Mack-Cali Realty Corporation

Good day, everyone, and welcome to the McAuley Realty Corporation third quarter 2020 earnings conference call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Ashley Cotton. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator.

I'd like to remind everyone that certain information discussed on this call may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal security law. Although we believe the estimates reflected in these statements are based on reasonable assumptions, we cannot give assurances that the anticipated results will be achieved. We refer you to the company's press release annual and quarterly reports filed with the SEC for risk factors that impact the company. With that, please allow me to introduce Mary Ann Gilmartin, Matt Calley, Board Chair and Interim Chief Executive Officer.

Good morning, all. Thanks for joining us today. We hope you are all safe and healthy. Today marks my 100th day on the job. I've had the pleasure of getting to know the team and the properties, and my short time looking under the hood has reinforced my belief that Matt Calley has great assets and great people. I want to thank all of our associates for their dedication, commitment, and humanity throughout these difficult months. A special shout out to the folks who have tended to our properties and our occupants each and every day since the start of the pandemic. You are our frontline workers, and we appreciate all you do. The board is on track to announce a permanent CEO in the first quarter of 2021. The board's search process has not stopped us from moving forward aggressively with strategies to unlock shareholder value. The recently reconstituted board of directors and current leadership are fully aligned in this pursuit. Though we cannot control the macro environment real estate operators across the country are facing due to the global pandemic, we are laser focused on three key initiatives. Number one, non-core asset sales. As Ricardo Cordoso, our chief investment officer, will share today, we are making impressive progress executing our non-core asset sales. Since the end of 2019, at the conclusion of the prior board's strategic review, Matt Calley embarked upon a program to exit its non-waterfront commercial assets. We are now in varying stages of negotiations on all remaining suburban office assets. These sales will continue to be executed at or close to our pre-COVID NAV for these assets, with the proceeds being used to repay corporate debt and bring down our leverage. Initiative number two, waterfront commercial asset focus. In terms of leasing for the quarter, we renewed 154,000 square feet of space, predominantly in the suburbs, as we had very little space rolling on the waterfront. We realized increases in our core portfolio of 12.3% on a cash basis and 22.3% on a gap basis, and we committed to $5.94 per square foot per year of lease term. We are hard at work at repositioning the Harborside campus, sharpening our leasing message, and bolstering our talent to drive results. The opportunity at Harborside is aligned with what users are looking for in a post-COVID work environment. A campus that brings a unique level of control in an uncertain time, easily accessible throughout the region with multiple transportation modes, essential retail right here on campus, many attractive residential options within walking distance, and the ability to spread out a workforce in a user-controlled setting. To bring the campus's value proposition to light, we have aligned ourselves with top regional performers at CBRE, led by Mary Ann Tai and Mark Ravisloot. And we are moving quickly to reposition our assets and strategically target new tenants. Since our last quarter, we also onboarded a significant leasing talent, Ed Gildanen, who has joined us today for this call. He is our new head of leasing and was formerly with the Rockefeller Group. where he was the firm's head of leasing in New York, executing millions of square feet of deals during his tenure. Ed is a hiring coup for Matt Calley. Worth noting, Ed worked here from 1997 to the year 2000, and we're happy to have his talents back at the company. A moment now on our repositioning thesis for the waterfront. Even before COVID-19, there was growing demand for business districts outside of Manhattan. We expect that trend to accelerate now. Post-COVID, people increasingly want to live near where they work. They want access to open space during the workday and they want manageable density that's convenient without feeling overcrowded. Places that have those elements without compromising on commuting convenience are going to be successful. There is no place that brings all of that together better than Jersey City. Because MacCalley controls the entire Harborside campus, we can provide a consistent level of first-class service, amenities, convenience and security, as well as a sense of community across all of our buildings, which is unique to an integrated campus environment. We're aggressively targeting New York City users, including tech companies that have been looking for large blocks of contiguous space in an integrated ecosystem. We're encouraged by the West Side migration of many tenants in Manhattan and believe that story continues across the Hudson River to Jersey City. By doubling our focus, rebranding our leasing message, modernizing our waterfront assets, and diversifying our product offerings, we have a plan. Coming soon will be targeted marketing to large single-user tenants from Manhattan needing sizable contiguous spaces, a robust pre-built program for small to medium-sized users who favor plug-and-play arrangements, and exploring a life sciences offering right here at Harborside to take advantage of Jersey's dominance in this space and the lack of viable waterfront options for this growing sector. These moves will be strategic, impactful, and timely value drivers for our business. Our third initiative is our strategy to optimize Roseland. We believe in the long-term value proposition offered by Roseland, and our team is diligently working to improve the portfolio's performance, including current occupancy. The short-term disruptive impact of the pandemic has not diminished the value of this portfolio or our platform. In fact, it's quite clear that there's strong demand for both our multifamily assets and our vertically integrated Roseland platform with its development capabilities. This is true despite the challenges faced in the near term by all residential operators across the region, including us. In the last 100 plus days, we have honed in our approach, brought together the A-team to aggressively implement a well-conceived, creative, and thoughtful strategy to drive value. This is a challenging time for our industry, and there is no clear sense of when we will all feel safe and secure again. But our work is clear. One, continue to sell our suburban assets at or close to NAV by marketing into the story of the suburban renaissance. Two, be strategic, proactive, and aggressive on repositioning our commercial waterfront assets. And three, optimize the performance of Roseland by focusing on tenant retention driving new traffic to our properties, and maintaining operational excellence. These efforts will position us to take advantage of all potential alternatives for both the company and specific business when the time is right and as the market evolves. I will now turn the call over to our CFO, Dave Smetana, who will walk us through the third quarter results. Dave?

