BXP, Inc. (BXP) Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to BXP Q2 2026 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 11 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advised in your hand as raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. We ask that you please limit your questions to no more than one, but feel free to go back into the queue, and if time permits, we'll be happy to take your follow-up questions at that time. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker, Helen Hahn, Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Good morning, and welcome to BXP's second quarter 2026 earnings conference call. The press release and supplemental package were distributed last night and furnished on Form 8K. In a supplemental package, BXP has reconciled all non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measure in accordance with Reg G. If you did not receive a copy, these documents are available in the Investor section of our website at investors.bxp.com. A webcast of this call will be available for 12 months. At this time, we would like to inform you that certain statements made during this conference call, which are not historical may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. Although BXP believes the expectations reflected in any forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, it can give no assurance that its expectations will be attained. Factors and risks that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by forward-looking statements were detailed in yesterday's press release and from time to time in BXP's filings with the SEC. BXP does not undertake a duty to update any forward-looking statements. I'd like to welcome Owen Thomas, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Doug Lindy, President, and Mike LaBelle, Chief Financial Officer. During the Q&A portion of our call, our regional management teams will be available to address any questions. We ask that those of you participating in the Q&A portion of the call to please limit yourself to one and only one question. If you have an additional query or follow-up, please feel free to rejoin the queue. I would now like to turn the call over to Owen Thomas for his formal remarks.

Thank you, Helen, and good morning to all of you. BXP delivered a very strong second quarter, both operationally and financially. FFO per share exceeded both our guidance and consensus estimates by eight cents, and we raised the midpoint of our 2026 FFO per share guidance by five cents. We also made meaningful progress against the business plan we articulated at last year's investor conference. Leasing results were strong, in-service portfolio occupancy increased significantly, additional asset sales progressed, and our development pipeline was active with project deliveries, launches, leasing, and capital raising. Our first business plan priority is to lease space and improve portfolio occupancy. We had a great quarter, completing nearly 1.8 million square feet of leasing, 29 percent above our 10-year historical average for the second quarter. Year-to-date, we've leased over 3 million square feet, and our in-service portfolio occupancy also rose materially and for the third quarter in a row. This outcome reflects strong execution by our leasing teams, as well as a very healthy the environment for leasing premier workplaces. AI continues to be enormously beneficial to BXP's leasing activity. Our current and prospective clients are generally experiencing increasing earnings in an AI-powered U.S. economy, are more often expanding than contracting their space requirements, and in many cases are also upgrading their space. We are leasing space to AI companies in San Francisco, New York, Boston, and Seattle, to companies displaced by growing AI firms, and to our core financial, legal, and business services clients that support the AI industry. While AI's long-term impacts remain difficult to predict, research shows that technology advances historically increase the share of office-based jobs. Additionally, AI will likely exert a greater impact on less adaptive back office workers, and these roles make up a smaller share of employment in knowledge center gateway markets and in premier workplaces. Further, it is reasonable to believe non-office using remote jobs, which generally have more process and analytical content than interpersonal requirements, will be more disrupted by AI. Lastly, companies winning in an AI-enabled economy will be more profitable and face more intense competition for talent, leading to less price-sensitive demand for easily commutable and desirable workplaces for their employees. For all these reasons, we believe premier workplaces located in gateway market knowledge centers are positioned at best to benefit from and at worst to be the most immune from AI impacts on the labor force. As proof, the premier workplace segment of the office market where BXP is a clear leader continues to materially outperform the broader office market. Premier workplaces represent roughly the top 14% of space and 8% of buildings in the four CBD markets where BXP has a major presence. Direct vacancy for premier workplaces in these four markets is 8% versus 13.5% for the broader office market, while asking rents for premier workplaces continue to command a premium of more than 60 percent over the non-premier buildings. With an 8 percent vacancy rate, positive net absorption, and limited new construction on the horizon, premier workplaces and BXP's core markets are set up for material rent increases, which has already commenced in many sub-markets. Given these positive market forces, we are well on our way to accomplishing our two percentage point occupancy gain goal in 2026, reinforcing our confidence that our target of four percentage points of total occupancy improvement over 26 and 27 remains very much on track. Our second business plan goal is to raise capital and optimize our portfolio through asset sales. At our investor conference, we communicated an objective to generate in aggregate $1.9 billion in net sale proceeds by 2028 from the sale of land, residential, and non-strategic office assets. We continue to make progress in the second quarter and are well ahead of schedule. We have raised $370 million in total net sale proceeds so far this year and more than $1.2 billion since our investor conference. In addition, we have six assets under contract for sale with total net proceeds of approximately $240 million, $180 million of which is scheduled to close in 2026. Two of the assets currently under contract for sale are office buildings in Washington, D.C., which are scheduled to close this quarter. We're also in various stages of marketing several additional assets, including seven times square in New York City. As of now, future net proceeds from dispositions possible in 2026 could aggregate up to an additional $500 million, bringing our total net proceeds from asset sales to $1.7 billion by year-end, and we continue to explore additional capital-raising opportunities. Supporting our disposition efforts, office transaction volume in the private markets remains reasonably healthy, with financing available at scale, particularly in the CMBS market. In the second quarter, significant office sales were $12.6 billion, down 13% from the first quarter and essentially flat from the second quarter of 2025. Though there continue to be very few premier workplace assets trading, there were a couple of transactions in the quarter with relevance to BXP's portfolio. One Marina Park Drive located in the Seaport District of Boston is under agreement to sell for approximately $435 million, which represents pricing of nearly $900 a foot and an initial cap rate in the low 7% range. The asset comprises 495,000 square feet, is 99% leased with above market rents, and is being sold by an advisor to the operating arm of a non-U.S. pension plan. Further, Tower One at West Main, located in downtown Bellevue, Washington, is under agreement to sell for approximately $340 million, representing pricing of around $930 a square foot and a six and three quarters initial cap rate. The 365,000 square foot building is fully leased to Amazon on a long-term basis and was sold by a local developer to an advisor. BXP's third business plan goal is to grow FFO through new developments, selectively with office given market conditions, and more actively for multifamily with an equity partner. For office, we have and expect to allocate more capital to developments than acquisitions due to the materially higher yields available. This quarter, we delivered into service 290 Benny Street, a 570,000 square foot lab building fully leased to AstraZeneca located in the life science nexus of East Cambridge. The project is a great example of BXP's development skills, creating value for shareholders, where we established development rights through executing a complex infrastructure enhancement. We fully leased the asset before commencement. We sold a 45% stake in the property at a profit to a financial partner, and we delivered the project $20 million below budget and two months ahead of schedule. BXP's $488 million investment for its share of the project is yielding an 8.9% unleveraged cash return and a 10.3% gap return. BXP's largest development underway is 343 Madison Avenue, our premier workplace tower in New York City with direct access to Grand Central Terminal. This past quarter, we signed a 148,000 square foot lease with McDermott, Will, and Schulte at the bottom of the high-rise bank of the building and star expanded by two floors in the mid-rise, bringing us to 50 percent lease. Further, we are in lease negotiations with a 2-4 client in the podium, which, if completed, would bring us to 56% lease. Lastly, we are exchanging proposals with another client requiring five floors at the base of the podium, which would bring the project to nearly 70% lease. Though we have received single floor inquiries for the seven floors remaining at the top of the building, we expect continued rent appreciation and will likely lease these floors closer to delivery, given their ability to command market-leading rents. We have procured 94% of the construction costs on budget. Leasing economics have been at or above forecast and our projections remain on track for a stabilized unleveraged cash return of seven and a half to eight percent upon delivery in 2029. Yesterday we closed a 60 percent loan to cost 1.2 billion dollar construction loan for the project on attractive terms and have a letter of intent with an equity partner for an 80 million dollar investment representing a 10 percent interest in the project with a basis above our costs. We expect the equity investment to close this quarter and our marketing efforts continue with the goal of ultimately monetizing a total of 30 to 50 percent of the project over time. The value of the development continues to rise as we lease space and get closer to delivery. This past quarter we launched the development of our WorldGate multifamily project comprising 359 wood frame residential units located in Herndon, Virginia. The project's budgeted cost is $132 million, and we have secured a financial partner to supply 80% of the equity as well as the construction financing. BXP originally bought into the Worldgate property, which comprised an empty office building and parking garage on 10 acres in 2023. The project was rezoned for residential, the for sale component is under contract for sale to a home builder, and the apartment development will entail demolishing the office building and utilizing the structured parking. BXP will earn a profit from the total monetization of our investment in WorldGate and has reinvested our share of the proceeds from the contribution to the apartment land back into the development joint venture for a 20 percent interest. We have additional residential projects in Weston, Massachusetts and Santa Monica, California, that we are intending to launch next year. This past quarter, we also signed a 320,000 square foot long-term lease with Boston Dynamics, which will create a state-of-the-art robotics and AI center at Reservoir Place, a 360,000 square foot office building BXP had taken out of service in Waltham. We will invest 87 million dollars to retrofit the building and expect to earn an initial cash return of over 10 percent, including an inferred value for the existing improvements. The project is expected to be delivered into service in the second quarter next year. BXB's current development pipeline, comprising seven office and residential projects underway, totaling three and a half million square feet and 3.2 billion dollars of BXB investment, will continue to deliver external growth over the longer term. So in conclusion, BXP is set up well for success. New construction for office has virtually halted, already leading to higher occupancy and rent growth in most submarkets where BXP operates. Debt capital is readily available for premier workplaces at attractive credit spreads. BXP continues to capture market share driven by our stability, reliable client service, and lighter competitive landscape across many markets. BXP remains comfortably on track with our business plan, which, if successful, will lead to increasing portfolio occupancy and FFO per share, deleveraging, external growth from development, and a more AI-enabled gateway CBD premier workplace-concentrated portfolio in the years ahead. Over to Doug.

