City Office REIT, Inc.

All participants are in the listen-only mode. A brief question and answer section will follow the formal presentation. To ask a question, you may press star then 1 on your touchtone phone. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press star then T. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. If you require operator assistance, please press star then 0. It is now my pleasure to introduce you to Tony Maratic, the company's Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer, and Corporate Secretary. Thank you, Mr. Maratic. You may begin.

Good morning. Before we begin, I would like to direct you to our website at cioreit.com, where you can view our second quarter earnings press release and supplemental information package. The earnings release and supplemental package both include a reconciliation of non-GAAP measures that will be discussed today to their most directly comparable GAAP financial measures. Certain statements made today that discuss the company's beliefs or expectations or that are not based on historical fact may constitute forelooking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. Although the company believes that these expectations reflected in such forelooking statements are based upon reasonable assumptions, we can give no assurance that these expectations will be achieved. Please see the forward-looking statements disclaimer in our second quarter earnings press release and the company's filings with the SEC for factors that could cause material differences between forward-looking statements and actual results. The company undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements that may be made in the course of this call. I will review our financial results after Jamie Farrar, our Chief Executive Officer, discusses some of the quarter's operational highlights. I will now turn the call over to Jamie.

Good morning. Throughout 2024, office leasing fundamentals have continued to strengthen across our markets. During the first quarter of this year, we had healthy leasing activity that was comprised of 110,000 square feet of new leases and total leasing activity of 191,000 square feet. I'm pleased to report that these volumes have continued to improve in the second quarter. We reported today that new leasing activity increased to 162,000 square feet and total leasing activity increased to 269,000 square feet. In fact, this was the highest quarter of new leasing in our company's history. There are several positive industry trends that have contributed to these results. New office construction has declined to all-time lows. A record number of office conversions and demolition of obsolete buildings has also occurred. At the same time, a significant portion of the premium space in our markets has now been leased, and subleased space has decreased for four quarters in a row. As a result of these trends, competition from the supply of new or high-quality leased space is decreasing. On the demand side, we are also seeing a shift. There are more large tenants in the market looking to fill bigger space requirements. JLL estimates that nationwide tenant requirements have increased by 28% year over year. At the same time, renewal prospects are improving with JLL reporting that 60% of tenants over 10,000 square feet nationwide renewed in place in the second quarter. This is up 15% from the prior year. The improvements on the supply and demand side have translated to an overall more conducive leasing environment. We expect the pace of these improvements to be gradual but favorable for our long-term strategic execution. Today, one of the biggest challenges in the office market continues to be a lack of liquidity in real estate transactions, which we believe has been driven primarily by the office real estate debt market. Over the past few years, there have been very few options for new loan originations in the office sector. This has heavily suppressed office sale transactions. While debt markets are still muted, there has been a slight thawing. The CNBS market has started to open up, which will help facilitate some liquidity and capital flexibility. On the whole, the office market still faces challenges. Despite this, the pathway to longer-term success is becoming clearer for quality properties and growth markets operated by well-capitalized owners. We believe that our portfolio is positioned to benefit from these trends. And now shifting to specifics of our leasing and operational results. The largest new lease this quarter was at FRP Collection in Orlando, where we signed a 30,000 square foot five-year lease with a strong credit energy tenant. At Block 23 in Phoenix, we signed a 24,000 square foot lease with a co-working operator. This lease backfilled over half of the 46,000 square feet that WeWork previously occupied at that property. The new lease is structured where we share the economics of the tenant's operation in the space. We were able to execute this transaction within five months of WeWork vacating. This leaves 22,000 square feet of prime space from the WeWork give back, which we plan to further subdivide into smaller suites. As we indicated was the expectation on our last call, we did finalize terms with WeWork at the two remaining spaces they lease in our portfolio. In that regard, in July, we took back a 25,000 square foot floor at the Terraces in Dallas, And in November, we expect to take back a 28,000 square foot floor at Block 83 in Raleigh. We already have prospects looking to lease these spaces, which are some of the best suites in our entire portfolio. WeWork, who has emerged from bankruptcy, will ultimately lease 78,000 square feet of well-utilized space from us when the right sizing is completed. Aside from leasing, We are also focused on executing strategic property upgrades in some of our strongest submarkets. We're making significant enhancements in Scottsdale at Pima Center, in Phoenix's Camelback Corridor at 5090, in St. Petersburg at City Center, and in Uptown Dallas at 2525 McKinnon. These renovations are designed to provide a competitive leasing advantage and will greatly enhance the profile of all four properties. Of the $9 million we expect to invest into these four projects, we have spent approximately $4 million as of quarter end. At the conclusion of this renovation program, the vast majority of City Office's portfolio value will reside in well-located, newer vintage or recently renovated and amenitized properties that are very well positioned for leasing success. While the renovation of our city center property in downtown St. Petersburg, Florida is underway, we have separately been exploring a value enhancing initiative at that property. St. Petersburg has become an increasingly desirable office and residential market. It is a special waterfront community with a great quality of life and amenity offerings. The population has grown over 11% in the last five years and office occupancy rates are some of the highest in the country. This has created strong demand for both residential and commercial development. For some time, we've been advancing the potential of redeveloping City Centre's standalone parking garage into a mixed-use development with premium, high-rise residential condominiums. Today, we are in advanced discussions with a highly regarded developer to progress this opportunity. The form of the venture would likely entail us contributing the parking garage land and participating in future development profits. While any possible redevelopment of city center remains subject to a number of conditions, some of which are beyond our control, we hope to provide an update later in the year. As we did with our transformational San Diego life science portfolio acquisition and disposition, We continue to focus on creative ways to generate meaningful shareholder value and will provide further updates on future calls as these plans are enacted. Aside from the updates I have mentioned, our results this quarter continue to track our expectations. Accordingly, we reiterated all aspects of our prior guidance this quarter. For the balance of the year, we will remain focused on leasing, completing our property upgrades, and other value-enhancing opportunities. With that, I'll hand the call over to Tony to discuss our financial results in more detail.