Thank you, Marianne. We reported core FFO per share for the quarter of 30 cents versus 38 cents per share in the prior year period with the year over year reduction due mainly to asset sales and pandemic related disruption to our hotel and parking operations. The office portfolio continues to benefit from low portfolio turnover and favorable comparisons on free rent periods and produced a plus 2.1% gap same store NOI increase in the quarter and a 15.2% cash increase for same-store NOI in the quarter. As Marshall will go into in more detail, the multifamily portfolio is experiencing the same occupancy pressures that our peers are experiencing in the New York City metropolitan area. As a reminder, we calculate same-store data on a gap basis in our multifamily portfolio, which generally results in straight-line rent treatment for concessions. Credit charges in the quarter include a 590,000 charge related to reserve allowances and a 444,000 charge related to additional straight-line rent receivable reserves. Rent collections in the quarter averaged 96.9% in our office portfolio and were 99.5% in our multifamily portfolio. For October, thus far, we have collected 96.5% of office rents and 99.5% on the multifamily side. Our hotel operations remain limited to the residence in portion of our dual flag Port Imperial hotel property, which contributed a $1.3 million EBITDA loss in the quarter. Our historic losses at this asset in a range of $1 to $1.3 million are a decent benchmark for the fourth quarter. We do not have any current plans to reopen the on view in Port Imperial and the Hyatt in Jersey City in the near future. On parking, it came in better sequentially this quarter at $4 million, driven by a slightly better transient revenue result and a $500,000 collection from a disputed parking contract. Other income included approximately $2 million of lease term and restoration fees in the quarter, which we don't expect to repeat in the fourth quarter. We had a number of one-time items in our GNA line item this quarter. They included a $6.9 million line item for proxy fight costs and $8.9 million of severance relating to senior executive departures as well as a reduction in force. The net G&A savings benefit, including recent hires, should fall in a range of $4 to $4.5 million a year. Looking ahead to the rest of this year on the office leasing front, we have just under 24,000 square feet expiring on the waterfront in the fourth quarter of 2020. Approximately 19,000 square feet of this is an amount that has been renewed by a current tenant in an expansion at our 101 Hudson property. Our suburban office portfolio posted a strong third quarter as well. In our core suburban portfolio, we executed over 107,000 square feet of transactions with rental increases of 11.8% on a cash basis and 23.7% on a gap basis. For the remainder of the year, we have over 32,000 square feet expiring in our suburban portfolios, all of which pertain to assets that are slated for disposition. I will touch briefly now on our updated NAV disclosure. Last night, we updated our NAV disclosure in our supplement on pages 7 and 8, which now follow a components of NAV methodology. The change seems appropriate now, now that the Roseland portfolio has matured from a collection of subordinated JV interests with land and development to an operating portfolio with a development capability, making it much easier to value. Additionally, the majority of our suburban office portfolio has now either been sold or is under contract at prices consistent with our last published values in our second quarter NAB table. We believe that providing this new disclosure in one place and allowing the user to apply his or her own cap rates and discount rates to arrive at NAB is in line with blue chip REIT practice. Turning to the balance sheet. In the quarter, we reduced our line balance to $156 million outstanding with the proceeds from $213 million of asset sales that we executed in the quarter. In September, we exercised the first of two six-month extension options on our line of credit effectively extending our maturity date out to July of 2021. Our priority use of capital continues to be corporate debt repayment. The net debt to EBITDA metric was 12.1 times that quarter end. The metric remains elevated as we continue to carry all the multifamily development debt with no EBITDA benefits. Additionally, the metric continues to be negatively affected and increased by 1.2 turns from negative hotel and parking impacts. Lastly, We announced in September that we have suspended our third and fourth quarter dividends to preserve liquidity as we have already met our taxable income distribution requirements for the year. With that, I will now turn it over to Ricardo Cardoso, our chief investment officer.