Thanks, Owen. Good morning, everybody. Owen did a really great job of articulating our theory on why AI is so critically important to the demand picture. Equally important, perhaps, as a public company, the rhetoric and the conjecture around the impact of new AI technology on the future of office using jobs has gotten much more balanced and constructive. What a change from where we were in February this year. In each of our markets, our portfolio has seen a pickup in demand. In our best markets, that demand is coming from clients that are expanding across a wide spectrum of industries, though varying by market, technology, AI, defense and cybersecurity, asset management, financial services, and professional services. In our other markets, the demand is due to decisions around upgrading space or changes in geographic preference as our clients look to maximize the desirability of their space for their associates. It's all encouraging for the premier office product. BXP had great top-line revenue results this quarter and I want to focus my time on the improvements in our occupancy which drove much of that outperformance. In June when we were with you at Nary, we told you that we believe that our leasing progress was ahead of schedule relative to our anticipated occupancy pickup. We ended 2025 at 86.7% occupied we finished the second the first quarter at 87.4 and as of 6 30 26 were 88.4 percent occupied so we've gained 170 of 200 basis points that we originally expected for 2026 we had guided to an average occupancy during the year of 88.2 percent and we're ahead of plan while the individual transactions may be very granular the simple explanation is that we leased space more quickly than we expected. Most importantly, we continue to lease vacant and near-term expiring space. In the first quarter, BXP's total leasing volume was 1.14 million square feet, and we executed leases on 700,000 square feet of vacant space. In the second quarter, we completed 1.76 million square feet and covered an additional 380,000 square feet of vacant space and renewed or backfilled 600,000 square feet of 26 and 27 expirations. 190,000 square feet of our activity this quarter was at 343 Madison and as Owen mentioned 322,000 square feet was with Boston Dynamics at Reservoir Place. All vacant space but those are not in-service properties. We start the third quarter with a signed but not occupied portfolio of about 1.3 million square feet with 1.1 million expected to commence in 2026. The remaining calendar year 26 known expirations are down to 300,000 square feet. So this means we're going to pick up 800,000 square feet of occupancy or another 170 basis points and close of the year closer to 90% than 89%. Our 2027 expirations currently stand at 1.77 million square feet. We have known vacates of about a million and have good clarity on about 550,000 square feet of either renewals or replacement tenants for those expirations. We also have 250,000 square feet of signed leases that we expect to commence in 27. Our pipeline of leases either executed or in negotiation after the second quarter, stands at 1.3 million, with about 350,000 square feet of that involving vacant space. In addition, our active discussions is approaching 1.7 million square feet, and that could impact another 450,000 square feet of current vacancy. In total, this in-process activity is at about the same level it was last quarter, and it reinforces our confidence in our year-end 27 occupancy expectation of 91%. Our leasing spreads this quarter were up significantly in Boston and New York and down in D.C. and on the West Coast. A couple of insights on the data. In Boston this quarter, all of the activity emanated from our CBD portfolio. In New York, about 25% of the square footage was in Princeton. Our midtown Manhattan properties were up 14%. In San Francisco, 40% of the square footage in the statistics this quarter was in Mountain View, where the new leases reset at rents of about $45 triple net. And in Seattle, 70% of the square footage came from a low-cost expansion with a technology company at Madison Center, i.e. very little in the way of TIs. This quarter, we executed 21 leases over 20,000 square feet in the in-service portfolio, 48% of the square footage was renewals, extensions, or expansions, and 52% was with new clients. Existing client expansions encompassed 275,000 square feet of that activity, and we had about 50,000 square feet of current clients contract. In the BXP portfolio, Midtown Manhattan, the Back Bay of Boston, and Reston, Virginia continue to have the tightest supply and therefore the most landlord-favorable market conditions. While San Francisco and Manhattan are dominating the landscape when it comes to technology, aka AI demand, it doesn't mean we're not seeing it elsewhere. We completed about 170,000 square feet of leasing in our back pay portfolio. We're also starting to see our first wave of renewals at 888 Boyleson Street, where the embedded market rent growth is somewhere between 20 and 25 percent. First of those deals happened this quarter. The highlights of this quarter in the Boston region was this 322,000 square foot lease with Boston Dynamics, which illustrates our point on and around AI leading to increased demand. This facility will house Boston Dynamics Advanced Robotic and AI Center. Along with the lease, they announced expected hiring of over 1,000 new employees. In our Urban Edge portfolio, we continue to see lackluster demand around the lab space market. While the life science capital markets are very active with a series of Boston-area IPOs and several big pharma acquisitions of Boston-bred biotechs, capital raising around the startup sector continues to be slow. It's the series BCD companies that eventually move out of incubators into proprietary space that's still missing in the market. We continue to make progress at our Quarry Asset, our largest availability in the urban edge, where we are in lease with a 50,000 square foot client, another life science company that's building 100% office space in our facility. In New York, at 360 Park Avenue South, we are at least to the last floor, again from an expanding AI tech company, which will bring the building to 100% occupied. This quarter, we completed an extension and expansion with Rogo, a client that developed AI tools specifically for financial institutions that also announced job expansions. Across Madison Park at 205th, we're in lease for the remaining available space and when complete, we'll be 100% lease there as well. These two assets had almost 750,000 square feet of available space at the end of the first quarter of 2025. Our activity north of 42nd Street in Midtown this quarter also included expansions from financial advisors, asset management firms, law firms that totaled 100,000 square feet. We also did 10 transactions in Princeton totaling over 100,000 square feet. In San Francisco, the most significant momentum in our portfolio continues to be at 680 Folsom and 50 Hawthorne. During the quarter, we executed a 63,000 square foot lease, and we are in discussions now with an applied AI company for a 35,000 square foot floor, and we're talking with an existing AI client about expanding into the final available floor at 680 Folsom. We've also had success with smaller technology companies expanding at 535 and at Embarcadero Center. We recently completed two transactions or in discussions with three more. We are approaching our first significant initial lease-up expirations at Salesforce Tower in 27. Here we believe current market rents are 30% to 40% higher than the expired rents in the building and still would be a significant discount to new construction economics. It's really hard to find holes in the San Francisco demand picture when you've had 3 million square feet of positive absorption over the last two quarters. However, the one soft spot continues to be incremental demand growth from traditional financial services, professional services, and legal firms. That's sort of where the action is is the least exciting. In Mountain View, we've completed 190,000 square foot of leases. Vacant Space made up 50% of this activity, and we're in discussions with new clients for another 70,000 square feet of vacancy in the park. And in Seattle, we completed over 100,000 square foot of leasing on vacant space this quarter. This included a 44,000 square foot expansion by Stripe, following on our demand theme, another floor with an AI company that expects to grow its headcount four times in 2026. And finally, activity in D.C. this quarter was concentrated in Reston, where we leased over 125,000 square feet of 27 expiring leases to defense contractors, cyber security firms, and a financial firm. In the district, we're in negotiations to lease 100% of the space that McDermott will be vacating at 500 North Capital in late 2028 when we deliver 725-12th. With the expected sale of two office assets, we are shrinking our district portfolio prior to adding our newly leased developments. In an interim, the DC team continues to field inbound requests from law firms that want us to identify sites and develop new projects like what we've achieved at 725-12th and 2100M. In fact, we're working with an institutional owner to organize a JV, a third of these projects, and hope to have a lease commitment before the end of 2026. In summary, our assets are seeing strong demand growth. We are leasing space more quickly, and as Mike will describe, it's impacting our bottom line.

