Q2 2023 Brandywine Realty Trust Earnings Call

Participants

George D. Johnstone; EVP of Operations; Brandywine Realty Trust

Gerard H. Sweeney; President, CEO & Trustee; Brandywine Realty Trust

Thomas E. Wirth; Executive VP & CFO; Brandywine Realty Trust

Anthony Paolone; Senior Analyst; JPMorgan Chase & Co, Research Division

Dylan Robert Burzinski; Analyst; Green Street Advisors, LLC, Research Division

Jing Xian Tan Bonnel; REIT Analyst; BofA Securities, Research Division

Michael Anderson Griffin; Senior Associate; Citigroup Inc., Research Division

Michael Robert Lewis; Director & Co-Lead REIT Analyst; Truist Securities, Inc., Research Division

Stephen Thomas Sakwa; Senior MD & Senior Equity Research Analyst; Evercore ISI Institutional Equities, Research Division

William Andrew Crow; Analyst; Raymond James & Associates, Inc., Research Division

Presentation

Operator

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Brandywine Realty Trust Second Quarter 2023 Earnings Call. (Operator Instructions)
Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Jerry Sweeney, President and CEO. Please go ahead.

Gerard H. Sweeney

Tanya, thank you very much. Good morning, everyone, and thank you all for participating in our second quarter 2023 earnings call. On today's call with me are George Johnstone, our Executive Vice President of Operations; Dan Palazzo, our Senior Vice President and Chief Accounting Officer; and Tom Wirth, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer.
Prior to beginning, certain information discussed during our call may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities law. Although we believe estimates reflected in these statements are based on reasonable assumptions, we cannot give assurances that the anticipated results will be achieved. For further information on our -- on factors that could impact our anticipated results, please reference our press release as well as our most recent annual and quarterly reports that we file with the SEC.
During our prepared comments today, we'll review our second quarter results and progress on 2023 business plan. Tom will then review second quarter financial results and frame out the key assumptions driving our '23 guidance for the balance of the year. And after that, Dan, George, Tom and I are certainly available for any questions.
So moving to our prepared comments. The second quarter saw continued leasing momentum throughout our portfolio. During the quarter, we executed 568,000 square feet of leases including 177,000 square feet of new leases within our wholly owned portfolio. Our joint venture portfolio achieved a very strong 401,000 square feet of lease executions including 139,000 square feet of new leases. The combined activity totaled 969,000 square feet. And as we showed on Page 1 of our SIP, these are our highest combined leasing volumes for the past 4 quarters.
The operating metrics were strong as well. For the second quarter, we posted rental rate mark-to-market of 17.6% on a GAAP basis and 5.8% on a GAAP basis. As we look at the balance of the year, our mark-to-market will vary by region, with CBD Philadelphia at a 17% cash and 30% GAAP rental rate increase. The PA suburbs will be a 2% cash positive and 9% GAAP positive. Our mark-to-markets in Austin, we anticipate being negative on both a cash and a GAAP basis given the current market conditions.
This quarter, we did have 18,000 square feet of positive absorption. We currently stand at 89.4% occupied and 91.1% leased based on the 224,000 square feet we have for lease commencements. More importantly, as we review our portfolio, our core markets of Philadelphia CBD, University City, the Pennsylvania suburbs in Austin, which comprise about 94% of our NOI, our 91.2% occupied and 92.7% leased.
During the quarter, both our GAAP and cash same-store outperformed our business plan ranges. The second quarter capital costs were also in line with our business plan ranges and tenant retention came in at 71% above the top end of our full year forecast, but we are maintaining our existing range based on forecasted activity between 49% to 51%. Spec revenue range remains $17 million to $19 million was $16.1 million or 89% at the midpoint already achieved. The speculative revenue range represents approximately 1.1 million square feet of which 787,000 square feet or 72% is already completed.
Our operating platform is solid with a stable outlook. We have further reduced our forward rollover exposure through '24 to an average of 6.6% and through '26 to an average annual rate of 7.3%.
We are definitely seeing a pickup in activity. Conversion to lease execution remains frustratingly slow, but overall velocity, the starting point to any leasing cycle continues to improve. Several key points we'd like to highlight for you. One is the quality curve thesis remains intact as our fiscal tour volume has been very encouraging. Second quarter physical tours exceeded the first quarter by 5%, exceeded our 2022 quarterly average by 47% and also exceeded pre-pandemic levels by a significant margin as well.
On a wholly owned basis, during the second quarter, 118,000 square feet of our new leasing activity or 67% of all of those leases were a result of the flight to quality. We also saw tenant expansions continue to outweigh tenant contractions during the quarter. I think as further evidence of the emerging market recovery, our total leasing portfolio is up 21% from last quarter and stands at 3.5 million square feet. And that excludes the 1.3 million square feet we have in our joint venture pipeline, which is also up from last quarter by over 200,000 square feet.
The wholly owned pipeline is broken down between 1.3 million square feet in our wholly owned operating portfolio and 2.2 million square feet on our development projects which, again, like the joint venture pipeline is up over 200,000 square feet from last quarter.
The 1.3 million square foot existing portfolio pipeline includes approximately 160,000 square feet in advanced stages of lease negotiations. Also, in that pipeline, 31% of our operating portfolio new deals or prospects looking to move up the quality curve.