Thank you, Dave, and good morning. We continue to execute on our disposition program despite the initial slowdown and delay in transaction activity caused by the pandemic. Office sales in the state of New Jersey remains on track with year-to-date sales totaling approximately $2 billion compared to calendar year 2019 of $2.1 billion and a historical five-year average of $2.3 billion. Investment demand for suburban office in New Jersey remains healthy and has largely been dominated by private buyers. Being one of the more active sellers in the New Jersey market for several years, we have a very good understanding of the market dynamics resulting in an efficient disposition process. I would like to further discuss the company's NAV value disclosure beyond David's comments. The company's net asset value estimates at June 30th, 2020 continue to be a fair barometer of the company's view on NAV for the suburban office assets as we crystallize the value via sales. The extent to which COVID-19 impacts our net asset value will depend on developments going forward, many of which are highly uncertain and cannot be predicted. Despite the magnitude of such uncertainties under today's climate, pricing for assets currently in negotiations remain closely in line with our previously published NAV estimates. Turning to our results, this quarter we sold 12 of the 15 buildings within the Parsippany and Girolda portfolio for 187 million, comprised of 1.75 million square feet. This represents the largest transaction in the suburban tri-state market since the beginning of COVID. In addition, we closed on the sale of 325 Columbia Turnpike, 175,000 square foot building in Florham Park, New Jersey for 25.6 million. In total, we executed 213 million in office sales during the third quarter. In the fourth quarter, we also sold Five Vaughn Drive, a nearly 100,000 square foot office building within the Princeton sub market for 7.5 million, bringing our year to date total to approximately 258 million. As of today, we have nine suburban assets under contract, totaling 395 million comprised of 1.85 million square feet. We anticipate closing three of these nine properties prior to year end, generating approximately 100 million in unencumbered asset sales. As Marianne mentioned, since new leadership was announced, we have moved quickly and today we are in negotiations for all the remaining suburban assets. We remain optimistic on the execution of our disposition strategy assuming the financial markets do not take a drastic turn given the rise of COVID concerns. With that, I would like to turn the call over to Marshall.

Thanks, Ricardo. Roseland's portfolio finished the third quarter at 91.7% lease as compared to 92.6% last quarter. The reduction was primarily a function of a continued decline in leasing traffic due to COVID-19, primarily in our urban locations. The occupancy and leasing traffic decline is consistent with other Northeast-focused portfolios, a substantial portion of which are our comps. Notwithstanding the occupancy decline, as Dave mentioned, collection rates remain robust in the third quarter at 99.5%. To combat the traffic decline and stay competitive in our submarkets, we placed an even greater focus on existing resident retention, enhanced our marketing campaigns, and implemented more competitive pricing, which has rolled down our net incomes. Revised pricing includes expanded leasing concessions and adjusted face rents to generate higher capture rates in our markets. These collective efforts have led to an increase in capture rate and traffic statistics in July through September, a trend that has continued into October. In the quarter, our same-store portfolio, excluding two assets under active renovation, experienced an 11.7% decrease in NOI generated by a 3.3% loss in revenues and a 10.3% increase in expenses. The expense load was abnormally high, primarily due to COVID-related staffing and supplies, material increase in insurance rates, and an increase in turn costs related to greater turnover in the third quarter. On a year-to-date basis, the same portfolio experienced a negative NOI of three-tenths of a percent, generated from a 1.5% increase in revenues and a 4.6% increase in expenses. With respect to our hotels in Port Imperial, the Envie remained closed in the third quarter, though we opened its six-floor dining operations. In the third quarter, we averaged $550,000 in monthly revenue at this COVID-comfortable outdoor setting. The residents in continue to operate and finish the quarter with average occupancy at 63%. The Emory, our lease-up in Malden, Massachusetts, is currently 84% leased and is forecasted to stabilize by year-end. This 326-unit project commenced leasing activities in early 2020 and has achieved the highest rents in its sub-market. The asset is forecasted to reach a stabilized yield of 6.3%, a projected NOI of $6.1 million. The company's remaining four construction projects, representing 1,616 units, are projected to achieve development yield above 6% on stabilized NOI of $55 million. Moreover, we have now fully funded our equity obligations for these projects. We are actively preparing the initial deliveries and lease-up strategies for three of the four development projects delivering in the first quarter of 2021. including 673 units in two Port Imperial communities and the Upton and Short Hills, 193-unit luxury community in one of our New Jersey's premier municipalities adjacent to the Short Hills Mall. Our fourth project, the 750-unit Charlotte in Jersey City, is scheduled for delivery in the first quarter of 2022. This signature project is a beneficiary of a below-market pilot fixed for 20 years at 7%. From a financing perspective, we are scheduled to close our $165 million Monaco takeout facility next week, and are targeting a takeout of our Emory construction loan in December. Finally, though we have no immediate plans for new construction starts, we have two priority shovel-ready projects, the park parcel at Port Imperial, a 298-unit mid-rise development to be constructed overlooking a 17-acre city park with unencumbered views of Manhattan, and Harborside 8, a 679-unit highly amenitized tower, which will be adjacent to our corporate headquarters next door at Harborside 3. I'll now turn the call back to Mary Ann.