Great. Thanks, Doug. Good morning, everybody. Today, I'm going to cover our financing activities, as well as our strong results for the second quarter earnings, and an update of our full year 2026 earnings guidance. As Owen mentioned, we closed the $1.2 billion five-year construction loan to fund approximately 60% of the development cost of our 343 Madison project. The loan was competitively bid, and we experienced strong demand from our largest banking partners. the demand allowed us to achieve very attractive pricing and terms relative to recent deals in the office construction loan market and it demonstrates the engagement of institutional lenders to finance premier quality office projects with our strong sponsorship the pricing is floating at SOFR plus 250 basis points with a reduction to 225 basis points upon the achievement of project milestones and the interest expense will be capitalized into the project cost, so it will not be included in our interest expense until completion in 2029. This is an important milestone for 343 Madison, and it provides us with an additional capital source and financial flexibility. We are also focused on the upcoming refinancing of a billion-dollar unsecured bond that carries a gap interest rate of 3.5% and expires this October. While rates markets have been volatile, the bond market has been very active with credit spreads near all-time tights. Our 10-year credit spreads are trading in the low 100s, and if we were to issue a new bond today, it would likely price around 6% based on the current 10-year treasury rate. With the success of our asset sales program and the financing of 343 Madison, we may elect to use available cash to reduce the size of this financing by up to $300 million to minimize dilution. We also continue to evaluate all the refinancing alternatives available as we seek to optimize our debt capital structure and mitigate the impact of the elevated interest rate environment.

Now I would like to turn to our second quarter earnings results.

