COPT Defense Properties

Welcome to the Corporate Office Properties Trust Second Quarter 2021 Results Conference Call. As a reminder, today's call is being recorded. At this time, I will turn the call over to Stephanie Christen Kelly, COPD's Vice President of Investor Relations. Ms. Christen Kelly, please go ahead.

Thank you, Sherry. Good afternoon and welcome to COPS Conference Call to discuss Second Quarter 2021 Results and updated four-year guidance. With me today are Steve Podorek, President and CEO, Todd Hartman, Executive Vice President and COO, and Anthony Mifsud, EVP and CFO. Reconciliations of gap and non-gap measures that management discusses are available on our website, in the results press release and presentation, and in our supplemental information package. As a reminder, forward-looking statements made during this call are subject to risks and uncertainties, which are discussed at length in our SEC filings. Actual events and results tend to differ materially from these forward-looking statements, and the company does not undertake a duty to update them.

Steve? Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us. Our unique investment strategy of clustering assets around U.S. defense installations supporting national security activities continues to generate strong, high-quality earnings. Second quarter, FFO per share is adjusted for comparability. The 58 cents exceeded the high end of guidance by a penny and was driven primarily by same property results. Additionally, NOI from real estate operations in the quarter was up 8%, and 8 FFO increased 17% from a year ago. Through the second quarter, we completed a total leasing of 1.7 million square feet, which included 815,000 square feet of renewals, 205,000 square feet of vacancy leasing, and 641,000 square feet of development leasing. So far in the third quarter, we've executed 53,000 square feet of development leasing, and we're in advanced negotiations on another 250,000 square feet that should close this quarter. Based on this activity, we're highly confident we will achieve our 1 million square foot goal for the year. Regarding our large renewal at DC6, we have not finalized the lease yet. We reached agreement on business terms in June and expected documentation would follow quickly. The tenant is controlling the pace and progress of the actual lease document preparation and that process continues to labor. Based on their deployment, power usage, and the nature of other activities we are conducting with them, we have every confidence they will remain in our building. During the quarter, we placed 197,000 square feet of development projects in the service, including Project EL, a 107,000 square foot specialized facility we built for a defense contractor in San Antonio. We completed this project full quarter earlier than forecasted, and we expect to deliver two additional projects ahead of schedule later in the year, thereby accelerating lease commencements. We expect to deliver Nova C and 610 Guardian Way earlier than planned, which, combined with Project EL, are adding nearly three cents to this year's FFO per share. Stronger same property operations and accelerated development completions drive us to once again increase the midpoint of our full year guidance for FFO per share as adjusted for comparability. The $2.26 midpoint of updated 2021 guidance is 7 cents above our original midpoint and 6.6% higher than 2020 results. We'll turn it over to Todd.