Thank you, Marshall. I will close by emphasizing that the value we continue to build with our multifamily platform is considerable. We're pursuing opportunities within our portfolio to unlock incremental value by leasing, repositioning, and ensuring that our projects are at the cutting edge with respect to amenities and offering the most sought-after features in a luxury rental home. As we move ahead, we believe these assets will continue to shine and are positioned to outperform over time.

With that, we will now open the call for questions. Operator?

Thank you. If you would like to ask a question on the call today, please signal now by pressing star 1 on your telephone keypad. That's star 1 to ask a question. We will pause for one moment to allow everyone to signal.

Again, that's star 1.

We can now take our first question from Manny Corchman from Citi. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone. Marianne, thanks for your comments on sort of your first 100 days in the CEO search or replacement. Just wondering, now that you've been there 100 days, do you have any more interest in putting yourself permanently in that CEO seat?

Hi, Manny. I'm super focused on the job I'm doing as the interim. And as you know, I'm not on the search committee at the board, so it is entirely a board matter. And I'm here day to day doing the interim job, and that's where I want to be.

And I have a question for Ricardo. As you're out there talking to these parties that are looking at the suburban New Jersey assets, have you had any conversations with them about selling the waterfront assets or at least having conversations about the waterfront assets?

Thanks for the question. As of right now, our focus is selling the suburban assets. That's our strategy that's been set forth by the board. It's not to say we wouldn't consider selling the waterfront, but when we do decide to do that, if we decide to do that, we'll create a process around that.

Manny, I'm not optimistic that today we would achieve what we could on the waterfront if we spend time focusing on a strategy of leasing it up with more proactive, aggressive approach to leasing with our new team, a focus on execution and being much more commercial and honing our branding message to focus on a campus-wide strategy. So I think it's going to take time. for it to come into its own with the new team here, but I'm optimistic that ultimately we get there. I'm not so optimistic that we could transact today on those assets at a number that's respectable or anywhere near what it's worth.

And I think you mentioned that the new team is targeting large users, looking for large spaces. that kind of seems like real estate leasing 101. How is that different than what the old team was doing, or what other tools have you given them to either go out and find tenants or land tenants?

So I want to make sure you heard that I said large users needing contiguous space at a great value proposition, but I also spoke about an offering of pre-built and possibly some life sciences space. So I think what I'm trying to touch on is with a million square feet of space, available to discuss, we should be offering a range of alternatives to address the needs of tenants both here in Jersey and across the river. And to be very frank, I think the approach needs to be much more proactive, much more commercial than it was previously and a deeper focus on execution. And again, having been here, I think what's extraordinary to me is that what the team here needed was a bit of tooling and tweaking you know, an upgrade of talent in certain areas, and then greater alignment, accountability, and empowerment. This is a highly capable team, but they need to be unleashed. And that's what's really changed, I believe, in the last 100 days.

Great. Thanks, everyone.

We can now take our next question from Steve Bakla from Evercore. Please go ahead.