As we noted on Page 1 of our supplemental package, we did receive notice during the quarter from the state of Texas that they terminated their lease at our Uptown ATX campus effective August 31, 2023. The state currently occupies 100% of one of our buildings there that had an anticipated lease expiration date of October 26. The state has relocated their employees into a state-owned building. We are still assessing if that notice was provided in accordance with the requirements of the lease. And while we continue to make that assessment, we -- to determine if we are entitled to additional rent or remedies, we have conservatively assumed that we will not receive any rent after August and have removed that income from our FFO range.
The overall impact of the early termination will be over $14 million in terms of reduction in total forecasted rent over the remaining lease term. And that includes about $1.5 million in '23 and $4.4 million in '24. In addition, we'll also need to write off approximately $370,000 in straight-line rent over that 90-day period. And then to the extent that it is ultimately determined that, that lease was effectively terminated in accordance with our Uptown ATX master plan, we would plan on taking that building out of service similar as we did the 905 building, as it would not be available for any re-leasing activity consistent with our master plan development program.
Turning to our EBITDA. Our second quarter net debt-to-EBITDA increased to 7.6x, which is up from 7.4x from the first quarter, primarily due to increased development spend of about $75 million. However, as occupancy and NOI increases during the balance of '23, we anticipate this ratio will decrease to our business plan range with asset sales taking place in the second half of the year and our targeted $100 million reduction in JV debt attribution also occurring by the end of the fourth quarter.
As we did note in the SIP, this ratio has been higher due to development spend and debt attribution from joint ventures. Based upon our development pipeline investment at quarter end, we have about $338 million of capital invested in $93 million of JV debt, generating really no meaningful NOI at this point. And if we remove that investment from our 7.6 metric, our leverage would be 6.4x well within our core portfolio range.
On the liquidity front, we also made solid progress on our -- both our joint venture debt maturities and development financings during the quarter. In June, our Commerce Square joint venture closed a 5-year, $220 million secured financing with a 7.875% coupon, which replaced a $204 million mortgage loan. Given the state of the financing market, the rate was higher than we initially anticipated earlier in the year, but that loan has some flexibility that is open for prepayment after June of '25, and it does provide additional proceeds to fund current and future leasing costs.
In connection with that refinancing, we did make a $50 million contribution to the venture to both fund closing costs, redeem a portion of our preferred equity partner's equity interest and pay down all accrued, but unpaid partner preferred dividends to put that joint venture on very solid financial footing.
Subsequent to quarter end, our MAP joint venture is finalizing a short-term extension on our $180 million loan from the current lender that we will take that maturity through October 1 of '23. That extension will provide additional time to work on a recapitalization strategy with both that leasehold lender and the fee owner of the properties. We are also in advanced discussions on the construction loan on our 155 King of Prussia Road project, and we anticipate that loan will close in August.
On our other joint operating joint ventures, we do have $70 million of overall investment with $620 million of nonrecourse mortgages maturing next year before any extension options are exercised. Of that $620 million, about $112 million is attributable to Brandywine as our ownership stake range between 15% and 20%. We are working very closely with all of our partners and our lenders on loan extensions and refinancing efforts and would expect to report additional progress on these nonrecourse financings in the coming quarters.
Currently, our consolidated debt is 93% fixed at 5.03%. We have no consolidated debt maturities until October '24 bond, $350 million bond. We also have no outstanding balance at the end of the quarter on our $600 million unsecured line of credit, and we have approximately $32 million of unrestricted cash on our balance sheet. As we noted on Page 13 of our SIP, based on our projected development spend, our business plan after fully funding remaining development spend, all TI and leasing costs, we project and Tom will amplify that we will have full availability on that $600 million line of credit by year-end 2023.
For the quarter, at our guidance midpoint, our $0.19 per share dividend represented a per quarter dividend represented a 66% FFO payout ratio and an 84% CAD payout ratio. So another great quarter controlling capital spend. As such, as we noted in the SIP, we have -- we're changing our CAD range to 90% to 100%, down from 95 to 105, and we anticipate our coverage to be at the low end of the new range. As I'll talk about in a few moments, our business plan projects $100 million to $125 million of sales that will generate some additional liquidity as well as some gains. Certainly, as our business plan progresses, the Board will closely monitor capital market conditions, both company and market overall liquidity, sale activity progress and our dividend payout levels as we assess the dividend going forward.
Looking at our development pipeline. Our wholly owned development pipeline aggregates $302 million of costs and is 30% life science and 70% office. These wholly owned developments are 83% leased with the remaining funding requirement of $51 million, which is built into our capital plan. The majority of that spend is for tenant improvement and leasing commission costs that would only be spent attendant to lease executions. Our joint venture developments have a Brandywine share of $512 million. At full cost, this pipeline is 32% residential, 38% life science and 30% office.