We had a very strong quarter and reported FFO of $1.78 per share that exceeded the midpoint of our guidance and consensus by $0.08 per share. Importantly, nearly all of our outperformance came from better results in portfolio and OI. Our revenues exceeded our expectations by four cents per share, comprised of three cents per share of higher rental revenues and a penny per share of higher service income. Robust leasing activity drove higher rental revenue and occupancy this quarter. The leasing demand is broad-based across the portfolio and very granular in nature. The revenue lift reflects earlier than anticipated occupancy, and I do not expect it to compound into future projections. As Doug described, our leasing activity has beaten our expectations with occupancy climbing by 100 basis points to 88.4% this quarter. We've increased our expectations for average occupancy for the year by 65 basis points to 88.9%, and we now expect to end 2026 at closer to 90% occupied. All very positive results from the healthy leasing activity and client demand we are seeing in our markets. We also generated $0.04 per share of outperformance from lower operating expenses in the portfolio. About half of this is from lower repairs and maintenance expense that I anticipate will be deferred to later in 2026 and is embedded in our expense guidance for the back half of the year. The rest came from lower utilities expense related to lighter energy consumption in the Northeast, where we are working hard to fine-tune our buildings to lower consumption and cost every day. We also had lower real estate taxes from the receipt of real estate tax abatements this quarter. We continue to aggressively appeal our real estate tax assessments throughout our portfolio and are seeing positive results in certain locations. Looking at the full year 2026, we are raising our guidance for FFO by five cents per share at the midpoint by bringing up the bottom end by nine cents to six dollars and 99 cents per share and the top end of our range by a penny to seven dollars and five cents per share strong leasing performance across our portfolio is giving us increased confidence in our growth outlook in our same property portfolio we are increasing our assumption for our share of NOI growth over 2025 by 30 basis points to between 1.8% and 2.6% the increase mirrors the accelerated occupancy growth that Doug detailed and in our development portfolio we are increasing our assumptions for NOI by three cents per share based on faster lease up and lower expenses at 360 Park as Doug mentioned we signed 50,000 square feet in the quarter and we're now in negotiations to lease the last available floor on the expense side we started capitalizing expenses at reservoir place where we commenced redevelopment this quarter with the signing of our lease with Boston dynamics. We've been extremely successful in executing our asset sales program, which is raising capital to fund our developments and reduce debt. As Owen described, we are ahead of the expectations we laid out last year at our investor day, not in the total volume of asset sales, but in our timing. The accelerated sales timing has a slightly more dilutive impact than the prior guidance that we provided, including the impact of lower net interest expense from deploying the sales proceeds to reduce debt. We expect a foregone NOI from our sales to reduce FFO by approximately two cents per share when compared to our prior assumptions. Lastly, we raised our assumption for fee income revenue by a penny per share from higher construction management fee income and leasing commissions earned from our joint venture portfolio. So to summarize, we've increased our guidance for 2026 FFO by five cents per share at the midpoint to our new range of $6.99 to $7.05 per share. The changes come from increases in our assumption for growth in our share of portfolio NOI by $0.06, lower net interest expense of $0.03, and higher fee income of a penny. These are partially offset by a reduction of NOI from asset sales of $0.05. Overall, we had a great quarter, and all phases of our business strategy are clicking. We raised both our FFO and occupancy guidance, driven by consistently strong leasing volumes and excellent progress on leasing our vacant and near-term expiring space our occupancy has now increased for three consecutive quarters and we're executing on our planned asset sales program to both reduce leverage and redeploy capital into higher yielding new developments operator that completes our formal remarks can you open the lines up for questions thank you sir as a reminder to ask a question you would need to press stall one one on your telephone.

To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. We ask that you please limit your questions to no more than one, but feel free to go back into the queue, and if time permits, we'll be happy to take your follow-up questions at that time. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. And I assure our first question comes from the line of Nicholas Uliko from Scotiabank. Please go ahead.

Thanks. So, first question, you know, clearly you have the, you know, occupancy benefit picking up in the portfolio, which will help for, you know, 2027 earnings impact. Can you just talk a little bit more, maybe, Mike, about how the asset sales are going to work in terms of, you know, the impact on 2027, you know, versus debt repayments, since I know some of the income producing asset sales are more back half-weighted, like seven times square, potentially even, And, you know, next year, is there, like, dilution we should be thinking about for 2027? And then also, in terms of the capital, just an update on whether there might be excess sale proceeds to use for stock buybacks.

So, look, on the asset sales side, as I mentioned, we're ahead of plan. No one mentioned that as well. So, the dilution in 26 is a little bit higher than we had originally stated at our investor day. In the beginning of the year, I think we said the dilution would be $0.06 to $0.09. And now if we get everything done that we expect, it will be closer to $0.11. And, you know, a good chunk, the majority of our asset sales will be completed. You know, we will evaluate, you know, going forward, incremental sales as well. Our goal remains to bring down our leverage, you know, into the lower seven times range, which gives us capacity for future investment activities and those future investment activities could include new developments could include stock buybacks and we will evaluate all of those things with respect to 2027 i mean we're really not giving guidance on 2027 right now you know the the total asset sales that we project are still 1.9 billion by 2028 and as owen described, we'll have $1.7 billion done potentially by the end of this year, which means that next year will be lighter.

Thank you. And I share our next question comes from the line of Steve Sackler from Evercore ISI. Please go ahead.

Yeah, thanks. Good morning. Given the leasing success that you're having in the, I guess, the faster ramp that you're seeing in occupancy, you know, how are you sort of thinking about the ultimate stabilized occupancy rate of the portfolio. Has that sort of changed in your mind and has the timing of that stabilization kind of been pulled forward given what you're seeing in the leasing market today?

So, Steve, this is Doug. What I would say is right now we're sort of sticking to our 91 at the end of 2027. If things were to continue in the sort of same trajectory, I think we would be more aggressive than that, but we're not ready to do that. And as I look out at our sort of lease expirations and then the available space that we have in the portfolio sort of that's left. There's a concentration of vacancy in two main areas. The first is at Embarcadero Center in San Francisco. And that's the place where I think we have the most short-term opportunity to exceed our projections, which would probably occur in late 27, early 28. And then the second place would be our sort of what I refer to as our portfolio of available space in our tertiary markets in both the urban edge of Boston, a.k.a. the suburbs, and our Colorado center portfolio in Santa Monica. Those are sort of the other two areas. And so, you know, I think that the value of that space is obviously less than a CBD property in Midtown Manhattan, the Back Bay of Boston or San Francisco. know. My guess is that we sort of max out at somewhere between 94 and 95%, right? That's as good as it's going to get. And so I think that by the end of 2027, we're at 91 or maybe a little bit better, but we're not ready to say that yet. And then in 2028, that's sort of when we get closer to, you know, that other number I just described. And so that's kind of where we max out as a portfolio. We will always have some marginal availability given the fact that we do 10-year leases and we have some, what I would refer to as larger clients. And if they choose to relocate or we can't accommodate their growth, then we'll have some downtime. So I don't think we get much above 94, 95%.

Thank you. And I share our next question comes from the line of Janet Gallen from Bank of America Securities. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning and congrats on a great quarter. In the prepared remarks, you touched on some price discovery, but can you walk us through what you're kind of seeing in the transaction market with fundamentals clearly improving, but maybe higher interest rates impacting pricing on land, residential, and office?