Thanks. Good morning. I guess, Marianne, I wanted to just follow on Manny's question about and maybe get Ed's perspective on trying to lure New York City tenants over kind of to the Jersey waterfront. I know that's been a strategy for a long, long time, going back several CEOs. And I'm just curious, Ed, from your perspective, I know the rents are cheaper, but downtown Manhattan's also got cheaper rents, and that's been an alternative. So just trying to understand sort of what the hook is to get tenants to come across the river.

Hi, Steve. It's Marianne. I'm going to start just by pointing out the fact that success is not just where you want to get, but how you plan to get there. And I think the plan is what's important. With that, I'm super proud to have Ed as part of the team. I'm going to turn it over to Ed.

Thanks, Marianne. There's a couple things that, firstly, my background over the last 20 years has been in Midtown Manhattan. I have many, I think, very valuable relationships with both tenants and with brokers that I think can help us attract tenants to come to Jersey City. Also, it's not just the rent. I think we have very unique space in a campus environment that offers a lot to tenants that many of whom don't have the ability to take advantage of right now in Midtown Manhattan. So I think the workplace, the users are evolving, and we can provide a lot of opportunity to those users.

Okay. I guess maybe switching gears, I guess going to Ricardo, I'm just curious on the buyers that you're talking to for the remaining suburban assets. You know, what are sort of the kind of big issues today? Is it price? Is it financing? You know, is it getting comfortable with sort of the lease up? I'm just sort of curious how deep, A, the buyer pool is and, you know, what some of the sticking points are as you're negotiating kind of these final sales.

Sure. With the portfolios that we have out on the market, we've actually received a great amount of interest from the private investors on these assets that we have for sale. Keep in mind that the large pools of assets we have remaining are probably some of the better or are the better quality assets that we own. They're well located. So they are receiving a great deal of interest. So there is demand for on the equity side to invest in the suburban markets. I would say that some of the challenges, of course, are getting through and making sure you have the right mix of tenants, which we do, that have the ability to get through the economy and get through the pandemic. And I think our portfolio is set up for that. The other challenge, the biggest challenge in getting these deals over the hump and to the finish line is really on the financing side. The markets in the early second quarter, the financial markets sort of froze up on us. They are now back open and lenders are being selective in who they want to lend to and which assets they want to lend on. But given the assets that we have available and that are remaining to be sold, we feel optimistic we can get to the finish line and exit the suburban markets.

We think we can do that through 2021. I'm very confident of the team.

And without putting too fine a point on it, Marianne, is there sort of an expectation on sort of when the sales may get completed? Do you think that's a, you know, first half of 2021, or do you think it maybe drags beyond the first half of 2021?

So I'm going to manage the expectation and just say that I think, you know, through the year, through 2021, we think we can execute on all of it. Again, there's activity on every piece of the suburban portfolio. So with that, just given time to manage external factors, the pandemic, and the just general difficulty of getting to a closing, I think it's safest to say you should assume throughout 2021.

Okay. And then just last question, maybe for Marshall, you talked about the I guess the four construction projects, and you still expect a 6% yield or greater, I guess, on those. Does that sort of take into account the softness that you're seeing in the market today, or is that more on a stabilized sort of post-pandemic and more of a return to kind of normal environment, or is that kind of pricing in the declines you talked about?

Well, it's interesting. Each asset's got a little bit of a different story. We're seeing, you know, we're holding rate and return in Overlook and the asset we're leasing up now, the Emory. We expect the Short Hills building to open and sustain its face rent and its return as well. I mean, I think the biggest challenge would be Port Imperial. It's on the waterfront. It's an urban location closer to Manhattan, and we're seeing, you know, the softest market there, you know, here in Jersey City. So I think our strategy is going to be on the lease up is going to be utilization of free rent, more so than face rent. We're hoping to, when we have, our budget has a lot of room in it under interest reserves for the free rent on the lease up. So if we can sustain face rent, just have a slower lease up, then that yield on a stabilized basis will be very close to our projected number. That's going to be the strategy on the lease up.

Great, thanks. That's it for me.

You bet.

We can now take our next question from Daniel Feldman from Bank of America.

Thank you. I think it's Jamie Feldman. I guess just sticking with the suburban asset sales, you commented that pricing is not too far off from pre-COVID. Can you just talk about the moving pieces to that? Is it lower rates that are offsetting lower NOI outlooks or actually with more demand for suburban space, maybe NOI hasn't really come off too much? If you could just kind of talk us through what's changed and what hasn't.