As we noted in the SIP, higher interest costs than originally contemplated will impact our total cost. And based on the current SOFR curve, we currently estimate the cost increase due to higher rates of approximate $23 million. Based on the preferred structure of those joint venture developments, it's anticipated that Brandywine will likely be required to fund those additional costs. And we've noted those increases on the development page in the SIP.
Further, as I stated last quarter as well, was stating the obvious, given the volatility in the capital markets, other than fully leased build-to-suit opportunities, future development starts are on hold, pending more leasing on our existing pipeline and more clarity on the cost of both debt capital and cap rates.
Looking ahead, given the mixed-use nature of our master-planned communities, primarily at Schuylkill Yards and Uptown ATX as we identified on Page 14 of the SIP, our expected forward product pipeline mix is 27% life science, 42% residential, 22% office and 9% support retail, entertainment and hospitality. And also as we identified back on Page 6 of the SIP, our objective is to grow our life science platform to over 23% of our square footage based on land we currently own or control and approvals currently in place.
Just a quick review of specific projects on Page 7. 2340 Dulles Corner is 92% pre-leased with $23 million of remaining funding. 250 King of Prussia Road remains 53% leased with $20 million of remaining funding. That 53% lease did not change quarter-over-quarter, but we do have a strong pipeline of about 200,000 square feet of deals in that pipeline of which 100% of that pipeline is life science. Based upon that pipeline, we did slide the stabilization date of that project by 1 quarter.
In addition, when you take a look at our overall pipeline development activity, that pipeline of our development projects is up 10% quarter-over-quarter. And as I mentioned earlier, it stands at 2.2 million square feet. Lease executions even with the pipeline building, have been slow and coming, we have a number of leases in various stages of negotiation and are working hard to get them across the finish line. Given this dynamic, we did slide the stabilization date on 3025 JFK by 1 quarter. And given the market conditions and pipeline activity in Austin, did slide the 1 Uptown office component by 2 quarters in their stabilization date.
On 3025, to touch on that, we have a current active pipeline that's up slightly from last quarter for the life science and office components. We've done an amazing number of tours through the project. That tour activity continues. The delivery of the first block of residential units is underway this quarter with a good level of activity since our marketing launch several weeks ago. Our 3151 life science project is under construction, seal is up to the fifth level. We have a leasing pipeline there of almost 400,000 square feet, and all systems will go there in terms of the number of hard hat tours we're doing as well.
Turning to Austin. Our Uptown ATX Block A construction from a construction standpoint is on time and on budget. On the office component, our leasing pipeline is at stand at 721,000 square feet, which is up 180,000 square feet from last quarter. That pipeline includes a mix of prospects ranging from as low as 5,000 square feet, as large as 200,000 square feet. So as that current wall in the building is going up and the lobby finishes are being completed, we're seeing an uptick in activity there as well.
Our next phase of B Labs on the ninth floor of Cira Centre is well underway. This conversion of graduate lab space is now 66% leased. The full conversion will be completed in the first quarter of next year. The total costs, which are built into our capital plan are $20 million, and we expect a return on cost there of 11%.
Just a quick look at the sales market. There is no question that the sales market has been impacted by a challenging rate environment, a pullback by lenders on commercial real estate financing, particularly office and negative macro overtones on the office sector itself. In spite of this, based on our pre-marketing efforts, we are still maintaining our $100 million to $125 million sales target. As we originally noted at the -- when we announced our '23 business plan, we did anticipate those sales occurring in the second half of the year. We do have about $200 million of properties in the market for sale now. Those properties are in our Met DC in Pennsylvania suburban markets. We also have several joint venture properties on the market at the same time as well.
This quarter, we did gain certainty on the sale of an asset in Austin and expect that $53 million sale to close in the next several weeks. We have several other properties moving through contract negotiations, a couple of which may necessitate some level of short-term seller financing.
In general, we continue to see a good list of bidders. The primary challenge being getting acquisition financing at both the cost and the loan-to-value range that makes sense for the buyer. But we continue to work with our buyers and their potential lenders to try and come up with a good solution. We do plan to continue to sell noncore land parcels during the balance of the year. And on the joint venture front, as I alluded to earlier, about 20% of our total debt is coming from our JVs through debt attribution. We do plan to recapitalize several of these JVs during the second half of '23, with the goal to reduce our attributed debt from our operating JVs by 24% or approximately $100 million by the end of the year, that will certainly be additive to improving our EBITDA multiple. Dollars generated from those activities will be used to fund our remaining development pipeline commitments and obviously reduce leverage and improve the company's liquidity.
With those comments, I'll now turn it over to Tom to provide an overview of our financial results.