Yeah, I think the, as I mentioned in my remarks, transaction volumes for office are certainly off the bottom, and they've grown significantly over the last year or so, but they're still well below what they were prior to COVID. So, we're kind of in recovery mode. Second, I would say most of the, you know, a big percentage of the buying is more, I would say, family, office, and opportunistic capital that is seeking, you know, discounts to replacement cost, you know, kind of transactions. That's not 100% true, but that's the majority of the transactions. And that's logical. When you have an asset class in the capital markets that's recovering, generally the opportunistic capital starts it, and they are successful, and then other capital follows. So I think that's where we are. The deals that I mentioned this quarter, I think, do kind of mirror where the deals were last quarter. They're kind of at seven-ish type cap rates with the possibility of stabilizing at a slightly higher number. And I don't think these assets – I mean, I picked out the best ones that we're selling, and I still don't think they're, quote, true premier workplaces.

Thank you. And I share our next question. It comes from the line of John Kim from BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Oh, and I think you mentioned at Reservoir Place, you're expecting a cash return of over 10%, and I was wondering if that was on the incremental CapEx, or does that include your historical cost of the asset? And then going forward, what is your hurdle rate on developments, I guess on the ability developments, similar to 725 South Street?

Yeah, so the 10% that I mentioned includes an inferred value for the building that was taken out of service. So the cash yield on the incremental capital would be materially higher. And then on what is our target yield, it depends a little bit on the market and the pre-leasing and the risk and all those things as you would expect. But in general, we're getting getting eight plus percent yields on our developments. You know, I mentioned our activity at 343 Madison. We remain very much on track, I think, to accomplish that seven and a half to eight percent and our deals in Washington pencil over eight percent. So that's what we're seeking to achieve. And that is accretive to where the stock's trading vis-a-vis cap rate.

Thank you. And I'll show our next question. It comes from the line of Anthony Paoloni from J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.

Thanks. You mentioned, Doug, I think the opportunity you saw at Embarcadero Center in the near term. But if you think out over the next couple of years and if the momentum in Northern California generally just persists, what do you think BXP's biggest opportunities are there? What do you think you likely do with that portfolio?

Yeah, so I'm going to let Rod answer that question because he has a couple of pretty interesting opportunities, one of which is physically ours and others that we're working on that he can talk about.

Yeah, thanks, Doug. I mean, the market, as you've heard, is very strong in Northern California. We're taking advantage of this increased demand with the AI sector for sure. I mean, you're looking at the pipeline of tenants in the market right now are pushing 9 million square feet, which is just unheard of. We haven't seen that number. So going forward, absolutely. I mean, it's a market where people are starting to talk about building new buildings. I know that seems strange with still some vacancy, but the reason is that there is just a limit on the premier workplaces. If you're looking for, if you're a tenant in the market right now and you're looking for 50 to 100,000 feet of top tier space, you're not going to have many choices. You might have, you can certainly count them on one hand, maybe not even all the hands. So So it's prompting people to talk about building new buildings. And what Doug just mentioned, we've actually – we're very pleased to announce that we've been awarded through a competitive assignment a development consultant role on a site in downtown that we have familiarity with from the past cycle. And so we're going to have a role in that. And, you know, I think it's a great site, and we'll have an opportunity to invest in it in the future if we feel that the market supports it and demand supports it. So it's positive, and we're obviously looking at all other opportunities.

And then, Roy, just mentioned Forth & Harrison and sort of what we have going on there, too.

Yeah, so at Forth & Harrison, I mean, that's a, you know, plus or minus 800,000 square foot potentially phased project that we were ready to start right when COVID hit. And this is a great asset that sits, you know, proximate to where a lot of the AI companies in Mission Bay are located, and, you know, we're, you know, teeing up, you know, potentially getting ready if we, if, again, demand holds up to be able to do something there, and we wouldn't build it spec, but we're absolutely, you know, talking to users, and we'll see if something comes to that.

So, I think, Tony, sort of, to sort of summarize, we are involved in a couple of really interesting opportunities in the CBD of San Francisco, not the peninsula, where if market rents get to the point where new construction makes economic sense, we actually have places where we can create new premier product for clients.

Thank you.

And Aisha, our next question comes from the line of Michael Goldsmith from UBS. Please go ahead.

Good morning. Thanks a lot for taking my question. To this point, the recovery story has been occupancy led, but this message this quarter felt a little bit more rent growth oriented. So is that correct? And maybe can you just talk about the pricing power you're seeing? Is it increasing? And is that for all markets or just the strongest ones?

Sure. So for us, the occupancy story is more meaningful than the improvement in the overall sort of what I'd refer to as mark to market, largely because you get 100 cents on the dollar on the occupancy and you only get a marginal amount on the increase, you know, when you're doing a mark to market. But why don't I let Hillary talk about sort of her views on pricing power in Manhattan and Brian talk about our perspective on sort of where pricing is in the back bay sub market of Boston, which is where the majority of our rental rate increases will come from over the next few years. Hillary?

Thanks, Doug. The pricing power in Manhattan Cotton remains quite favorable to landlords, and it is expanding geographically. So while it's been very, very strong in the best submarkets of Midtown, it continues to expand outward to other submarkets in Midtown and to Midtown South. As Doug and Owen mentioned, we are in Mike. We have now spoken for every single floor at 360 Park Avenue South, and we're seeing landlords across the Midtown South submarket post, you know, ever higher rents as they're leasing up remaining vacancy. In Midtown Proper, we are getting inbound interest at our highest quality buildings and at 343 at rents that are consistently sort of 10 to 15 percent above where they were last year. and, you know, at our buildings, you know, and in the lower stack of our buildings where rents are slightly more affordable, we're still seeing 20% increases year over year. And that is fundamentally because there's a lack of available space in the market. So great strength from the landlord perspective in New York City.

Yeah, from Boston, it's the story that Doug and Owen have outlined, which is if you look at our rent rule snapshot, Boston, we're 97, 98% leased, Cambridge, 98% leased, Cambridge Lab, 100% leased. And then you combine that with, call it competitive set, the people that we really, or the buildings that we really compete against. And there's a wide difference between, let's say, general vacancy of Class A and then our competitive set, and it can be as much as nine points, 11% versus 2% in the back bay as an example. And for us, price detection is going to be really in the renewal process versus we don't have any lease vacant space to go to market with per se. So we're in the process of really doing our absolute best at educating the marketplace, the brokerage communities, and our clients about what's taking place and really focus on factual comps, et cetera. But we do anticipate that there is pricing power there.

Thank you.

And I share our next question comes from the line of Seth Berge from Citi. Please go ahead. Thanks.