So from a value perspective, there hasn't been a cap rate compression or a widening on cap rates, so they've remained the same. I think a lot of the private buyers are buying into, and I believe there's some truth behind it. It's early to say, but there is, as Marianne mentioned earlier, a renaissance in the suburban office market that's creating the demand, and we're able to, with that demand, create a bidding process that gets us to the right valuation at this time. So I think given the assets that we have currently in play and in negotiation, we have a very good sense of value and where we think we can ultimately execute and close. So we feel good about completing the execution at close to the NAV numbers we previously published back in June.

I also want to say that if we can't, we won't. So we're determined to transact at or around NAV. That's the plan, but again, we have an optimistic sense that we can do that.

What's the gap? How wide of a range are you talking about to be close to NAV? Is it 10%, 15%?

Sorry, in the few cases where we have had pricing discussions that are different from our initial contracted numbers, we've been maintaining pricing within 5%. Within 5%, okay.

And then I guess just sticking with the suburbs, on the space demand side, and you use the term renaissance, can you just talk about what you are seeing in terms of whether it's new tenants to the market, which sub-markets, what are they looking for? How do you think the next year or so plays out?

I'll start just by saying there's this story unfolding, a narrative, if you will, about the flocking of commercial uses to the suburbs. We're not sure if that's going to hold or if it's even happening, but it certainly has created activity and interest in the work that Ricardo is leading up. And Ricardo, why don't you speak a little bit about the nature of the tendencies and the interests?

So we are receiving a lot of calls from brokers at least inquiring about what our availabilities are. They're taking note of our inventory. There are tenants that are talking about possibly coming out into the suburbs. And that is part of the story that we're selling into. But as far as actual activity, we've had a handful of tenants that have executed on subleases on sort of plug and play space. But as far as a true flock to the suburbs, we're not seeing it yet. But I think that's part of the driver for investors to want to be aggressive in buying in the suburbs to try to hopefully capture part of that renaissance when people start going back to work. I think right now, if tenants don't need to make decisions, they're not making decisions, they're kicking that can for the time being.

Okay, that's helpful. And then you had talked about, you know, one of the potential demand drivers at the Harborside being life science. Can you talk about the cost to do that and what type of upgrades the buildings might need and the demand pipeline for that type of space?

Sure, I'll start. There's one building in particular, 4A, that has experienced some turnover with TD Ameritrade and the Texas. And those turnovers led us to take a fresh look at the building, and at the same time, explore what has been, by any measure, the strongest sector of leasing across the metro area, and that's life sciences. And when you look at the life sciences play, you recognize that in New Jersey, there's an ever-present grouping of life science tenants. They can't always get very close to the coast. And at the same time, there's very significant capital requirements, which you point out. And those requirements are both in the core and shell and in the nature of the installations you build for these tenants. So we have taken a full-blown study of the capex necessary to transform that building. And we are also going to go out and have conversations with prospective partners in the life science space that would team up with us on that particular asset. They bring not only the capital, but they bring a list of tenants within which there's latent demand for more of this space. And so we're early in the process, but we've done a fair amount of legwork to look at the cost because with a life sciences building, you must build it and then they will come. And so we know we need to invest the money and not just talk the talk. And so we're looking at all the CapEx. We understand, you know, in a very conceptual way what the cost is. And now we're going to go talk to the dominant players in the marketplace. And you'll hear more from us over the coming months about that strategy. Okay.

So how long do you think it would take to even build out that space?

First, you have to design it. So I think, you know, if we forthwith jumped all over this idea, I think you're talking about a four- to six-month process to get the plans in a position where you're hitting the market with the right offerings, and then probably another four to six months to put the corn shell enhancements in. But at the same time, you'd be marketing it. So I think this is a parallel path approach where you could be out marketing to tenants and having conversations so long as you can demonstrate that the capital and the know-how is in place.

Okay, that's helpful. And then last question from me. Can you just remind us the big water or just the waterfront expiration schedule through the end of next year and whether no move-outs or even move-ins that we're expecting?

Hey, Jamie. It's Dave Spatano. Next year we have approximately 375,000 square feet rolling at the waterfront. The majority of that, 208,000 square feet, is at Plaza 4A, which Mary Ann was talking about. So TD Ameritrade is going to move out in stages. Their last piece, about a third of this space, will move out at the end of September next year. And then the other big piece that is known as a move out today is 75,000 square feet for NETIXIS at Plaza 5. And then the rest were in discussions on retention. But that would be roughly 280,000 of the 375,000 square feet rolling next year at the waterfront.

