sense. I'm just thinking I'm trying to get a sense of timing of when this could hit guidance. I just looked back at there's a slightly more detailed walk, right, on page four of your current investment slide in terms of how you're getting to that guidance. I don't know if the lease termination income that you received in 2024 was anticipated as of kind of 3Q results. Is it just something that's going to kind of get layered into guidance as it happens, or is it something where?
Dave Holeman (CEO)
There's a base level that we anticipate, John, and then as larger ones occur, we'll factor those into the guidance.
John Massocca (Senior Research Analyst)
Okay. Understood. That's it for me. Thank you very much.
Dave Holeman (CEO)
Thanks, John.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. At this time, I would like to turn the call back to management for closing comments.
Dave Holeman (CEO)
Dave Holeman again. Thank you for joining today's call. We hope we've given investors a view into the building blocks of our future trajectory. We're excited about what lies ahead of us. We're excited about the guidance we've given, and we look forward to updating everyone on the progress we make. Everyone, have a great day. Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. This concludes today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation and have a great day.