Thomas E. Wirth

Thank you, Jerry, and good morning. Our first quarter net loss totaled $12.9 million or $0.08 per share and FFO totaled $49.6 million or $0.29 per diluted share and $0.02 above consensus estimates.
Some general observations regarding our second quarter results. Being above consensus, we had several moving pieces and several variances compared to our first call guidance. Management and leasing and development fees totaled $3.7 million or $1.3 million above our first quarter projections, primarily due to higher third-party lease commission income. Our portfolio operating income totaled $75 million, $1 million below our $76 million forecast due to some leasing commencing slightly behind budget. FFO contribution from our joint ventures totaled $4.5 million and was $1.3 million above our forecast, primarily due to lower interest expense from the delay in completing the Commerce Square mortgage to June of '23.
Termination and other income totaled $1.4 million and was $900,000 above our first quarter forecast, we anticipate the second quarter result will be a good run rate going forward. We also forecasted on land sale to generate $600,000 gain and that's been delayed until the third quarter. Our second quarter debt service and interest coverage ratios were 2.9% and 2.8%, respectively, slightly better than our forecast and net debt to GAV was 41.7%. Our second quarter annualized core net debt to EBITDA was 6.5x and within our 2023 range. And our annual combined net debt to EBITDA was 7.6, 0.3 of a turn above our guidance. However, we anticipate the metric to improve with higher EBITDA and the forecast at asset sales.
Regarding the portfolio, as highlighted last quarter, 405 Colorado is now included in our core portfolio for the second quarter. As Jerry outlined, we continue to make some progress on our financing front. As anticipated, in June, our joint venture refinanced the Commerce Square property with a 5-year first mortgage at a rate of 7.75%. The mortgage totaled $220 million and replaces the previous $204 million mortgage maturity, providing $16 million of good news capital for existing and forecasted leasing activity.
While the rate is above our forecasted rate, the CMBS market was open, which allowed us to complete this financing -- refinancing despite the recent bank failures. While we were successful in completing the Commerce Square financing, we continue to see challenges in the financing market for office properties. The traditional banks are allocating little or no money to new originations for new office loans, except for certain situations such as fully leased build-to-suit properties and good relationships with the sponsor.
We think some lenders will be flexible and provide shorter-term loan extensions on performing portfolios with good sponsorship. Regarding our joint venture debt, we are working with our partners on the 2024 maturities to possibly extend the current maturity dates with existing lenders. We're also considering some asset sales within those portfolios to lower leverage and we have commenced marketing efforts with new lenders on a couple of joint venture properties.
We anticipate executing a short-term extension, our $100 million first mortgage or our MAP portfolio. As you know, we are a 50% partner in the joint venture, which owns a leasehold position in the portfolio of assets, and we are working with the lender to recapitalize that loan along with talking to the joint venture lender as well as the ground owner.
Regarding '23 guidance, we have narrowed our guidance by $0.04, maintaining a midpoint of $1.16 and the range is mainly attributable to the variability of our asset sales program both in terms of volume and timing as well as our projected land sales and related gains.
Our 2023 business plan includes to have the following assumptions: $100 million to $125 million second half sales with dilutions not being significant. No new property acquisitions, no anticipated ATM or share buyback activity and the share count is estimated to be 174 million diluted shares.
Looking more closely at the third quarter of 2023, we have the following general assumptions. Property level operating income will total $77 million and be $2 million ahead of the second quarter, primarily due to increased occupancy at 405 Colorado, 250 King of Prussia Road and the balance of the portfolio. Our FFO contribution from our unconsolidated joint ventures will total $1.5 million for the third quarter. The sequential decrease is primarily due to higher interest rate expense, primarily Commerce Square's refinancing and then higher interest rates on our MAP JV as a very favorable swap matures on August 1 and a slightly negative impact for the commencing of our residential operations.
Our G&A expense will decrease from our second quarter to $8 million due to reduced restricted share compensation. Our interest expense, including deferred financing costs, will approximate $26 million and capitalized interest will approximate $3 million. Termination fee and other income will total $1.5 million for the quarter. Net management and leasing development fees will be $3.4 million as we continue to forecast higher third-party lease commission income. Land gain in sales and tax provision will net to $1 million gain representing 2 forecasted land sales. As we look at our capital plan, as Jerry mentioned, we experienced better forecasted CAD payout ratio of 84%, primarily due to leasing capital costs being below our business plan range. Since our first half CAD payout rate was better than forecasted, we have adjusted our annual 2023 CAD range from 95% to 105% to 90% to 100%. Our capital plan for the second half of the year is very straightforward and totals $220 million.
More importantly, we continue to prioritize liquidity and still project no borrowings on the $600 million unsecured line of credit at the end of 2023. Uses for the balance of '23 are comprised of $90 million of development and redevelopment projects, $66 million of common dividends, $10 million of revenue create capital, $30 million of revenue -- sorry, $10 million of revenue maintained capital, $30 million of revenue create capital and $24 million equity contributions to our joint ventures. Primary sources are $105 million of cash flow after interest payments, $10 million projected on our construction loan for 155 King of Prussia Road, $15 million increase in cash will be the result, and we do have $120 million of land and other property sales.
Based on this capital plan outlined above, we project having full line availability at the end of the year. We also project that our net debt-to-EBITDA will fall at the upper end of our range of 7.0 to 7.3 and then the minimal projected income by year-end on the development projects. Our debt-to-GAV will be in the 40% to 42% range, and our core net debt-to-EBITDA range of 6.2 to 6.5 by the end of the year, which excludes our joint ventures and our active development projects.
We continue to believe this core leverage metric reflects the leverage of our core portfolio and emulates more highly levered joint ventures at our unstabilized development and redevelopment projects. We believe these ratios are elevated due to our growing development pipeline and believe that once these developments are stabilized, our leverage will decrease back towards the core leverage ratio.
We anticipate our debt service and interest coverage ratios to approximate 2.7, which represents a sequential decrease in our coverage ratios due to our projected development spend and higher interest rates. I'll now turn the call back over to Jerry.