Okay. Great. Thanks, Dave. Appreciate it.

As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 now on your telephone keypad. That's star 1 to ask a question. Again, we will pause for everyone to signal. That's star one.

We can now take our next question. From Jamie Feldman from Bank of America.

All right. I assume there's no one else in the queue, so I can ask a couple more here. The last question I was going to ask, Dave, while I had you is when you think about the suburban asset sales, can you just talk us through your thoughts on kind of the glide path for leverage if you do get those done, say, by the end of next year, what you think your leverage starts to look like?

Thanks, Jamie. I'll take that. So, As Ricardo has telegraphed and we've talked about, really the suburban asset sales are the main source of proceeds to repay our corporate debt. We have our credit line outstanding with $156 million at quarter end, and we have two bond issues, our April 22s at $300 million and our May 23s at $275 million. So if you take the proceeds from all the suburban office sales after repayment of a mortgage at Short Hills, you roughly have enough to retire all of that debt. So on the glide path, what we've done firstly in September, we extended out our current credit line from a January 21 maturity date until July. What we are doing now is we're going to work closely with our banks to really redo our line into a secured credit line. It'll be secured by the unencumbered assets here at the waterfront. So what we hope to do is as the suburban asset sales come in, repay the corporate debt. On the deleveraging, and I assume you guys always focus on the net debt to EBITDA metric, we will continue until Marshall's pipeline. We have a billion in the ground of residential at a 6.1% yield at $61 million at 100%. We have one joint venture there. We get $54 million of NOI. that'll start to be activated or fully activated at the end of 22. So that should be able to stabilize our net debt to EBITDA metric in the low double digits, 11 to 12, and then the last piece to really take it under 10 is the lease up of the waterfront. So just liquidity first, stabilization of the multifamily portfolio second, and then really taking those metrics down below 10 is dependent on the waterfront lease up. But we think those are the right priorities, but also do want to manage expectations that the net debt to EBITDA metric will remain elevated over the next couple of years.

Okay. And then finally, do you see yourself in 21 having to reinstate the dividend just based on expected earnings?

Jamie, hi, it's Marianne.

Well, that'll be a board decision, obviously, and we're going to re-look at it as we roll into 2021, but there is no decision as of yet. We are going to continue to focus on liquidity, obviously, in our balance sheet.

Okay. All right. Thank you.

We can now take the next question from Daniel Ismail from Green Street. Please go ahead.

Great. Thank you. Can you provide us a frame of reference? So I realize things are tough with the pandemic, but if I'm a Midtown office tenant, what's your sense of how wide of a net am I casting and looking at new space in terms of different markets and different quality types?

Hi, Daniel. Marianne here.

I would say that what we ought to be doing and are doing is casting a wide net across the Isle of Manhattan. looking at tenants that have rollovers over the next few years. And also we want to look at their employees and their talent. Unlike 20 years ago, the talent has a place at the table for relocation decisions. And so we want to see where employees live because to the extent that they're West, we think we have a competitive edge, not just in the value proposition, but in pleasing the talent base and keeping employees happy. And so we have called a list, and it's the sizable list, of prospects across the river for companies that have rolling leases and have employees that come west, from the west. And that's an obvious statement, but it's really quite important because the pounding of the pavement, working those prospects, it's really, really important work. And with CBRE, if you think about the way the team was constructed previously, it was two different brokerage teams and it was the preponderance of the talent was out of New Jersey. We need a brokerage team that is completely aligned with management and that is made up of high performers from both sides of the river. So today we have the best of the best, both in New Jersey and coming from Manhattan, because we believe a large share of our prospects will be coming from across the river. Ed, I don't know if you want to add something.

Yeah, I'd also add, Marianne, that several years ago the market kind of changed. It used to be that a Midtown Manhattan tenant would look in Midtown Manhattan Over the last several years, tenants have expanded their geographic region for consideration of relocation. Many tenants from midtown moved downtown or to midtown south. And I think New Jersey clearly is in the mix now. I think any tenant looking for a sizable chunk of space or block of space will clearly consider Jersey City in addition to midtown and downtown and midtown south.

I also point out the West Side Story, which is the great story of Related's leasing up of of Hudson Yards. And if you think about it, what it didn't have on its side is proximity to access to transit. And when you think about the Jersey assets that we have here at Harborside, not only can we offer the same campus feeling and controlled environment, but we have unparalleled access to the site, whether it's walking, driving, public transportation, or a ferry.