It's Nick Joseph here with Seth. Maybe if continuing on the mark-to-market conversation, you know, what do you estimate it for your West Coast portfolio? Obviously, We've seen the recovery and leasing there, but how do you think about where the portfolio sits today versus where market rents are?

So what I would say is that it's kind of a building-specific answer, and I'll just sort of give you a perspective. I'll use San Francisco as sort of the poster child because it's the majority of our West Coast exposure. So starting with the least good and then getting to the best. So down in Mountain View, where this quarter, we had a pretty significant markdown, largely because we were getting somewhere in the neighborhood of $6 per square foot per month, and now we're getting somewhere closer to $4 to $5 a square foot per month, which are still very high rents, but they're not the same place they were. And the reason we were getting those other rents was that we had gotten significant increases over a four- or five-year period, and then obviously the market sort of had a big change. So that's where the largest sort of decline is. At Embarcadero Center, it's sort of a neutral place. So in buildings like Embarcadero Center 4 or anything that's sort of above, call it, the 15th to 20th floor of EC1, 2, or 3, there's an embedded market opportunity for growth. At the lower portions of one, two, and three, where we have leases rolling over, that's where I would say we have to be more competitive because of the availability and the modest amount of incremental demand there is from what I refer to as traditional office tenants, and so there's probably a slight markdown. At 680 Folsom, at 535 Mission, and then at Salesforce Tower, we are going to start to see material increases in our markups. Most of the leasing that we've done in those buildings has been at relatively lower rents. And as we go forward, those rents have gotten higher. We are now at a point, for example, at 680 Folsom, where our asking rents are higher than the rents that will expire when the Macy's.com lease expires in 2020 and 2029. And as I said, Salesforce Tower, on average, my guess is our embedded growth is 30 to 40%, and we're going to have somewhere in the neighborhood of, call it, 200 to 250,000 square feet of explorations in that building in 27 and 28. And so there's a real opportunity for embedded growth. The other two West Coast markets, which for us are Seattle and West LA, I would say we're modestly lower in Seattle. And then West L.A. continues to struggle from a recovery perspective. It's the least of our markets from a demand growth perspective. And so there, you know, net network, we're seeing still, you know, an indebted loss in that market. But again, for us, that's one or two percent of our portfolio as is Seattle. So it's not it's not material in terms of what happens in the next couple of years.

Thank you. And I share our next question comes from the line of Blaine Heck from Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

Great, thanks. With respect to 343 Madison, can you just elaborate on the appetite you've seen from potential equity partners, the timing we should expect on those sales of interest in any color you can provide on how you and those potential partners are thinking of value versus expected cost on the entirety of the 30 to 50 percent interest you guys plan on monetizing? Yeah.

So, as I mentioned in my remarks, we have a letter of intent with an investor to purchase a 10% interest in the project, and we expect that to close this quarter. And we continue to talk to additional investors about selling additional interest in the property, bringing us up to around that 30% to 50% level. Um, you know, we're, uh, selling down interest in this property, which we consider to be one of the great, one of the best office developments in the United States. We're seeking our terms, uh, both in terms of pricing and the way the governance works. So in thinking about pricing, our yield, uh, as the original developer of the property is, uh, just to use high level, simple numbers is around 8%. And when we deliver this property, we think its value will probably be in the 5.5% to 6% range. So as we monetize interests along the way, we'll be moving gradually from that 8% yield down to that 5.5% to 6% yield. And that's the way we're thinking about it and talking about it with prospective investors.

Thank you. And I show our next question comes from the line of Caitlin Burrows from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Hi. Good morning. Earlier in the prepared remarks, you guys mentioned that 48 percent of leasing in 2Q was renewals, extensions, and expansions. I was wondering if you could talk more about the renewal activity, maybe what retention has been over the past few, say, three years, and if it's fair to expect that it increases going forward?

So, Caitlin, this is sort of a, I guess, more of an artistic answer than you probably would like but uh but i but i hopefully it's directionally correct so it's a there's a timing issue associated with this as well so as we get closer to a lease expiration our retention rate comes down largely because we've are we've already done a lot of the larger transactions earlier so as an example hillary's team right now is working on four transactions that are 2028 expirations or later. And my guess is if all those deals will likely get done. And so, you know, when we talk about our quote-unquote renewals, you know, the next quarter or two, there may be some very lumpy numbers that sort of say, quote-unquote, that our retention is higher than it typically is. When we think about our sort of near-term expiration, so call it the next 24 to you know 18 months and then because it goes down generally the study that we've done has said generally we're somewhere between 45 and 50 percent that's sort of what happens and largely that's because in many cases we're not we're not able to accommodate growth um because we're so fully leased um and so we you know unfortunately have some tenants that are leaving right now as i look forward into our 2027 expirations um we don't have much in the way of large users leaving So I feel better about sort of that number for what we have in front of us. So as an example, as I said, we have 1.77 million of 2027 expirations. Right now, we're pretty actively involved in about 550,000 square feet. So I wouldn't be surprised if we get above that 50% level for this portfolio. But on a general basis, we're somewhere between 45% and 50%, you know, as we get closer to the actual year of expiration.

Just to add on to that, Doug, I mean, the last couple of quarters, we've had a number of these larger lease renewals that we signed, you know, a year or two ago coming in. So if you look at the details in our leasing activity page on the leases commenced, last two quarters, we've been closer to 60 to 65 percent, again, because some of those leases you were just talking about that we did before that have come in, you know, which is positive. If you look long-term, you know, it's around 50%. But this year is better, and it's reflected in the occupancy growth we're seeing.

Thank you.

And I show our next question comes from the line of Flores Van Discom from Leidenberg-Thalman. Please go ahead.

Hey, thanks, guys. So kudos for putting your S&O pipeline out there, giving some more insight into the future growth. Obviously, not all office space is created equal. I don't know if you can quantify what that S&O growth would be in terms of NOI, because clearly New York sign not open is different than L.A. or D.C. If you can give us a little bit more insight into that, I think that would be helpful.

I wish I had my list in front of me. I don't. But I will tell you that the majority of it in 2026 is in Manhattan, largely coming from 360 Park Avenue and 205th Avenue. So that's where the most least but not yet occupied will come in.

Thank you. And I show our next question comes from the line of Upal Reina from Key Bank Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Appreciate all the color on the opportunity set in broader San Francisco, you know, over the next couple of years that you've mentioned.

But, Doug, you talked about embargo to go center that could give you the most short-term uplift in occupancy. Could you give us an update on the pipeline there for those buildings and maybe any timing you could share would be helpful?