Gerard H. Sweeney

Thanks, Tom. So I guess the key takeaways would be the portfolio is in solid shape. We do recognize there remains some negative overtones on office in the future of office, but we are seeing an increasingly build up in our pipeline as well as tour activity. Major challenge is getting decisions made. But the clear dynamic of the flight to quality, I think we're benefiting from throughout our portfolio.
We've also taken a number of steps over the last number of quarters to make sure that our annual average square foot rollover exposure through '26 is only 7.3% with strong mark-to-markets, manageable capital spend and hopefully a continued acceleration of our leasing velocity. We have covered all of our wholly owned near-term liquidity needs. We -- our business plan is predicated upon ensuring ample liquidity by keeping our line of credit at 0. We are actively pursuing a whole range of other financing activities to ensure that liquidity position and our leverage metrics continue to improve. And our business plan is based upon improving liquidity and keeps our operating portfolio on very solid footing with a good forward leasing pipeline to continue executing over the next couple of quarters.
So as usual and where we started, we really do wish you and all of your families well. And with that, we're delighted to open up the floor to questions, Tanya. We do ask in the interest of time, you limit yourself to one question and a follow-up.

Question and Answer Session

Operator

(Operator Instructions) And our first question will come from Steve Sakwa of Evercore ISI.

Stephen Thomas Sakwa

I was wondering if you could just maybe expound a little bit on the leasing pipeline. I mean those numbers seem very large in relation to the size of the development pipeline, but obviously, you haven't gotten anything over the finish line. And I'm just curious from a decision-making standpoint, what sort of holding back CEOs, CFOs. Is it this pending recession that continues to get pushed out? Is it uncertainty over rates? Like what sort of gets people to finally make this decision?

Gerard H. Sweeney

Yes. Steve, great question. It's Jerry. I think a couple of things, and George, certainly feel free to chime in. But I think when we look at the development pipeline in particular, those buildings are reaching kind of the latter stage of their physical construction. So lobbies are now done, amenity floors are being completed. It shows a real high-quality building. So I think we've always seen in all of our development projects over the years, Steve, an acceleration of pipeline as the building nears completion. So that was a trend line we would expect to see. And I think we're frankly pretty happy even given the slowness of the Austin, Texas market with the size of the pipeline bill we've had there just in the last quarter.
We are working every moment of every day to figure out the algorithm of how we get people to execute leases. The major thing that we are seeing is that there is general concern about macroeconomic conditions and tripling these larger-sized leases, these companies are committing a huge amount of their own capital to move into new office and life science space. The negative overtones or the lack of clarity on where the economy is going, is certainly playing into that theme. I've had a number of direct conversations with some of the C-suite executives, some of our key prospects and they walk away incredibly excited about the quality of the project we're presenting to them. And when they go back to their own offices, start to pencil through the cost of relocation, I think that's giving them a little bit of a pause.
So we have not heard anything relative to any of our specific projects. It's holding anything back, in fact, quite the contrary. I think we have -- generally, after a tour, we have a very high level of enthusiasm by the prospect it tends to be more as they work through their own financial situation what they view as the appropriate time to pull the trigger and sign a long-term lease tends to be the bigger gating issue. But the pipeline itself continues to grow, very good diversity within that pipeline itself between large and small users. Very happy with what we're seeing here in Philadelphia in terms of the mix between office and life science prospects.
All that being said, our focus remains on getting some lease executions done. And we have a number of prospects in space planning. We have a number of prospects we're working through letters of intent on a couple of lease negotiations. But we remain very anxious to report to all of you some definitive lease signs. We know that projects will lease up even with the increased cost, we get the return on cost metrics the same because we're meeting very little resistance on our rental pricing, but we know we have some work to deliver there, Steve.

Stephen Thomas Sakwa

Great. And I guess on the follow-up, you touched on this state of Texas lease. And I guess, just to maybe paraphrase, it sounds like you're not really questioning, I guess, their ability to cancel a lease, but maybe did they provide proper notification and kind of when the lease may actually terminate? Or is there something even questioning the ability to cancel the lease? And I guess I'm just trying to make sure, is it more of an if they could cancel it or more about when it would get canceled?

Gerard H. Sweeney

Well, I want to be careful in my commentary, but the lease we executed with the state of Texas contained a standard provision in all state of Texas, say, all to the extent we can determine all state of Texas leases. That essentially -- and we see that a number of other government agency lease as well that gives the sovereign, the state of the federal government the right to cancel the lease to the extent that appropriations are withdrawn to support that agency. There -- and in addition to that, there are certain other requirements in the lease about that filling the space with other state agencies and complying with some other notice requirements as well as providing evidence of non-appropriation.
So at this point, I want to say whether they have -- if they have the right to cancel or if they do, when that would be effective, I think given the lateness of this notice, we're still tracking down both from a business, political and legal front what the most appropriate steps for us to take are. This lease termination could have significant implications in the state of Texas. Since, as I mentioned, most, if not all, the state leases have this provision in them to the extent we've been able to determine it's never been exercised before. So we have a lot of work to go through before we determine if the notice we received was valid or not. But in the interest of full disclosure, as soon as we received that and we thought it was appropriate to disclose that to our shareholders immediately. And as a consequence, we've taken those forward revenue, the rents would receive under that lease out of our revenue projections and FFO for the balance of '23.
So work to do there as well. And certainly, we are collaborating with the various agencies to try and come to the right answer.