That's helpful. And then as a follow-up, can you provide an update on the Grow New Jersey program and does there need to be any action on that front to see meaningful improvements in terms of waterfront leasing?

Daniel, that's a great question. So today the spread between the leasing in the top buildings in Manhattan and Jersey City is wide enough for us to be competitive. But I've spoken to the governor and the governor's team more than once since coming on board. And I would say that I have a high level of optimism that there is a deal to be made there. And I think that they're hard at work working out some of the differences between the legislature and the governor's office. And it's our hope that as we roll into 2021, the recognition on the part of the state that this is really important for the vitality of the commercial enterprises here in Jersey City, that we will see the program come back again. And the reason why that's important is I would say it's not essential today But to the extent that the shadow sublease space grows in Manhattan and rents start to dip, we have to be ever more competitive. And those incentives will allow us to stay ahead of what is likely to be a reduction in rents across the board in Manhattan.

Presumably more about 21 events than anything.

I don't. Yeah, I mean, these things are, as you know, complex because once they reach agreement, it has to be drafted. And so while it is probably evocative of programs of the past, There is a process there and I imagine that that process, even if it's underway right now and we're not aware of the full extent of it, will take a while to be adopted. And tenants need certainty and they need to be able to analyze the program. And the governor's office has been very, very interested in hearing from us about exactly what matters when you talk about incentives. And I've spent a large part of my career working on incentive programs that benefit end users. And so we've been able to contribute to the discussion And I believe that there's something coming. I just think that it's a complex matter in the drafting of it and in getting it fully approved.

Great. And then last one for me. Can you talk about the Hoboken office asset that fell out of contract and exact reasons as to why that sale fell out and any plans for the long-term ownership of that asset?

All right. Thanks. When we entered into a contract on 111 River, we entered into it obviously pre-COVID, and we were able to get a very strong pricing for that asset. That asset does have a little bit over 100,000 square feet of available space. With COVID, there remained interest in our buyer to move forward, but at a reduced purchase price, which we were not willing to execute on. With Mary Ann's plan on the waterfront, which obviously does include 111 River, we feel confident that we can create value on 111 and at some point down the line possibly reconsider the possibility of selling the asset.

This is an example of not transacting for the sake of transacting. I mean, it's a great building, and if it can't achieve NAV or close to it, there's no reason to dispose of it.

Are you able to share what the level of price reduction they are looking to get?

I would prefer not. Okay, fair enough. Thanks, everyone.

Now take our next question from Manny Corchman from Citi. Please go ahead.

Hey, just one quick follow-up from Marshall. Have you seen any additional stress in the smaller units, the micro units that you guys have at Irby, given the fact that people are working from home more and kind of have a need or a want or at least a desire for space?

Hi, Manny. No, we've not. We've talked to the Irby people a couple of times, and there's not been much of a shift in demand. I mean, you know, most people, even when they have extra space, they use it, but for the most part, they're on their iPads and and whether in the apartment or downstairs. We haven't seen an increased turnover in small units.

Manny, it's Marianne. I'd also say, Manny, that having toured all the assets, including the ones in the Boston area, what you do see is just a flurry of activity in all the common areas. So people who have apartments want to come out of the apartments. And so as you look at what might be a feature of the future is the way the common areas and the amenity spaces are working is that they tend to be chock full of people who are conducting business out of their homes. And so I saw a lot of that as I toured the assets, and it's obviously completely understandable.

And so are you making any design changes in either the projects you have underway or the ones that you have planned to allow for more of that common space or different common space?

Yeah, we've been heading that way for the last few years anyway. We've increased the square footage of our common space, and we've increased the co-work area, and we've also changed our strategy in co-work area, and actually the pandemic is proving that to be correct. I mean, we used to do large conference rooms in co-work space, and now we've divided it into small work rooms where one or two people, you know, can isolate and be comfortable working in privacy. So we've morphed pre-COVID how we design public space, and we've also increased that public space anyway just as a lifestyle effort. So if anything, the pandemic has shown us that direction has been the right thing. And so we're continuing that path.

Great. Thanks, all. You bet. Thanks, Manny.

That concludes today's Q&A. I would now like to turn the call back to Mary Ann. And Ashley, please go ahead.

Thank you all for listening today. Stay safe, and we'll see you next quarter.

Thank you. That concludes today's conference. Thank you for your participation, ladies and gentlemen. You may now disconnect.