So I'll brief a comment and then I'll let Rod be more sort of verbose about it. Big picture, it's a granular market for financial services, professional services kinds of users, which means we're doing a lot more transactions, but they're smaller. And so, obviously, it takes a longer period of time to fill available space. But, Rod, you can sort of describe the tenor and the granularity of what we have going in Embarcadero Center.

Yeah, absolutely. So, one of the key strategies that we've done in the past and we're continuing to do a little bit more on an expanded scale now is building pre-built space. So we have two floors, for example, at one Embarcadero Center that are under construction now, one more to cater towards a tech build-out, a little more open plan, and other towards more of a law firm professional services plan. We already have interest on both of them, and I think that's how we're going to find success. I think the space that is sitting in an old second-generation or in shell condition is going to be the hardest. So we're being very proactive in investing ahead of that and getting the spaces ready for occupancy because that's where we found the most success. So these, as Doug said, it's going to be granular. It's probably not going to be one big deal that's going to occupy the bottom of one of these buildings. We're certainly open for that discussion and chasing those deals when available, but I think it's going to happen more floor-to-time, partial floor, and we're going to have to go at it that way. I would add, though, that Embarcadero Center is going to get some nice continued positive interest. The Embarcadero Plaza, which is the park adjacent to 4 Embarcadero Center, is fully underway now, and this is a private-public partnership with the City of San Francisco to build this world-class park, and that is going to absolutely enhance the environment around Embarcadero Center, which we will benefit from for sure.

Thank you. And I share our next question in the queue. It comes from the line of Dylan Brzezinski from Green Street. Please go ahead.

Hi, guys. Thanks for taking the question. Just maybe pivoting back to sort of the business program. Obviously, you mentioned you guys are well out of schedule. I guess any possibility that the ultimate goal ends up being much higher than that $1.9 billion? Then I guess if you think about the portfolio, once you guys are done with that, in your guys' mind, does that get you guys to the point where the portfolio is largely largely there in terms of most of the assets being what you guys deem as trophy and class there, or would there still be some, you know, call it 5% to 10% of the portfolio that is non-core in your guys' mind?

We'll keep going on sales. As Mike said, it'll be slower, and there are several reasons for that. One is, let's go through the three categories. On land, And in many regions, we continue to get additional residential entitlements on land. Those take time, and it takes time to monetize those assets. So as these entitlements come through, and this will be beyond 2026, it will continue to monetize the land the way we have, both selling for sale pads to home builders as well as starting multifamily development. So that's one category. Second, we still have a couple of built and close to stabilized apartment buildings that we have not yet sold. So I think those are potential future disposition candidates. And then third, we do still have a handful of office assets that we would like to sell. And some of those are not stabilized. They're in various stages of lease up. And as those properties get leased up where we think we can maximize the value and the disposition, we'll do it. But I do think the cadence of dispositions, they will continue, but the cadence will slow down a little bit.

Yeah, and Dylan, I'd say the first bucket that Owen described, which is, you know, this quote-unquote land portfolio, these are what I would refer to as many of our older suburban office buildings where we have made a decision that the recovery in those marketplaces is going to lag the opportunity associated with creating residential entitlements. And we happen to be in an unusually constructive time period relative to the jurisdictions that those buildings are operating in where there is a need for housing. And so there's over a million square feet of suburban stuff that will eventually disappear from our portfolio that we will ultimately, we hope, sell somewhere between 75% and 80% interest in, which will be liquidating those assets and providing us with opportunities that we can either use for redeploying into those particular developments or using that money elsewhere. And I don't think people sort of really focus on the size of that and what the magnitude of that is. And it's hundreds of millions of dollars over time. So it's not, you know, $10 million here, $15 million here. It's hundreds of millions of dollars over time.

Thank you. And I show next question comes from the line of Richard Anderson from Kent or Fitzgerald. Please go ahead.

Hey, thanks. So, obviously, AI has come up a lot on this call, and it's a demand driver for you and many. But it does remind me of the life science boom of five, six, seven years ago, and that didn't turn out great. I'm curious if there were any lessons learned from that experience of life science and the exuberance that came from it and how you're approaching AI demand today, and if there are any kind of lessons learned as you approach that opportunity, you know, TBD, to see how long it stays intact.

Yeah, so the future of AI and its impacts are very difficult to project and flip through any newspaper, any magazine, any day of the week, and you'll get all kinds of different views.

So so it is it is very, very difficult.

I think the primary benefits to BXP's leasing are not actually from the A.I. companies directly, although that is a benefit. We're seeing markets just generally tighten. Like, for example, San Francisco's had eight plus million square feet of net absorption from A.I. companies. And a lot of other clients are getting displaced by that and then coming to us and other landlords and leasing space. And then lastly, our core set of financial services, legal service, and business service clients, many of them are investing in, providing services to the AI industry, and they're doing well with that, and as a result, are growing and leasing more space. So yes, if AI comes off the boil, as you suggest, that will be negative, but most of the leasing benefits we're getting are not directly with the AI companies. And then when we do lease to an AI company, we obviously focus as much as we can on the credit and get letters of credit in the leasing. And we're also paying attention to, you know, the percentage of our total portfolio that's leased directly to startup AI companies.

And I would just add the following thing relative to sort of the difference between leasing to a company that's a technology company that we happen to be calling AI and a life science company. So over, I call it the last five or six years, longer than we ever would have expected to have happened, people were building speculative laboratory buildings, and those laboratory buildings were being built with the infrastructure necessary to allow for a lab installation, which was a very expensive proposition, and there was a lot of it, a lot of it that was done on a speculative basis. And so while we are actually very constructive about the long-term viability of life science, particularly in the greater Boston marketplace, there's just a ton of quote-unquote bespoke lab-ready buildings that are sitting out in the marketplace that are going to just have to wait their turn for a customer to show up that actually wants that particular location in order for them to achieve the value that's going on. And in some cases, those tenants or those building owners are making a decision that they're no longer going to wait. So as an example, there's a lab building right now in Boston that is, you know, bespoke, and it's, you know, doing a transaction with a major health organization that is not going to be doing lab work in there, but is going to be doing some other kinds of clinical work in that building. So things like that will happen, and over time, the supply will, in fact, be, you know, become absorbed. With what we would refer to as these artificial intelligence companies, this is office space, pure and simple office space. For better or worse, BXP is not a data center company. We do not have, quote, unquote, data center infrastructures with billions of dollars of equipment and enormous amounts of power needs that are sitting in and around our building. So we are simply leasing our space to the next version of technology. Call it dot com. Call it mobility. Call it cloud computing. Whatever it is, now it's artificial intelligence. And that's just sort of the natural progression. And those organizations are simply looking for great locations, great amenities, high quality assets, premier management, and great places for them to grow their organizations, which is what we are suited to do. So I think there is a distinction between what happened with life science and the overbuilding that was occurring and what's going on right now, because I'm not aware of anybody building a speculative office building in a CBD location where we operate. And that was very different in 2022, 23, and 24, when there was a ton of speculative life science that was built in places like San Francisco and in Watertown, Massachusetts, and in Lexington and Waltham, Massachusetts, that were built on spec. And that's fundamentally the difference between what we're seeing now and what we saw over the last, quote-unquote, cycle.