Operator

And our next question will come from Camille Bonnel of Bank of America.

Jing Xian Tan Bonnel

Good morning. Can you talk to the retention dynamics during the quarter? I noticed you held your guidance on this. So just trying to understand if any particular tenant or lease contributed to this. Or are you seeing stickier behavior, but keeping guidance in case of situations like ATX?

George D. Johnstone

Yes. Camille, this is George. I'll handle that one. I mean we had a very strong quarter in terms of the second quarter at 71%, but we do have 2 pending move-outs still to come. One is a 55,000 square foot tenant in our Plymouth Meeting portfolio during the third quarter and then another is a 69,000 square foot tenant in Radnor, who will vacate in the fourth quarter. So those 2 known forward move-outs are really the reason why we've maintained the full year retention guidance.

Jing Xian Tan Bonnel

Helpful. And my follow-up on a different topic. As you've been to the market a few times this year to execute on different financing as part of your liquidity enhancement program, and you're now looking to execute on the construction loan at 155 King Prussia. I know this asset is 100% pre-leased, but do you get a sense from your discussions with the lenders, there's still appetite to issue construction loans at the targeted 60% LTV or is there something under discussion?

Thomas E. Wirth

Camille, it's Tom. I think on a fully -- it will depend on the tenant that's going in and the terms of their lease, but on this build-to-suit that we have, in particular, no, I think there is lender appetite for the transaction. I think they may ask for a little more credit enhancement in the way of recourse, but nothing too significant. And so I do think sponsorship is also important and the interest we did get on the loan, and we do expect to close with one of our banks that we have a good relationship with is that we did go to banks that we do know. So I do think that market is open for a good tenant with good terms on the lease and also good sponsorship.

Operator

And our next question will come from Michael Griffin of Citi.

Michael Anderson Griffin

I had a question on the Commerce Square JV. I'm curious if the refinancing was contingent on you contributing more equity. And if so, do you see more upside in owning more of this property longer term? And anything you could add there would be great.

Gerard H. Sweeney

It's Jerry. Tom and I can tap team this. Look, I think the -- we were delighted to get the financing done. It's a challenging market. It's a big loan, had great debt yield coverage. Normally, it would be a slam dunk, but it was a -- we were fortunate the CMBS market was open. We think that market will remain open, so that could be a viable source of future financings as well.
Look, I think as we assess Commerce, and you take a look at the trend line, it's a great asset with significant NOI growth potential. We've had excellent leasing in the last several quarters with increasing -- really strong positive mark-to-market rents and good control of our capital costs. We think there's a really good pipeline building with leases in process. The neighborhood is also improving. It's becoming much more of an infill location with new residential and commercial development, has great on-site parking a retail base.
I guess our read was with our debt service costs increasing significantly, the preferred structure we put in place a number of years ago, which was a fairly expensive cost of capital for us. The accrual on that preferred continuing to click away. We felt that given what we see as the increasingly positive trajectory of that property and the cost of the new debt and the preferred that given our liquidity vision, we were in a position to kind of pay down some of that accrual, redeem some of the preferred equity position to increase our overall stake and position ourselves to maximize value going forward.

Michael Anderson Griffin

And then my next one is just on the development pipeline. I think you talked about pushing out some of the stabilization dates from last quarter. When do you have to start seeing leasing on some of these properties to get you confident to hit those targeted stabilized yields?

Gerard H. Sweeney

Yes, I think in the next couple of quarters. And I think, Michael, as we went through the assessment of what to do with those stabilization dates, we kind of went through the line item by line item in the pipeline and kind of rolled out what we thought we could actually deliver. So we think in the next couple of quarters, we need to be posting some leasing activity to meet those stabilization dates.

Operator

And our next question will come from Michael Lewis of Truist Securities.

Michael Robert Lewis

Jerry and Tom, you both gave a lot of color on the Commerce Square refi and some of the work that you have left to do on other JV refinancing. Maybe there's not much more to say on this, but I think it's interesting how office refis are getting done these days. And so I'm curious if you could share a little more about the inner workings of why an 8% stake, how you settled on that, how you settled on the asset value and maybe share the value that was priced at about 8% interest. Just kind of color on how these deals get done and how they were at maybe Commerce Square as an example.

Gerard H. Sweeney

Yes. Again, Michael, thanks for the question. I mean our other JVs, let me start with that and Tom and I can talk about Commerce as well. We have partners in all those. Commerce is unique because we're a majority partner there. It's a share of control, so it's an unconsolidated joint venture. In our other joint ventures on the operating side, we're -- other than that, we're kind of 15% to 20% owners. So number one, we have good partners. Number two, we have great relationship with those partners and we're working with them very closely on the recapitalization strategy for each of those individual ventures. All the loans at these ventures are completely nonrecourse. There's varying degrees of investment position at both Brandywine and our partners have. And in all the joint ventures, the operating performance of those have tended to outperform the respective markets they're in. So we've maintained very good credibility in operating in a capital investment standpoint with our lenders.
So our lenders, I think their advises to be cooperative and understand the challenges of getting themselves refinanced out. So I think as Tom touched on, we do anticipate that in many of these situations, we'll be able to bridge through until there's more liquidity in the overall capital markets. And that will be a collaborative discussion with our partner and the lender. In case of the MAP joint ventures there, we are a partner with Sculpture that there's -- we own the leasehold. There's a third party that owns the fee. So there, we're in discussion with the fee owner, the leasehold lender and our partner on the best way to recapitalize that.
I think the structure of those operating joint ventures is different than Commerce because they're all common equity joint venture. They're powered to sue joint ventures. Commerce has this preferred structure, which kind of creates a different waterfall that we're looking at in terms of what's the best approach for us to maximize value out of that venture. So I don't know, Tom, do you want to add any color to that.

Thomas E. Wirth

Michael, on that, I guess, on the financing itself, we look at the amount of debt we wanted to put on. In fact, we probably could have added a bit more of good news capital to that loan. And as Jerry pointed out, we wanted to make sure -- we were mindful of where the debt service coverage would go. And our partner was as well being in the preferred equity structure.
In terms of the contribution that we made to the venture, it was broken down into a couple of pieces. So I know that you put in some implied rates of per square foot and cap rate. And for us, it was a bit lower than that. We did repay, as Jerry mentioned in his comments, some of the accrued preferred dividends that we had in the project, there's components to both current and accrued. So our contribution not only bought the 8% increase in us, but also paid off some accrued returns. So the metrics are a bit lower than the ones you had added. It's more like mid-200s a foot and at a cap rate a little above 7%. So not quite at the numbers that you look at by just taking the $50 million and putting it across the 8%.

Michael Robert Lewis

Okay. I thought that's helpful. And then my second question, the same-store NOI growth looks like it was driven mostly by lower expenses, particularly real estate taxes, was there anything onetime in there? Or any color on what drove that?

George D. Johnstone

Yes, Michael, it's George. We did have a significant reduction in real estate taxes in our Austin, Texas portfolio. The Travis County Appraisal District had come through and had lowered appraised values. So given the triple-net nature of those leases at our current 86% occupancy in Austin, a lot of that then also lowered tenant reimbursements as we approve the reimbursement back to the tenant. But -- so that was really kind of the onetime event for real estate taxes.

Operator

And our next question will come from Bill Crow of Raymond James.

William Andrew Crow

Jerry, life science space has been in the spotlight a little bit here lately. And I was wondering what your take is on the actual physical return to occupancy levels you're seeing in the overall demand level for life science base.

Gerard H. Sweeney

Yes, Bill, I mean certainly, the occupancy levels in the lab and research space are much higher than generally in the office because they need to be on site to do that work. And that has really prompted for many of the life science companies that we're dealing with. A full -- kind of a full return to the workplace. So there's equality among the employee base. And I think that's a trend line we anticipate to continue to accelerate. We're seeing more and more companies generally bring people back 3 or 4 days a week. So I hope that trend line will continue.
I think on the life science side, we're -- look, demand is slower than it would have been this time last year. I mean the -- we have a number of companies who are going through FDA trials. We have a number of companies that are in the process of raising additional financings. We're seeing all the deals in the marketplace. So the overall pipeline is up. I think the other question earlier, I mean, I think macro conditions are having some level of impact upon when they're able to make decisions. But the pipeline on the life science side, continues to build, particularly here in University City. We're seeing a good pipeline of activity out in our Radnor portfolio as well. And some of those are some -- I mean the range of credit worthiness is from AAA credits down to emerging growth company.
So we're being very, very diligent on making sure we understand the financial condition of some of these tenants. Working through our B Labs partnership with the PA Biotech Council, they have a scientific advisory board. There's other scientists that we've gotten involved in helping give us some assessment on the validity of the science and the probability of FDA approval in addition to doing our normal balance sheet review. But while demand is muted, it's -- so is also supply. Supply levels are down significantly in terms of planned starts down. Our competition here in University City is really 3 or 4 buildings where 4 or 6 quarters ago, could have been much higher than that. So I think the supply side has come in significantly. I think our location and the quality of the buildings we're presenting will hold us in very good stead as the demand drivers come to fruition in terms of lease executions.

William Andrew Crow

And one quick follow-up. How much did the tax assessor and the appraiser in Austin lower the values by?

Gerard H. Sweeney

How much of the appraisal lower the values by?

George D. Johnstone

Bill, I'm going to have to follow up with you. I don't have that information with me.

William Andrew Crow

Okay. Just curious, average number.

Operator

And our next question will come from Dylan Burzinski of Green Street.

Dylan Robert Burzinski

Just curious, expectations for net effective rent in the back half of the year and headed into 2024. Is this a scenario where we could start to see some relief and growing the net effective rent side of things?

George D. Johnstone

Yes, Dylan. It's George again. I'll be happy to take that one. Yes, I mean, we're seeing net effective rent growth. I mean the fact that we're being able to control capital the way we are, asking rental rates have not come under much scrutiny or pressure. And so I think really across both city and suburbs here in Pennsylvania, we're seeing a strong positive net effective rent growth. I think in Austin, right now, I think just given a 16% vacancy, we are competing a little bit more aggressively there. And we're probably kind of flat to maybe slightly negative on net effective in Austin in the suburban pockets that we have in the operating portfolio.

Gerard H. Sweeney

Yes, I think to add to that, Dylan. I think one of the other dynamics we're seeing, and you may hear the same thing from some of the other office peers is as tenants are returning to the office more and more, they are looking for better quality workplaces. So even though there may not be the level of net absorption in some of these markets, the levels of leasing activity are still pretty decent. And that leasing activity is still willing to pay a positive rent premium to where they're moving from because the buildings are more efficient. They may actually be taking a lower amount of space. But the reality is that the physical platform they're providing for their employees is a significant improvement of where they're coming from. That's why one I think one of the real strong stats we had this quarter was about 60-plus percent of our new leasing activity was coming from tenants moving up the quality curve and we were still able to post very good mark-to-markets and net effect of rent growth.
So that's the stat we track very carefully because that's a harbinger of where we see effective rents can go. So as long as tenants continue to be willing to pay up in rent to move into the better quality buildings, we do see a continued progression of growth in net effective rents. And obviously, there are some markets are different as George touched on with Austin. I mean, there, there's still sublease space that we're competing against. Some of that sublease space is in high-quality buildings. And to the extent that they are willing to discount rents, that creates a little bit of downward pressure on us, which is why in our business plan, we've really assumed negative mark-to-market for the balance of the year on our targeted Austin leasing activity.

Dylan Robert Burzinski

And then appreciate you guys' comments on how the lending environment remains challenging for office. But just curious, in your discussions with lenders, is there a certain debt yield that they're targeting?

Thomas E. Wirth

Dylan, this is Tom. I think that we've been seeing debt yields that are in the low double digits. It will depend on the property and the tenancy, but they are in the low double digits in terms of debt yields that they are looking to target.

Operator

And our last question will come from Anthony Paolone of JPMorgan.

Anthony Paolone

I wanted to follow up on the life science leasing pipeline. I think you mentioned 400,000 square feet for 3151, and it's almost the size of the whole building. So that seems positive. But just what's the alternative universe for the folks looking at that project? Like just trying to understand how much share you all might need to get that project build up and also, I guess, relevant for the space of 3025 as well.

Gerard H. Sweeney

Tony, the competitive set in University City is primarily 3 other buildings, 2 others of which are under construction. We think each building is fairly good in quality. Their delivery times are different. So to some degree, whether it'll be in the mix or not in the mix with a prospect today will really be based upon their delivery time frame.
In addition to University City, although we compete with those buildings, sometimes some of these tenants look in different submarkets, whether it be the Navy Yard or out in the Pennsylvania suburbs, particularly Radnor. But the universe is much smaller than it was, as I mentioned in a previous comment, 4 to 6 quarters ago. I mean I think the upside to the downside of the lending activity is that not a lot of products are getting financed. In addition to that, given the increase in cost, the yield requirements are higher as well. So that the lower supply coming online and the increased cost to build these buildings, not from a hard cost, but now from a soft cost standpoint, are pushing rent levels up fairly significantly in order to have the numbers pencil.
So we think that trend line will be in place through the stabilization dates of both 3025 and 3151. We think even within that competitive space, we think the proximity of Schuylkill Yards to the train -- to the regional rail network, to 30th Street Train Station, proximity of the Schuylkill River Trail, easy walk to the CBD and all the amenities there does position us very strongly against the competitive set. That being said, as I mentioned earlier, we know we need to get some of these leasing -- lease prospects across the finish line. That's our core focus.

Anthony Paolone

Okay. And then I guess just a follow-up one, relates to the dividend. You talked about focus on our liquidity, but also a little bit of improvement in the payout. I'm just wondering, is there a point in time where the Board just takes a finer look at the dividend and you all reassess? Just how to think about the calculus around the dividend right now?

Gerard H. Sweeney

Sure. Look, a fair question. And to amplify, the Board takes a hard look at this every quarter. And some of the factors come into play on that is obviously our own portfolio performance, how our capital plan is progressing, what our forward leasing pipeline looks like in terms of NOI accretion and then we spend a fair amount of time really talking about kind of macro conditions as well as Brandywine's overall liquidity needs. We'll make -- we'll have that same discussion in September as we start to contemplate the third quarter dividend distribution.
Look, our capital plan, as Tom outlined and as referenced in the SIP is doing much better than our original forecast. We have done a good job of navigating some challenging orders in the financing markets to meet our financing objectives. That being said, we still have work to do. And that work needs to be done against the backdrop of a very challenging capital market environment. So variable right now is the pace of sales activity and the pricing which some of those sales take place and how some of these joint venture loan negotiations go. And I think by September, we'll be able to provide the Board with some additional clarity on those points, and then we'll sit down and make a decision on what we think the third quarter and any four dividends may be.
But the fact that we can cover our dividend today based upon our revised forecast, that's a positive, but we got to keep in mind that that's a Brandywine specific situation versus us dealing with a very challenging macro market condition.

Operator

I would now like to turn the call back to Jerry for closing remarks.

Gerard H. Sweeney

Tanya, thank you very much. Everyone, thank you for participating in our second quarter earnings call. We will look forward to keeping you updated on our next third quarter earnings call in the fall. Enjoy the rest of the summer, and thank you again for your engagement.

Operator

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.