Thank you.

And I share our next question. It comes from the line of Peter Abramowitz from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Hi. Thank you for taking the question. I think on last quarter's call, Mike, you talked about leasing CapEx of around or above $400 million for the year. I think it was $330 million or thereabouts in the first half, so you're on pace to kind of go through that number. I understand certainly a lot of this is good news CapEx related to leasing, but could you just help us think about any updated thoughts on where you expect that number to shake out for 2027 and then the overall leasing capex trajectory and how it impacts FAD growth in the second half and beyond?

Sure. And you're right. You know, we continue to do additional leasing. We continue to, you know, we're increasing our occupancy projections for 2026, and that's going to roll into additional leasing transaction costs that are going to occur this year. And, you know, we are going to be increasing. I suspect it's going to be closer to $500 million than it is to $400 million based upon what we're seeing right now. And that will end up having an impact on our AFFO in 2026. And as you said, it's good news because we're signing more leases, and those leases will go into effect and there's going to be some free rent obviously in the beginning of those leases so that also has some impact on our AFFO but those leases will become cash rent paying in 2027 and will have a positive impact on AFFO kind of on a moving forward basis so I look at 2026 as being a year where it's it's just going to be higher in terms of transaction costs and also higher in terms of straight line rents.

Thank you. And I share our next question comes from the line of Alexander Goldfarb from Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.

Hey, morning, morning down there or up there. So Mike and Owen, just going to, I know you're not talking about 27, but certainly the portfolio has benefited immensely from stronger fundamentals, occupancy being better and, you know, on the accelerated dispositions, being able to use some of those proceeds to pay off debt. But as the company strategizes for 27, you know, and sort of the priority, is the priority, you know, more towards let's keep earnings growth accelerating as number one and then debt payoff as number two? Or is it the other way around? Just trying to understand because the company is in obviously a really good position. Stock's doing well today. And, And, you know, clearly the fundamentals are providing office landlords with a wonderful tailwind.

Alex, we always understand and are trying to grow the FFO per share of our company. And that is a clear priority. I don't know what there's, you know, we are going to continue to sell assets when we have them that when we have an asset we don't think is strategic to the company that we think we're getting fair value for. I do think the mix of asset sales that we have used has brought down the dilution because a lot of the sales that we're doing are land and a lot of the sales that we're doing are apartments, which trade at accretive cap rates to us. So it's not like we're selling office buildings at high cap rates. But we recognize the importance of growing our earnings per share. And as you suggest, and as Doug described in great detail, you know, the leasing that we are doing, you know, we expect, you know, continued growth. Mike, I don't know if there's anything more you want to add.

No, I think you've covered it.

That's our goal.

And I share our next question comes from the line of Brendan Lynch from Barclays. Please go ahead.

Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Are there any other buildings in the portfolio like Reservoir Place that could capture demand for similar full building redevelopments? And how do redevelopment yields compare to other competing uses of capital?

So the answer to your question is there certainly are. You know, these are what I refer to as your work trying to mine for these organizations. They take a lot of time, a lot of effort, and an incredible amount of diligence from our local operating teams. So our Boston team has done it twice. First, we did it with Anderil at a building that was out of service called 10 to 50 Winter Street. And obviously, we've just done it with Reservoir Place. We have some buildings in our Northern Virginia portfolio that potentially could have a similar outcome. These are highly speculative comments that I'm making, so I'm not suggesting there's anything imminent, but they physically exist. And after that, I would say we are always looking to put a client and a building together to create an opportunity that may not necessarily be in our portfolio. And I guess I asked Pete to sort of talk about what he and Jake are seeing down in D.C. because there is a lot of what I refer to as functionally obsolescent or capital structure broken places in D.C. that we have sort of, you know, from a thought perspective said this could be another great place for a building. And just you guys should describe sort of the amount of inbound interest we are seeing for our franchise in D.C. Not on our building. Not on our building.

Yeah, Jake, jump in here too, but good morning, everybody. Yeah, as Doug and Owen have alluded to, we're working on what we hope will be the third in the series here of opportunities in downtown D.C. with inbound clients. And really, I think the key here has been matching client size with building size and with that, you know, making that opportunity, therefore, a highly leased development from the get-go. There are lots of opportunities, both sites and law firms out there who are interested in doing similar things and not as much capital as you might expect to be chasing those kind of opportunities. So we're fielding conversations with clients directly, with the brokerage community and with site owners and, you know, in some cases, lenders on those sites about thinking about those different opportunities. And they are definitively out there. And I think the group of players like BXP that can execute on those kind of transactions is relatively small. So it is, as has been talked about, a bit of a large dichotomy between the market writ large and the economics that you see on, you know, for instance, the vacancy rate on office generally in D.C. versus the very, very top of the market, which is extremely tight and getting tighter. And that has had what you might expect, which is the impact on new building rents has gone significantly higher, but so has just the general market for trophy space.

Yeah, we would add in Boston, kind of additional twist to what Pete was talking about was that when you look at our suburban activity, where we think we've captured like 70% of all the leasing in the wall dam market over the last year and a half, it's a combination of the premier attributes of location in the case of Reservoir Place. I mean, it's just a fabulous building, large at an incredible intersection, cloverleaf, very hard to get in our marketplace. And you combine that with our ability to help these clients with bespoke design that they're looking at now because their uses are very different than conventional office. And to be able to articulate that and then provide a client with a timing on that that's definitive has been a really big competitive advantage for us and similar to what Pete's seeing in D.C.

Thank you. And I show our next question comes from the line of Ronald Camden from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Hey, great. I just had a question on Same Store and Why, which the cash number was reiterated at sort of flat for the year. I did see that I think the impact from building taking out a service went a little bit lower. I'm not sure if that impacts that. But the question is really just, can you just remind us what some of the drags were for this year?

And obviously, we can appreciate that it takes time for leases to commence and how we think about that potential ramp and same store as you sort of flip the calendar with the occupancy tailwinds that you have. so you know the cash same store is going to lag the gap same store as we gain occupancy and these leases that we're starting this year that are going right into our occupancy have free rent periods at the beginning so that's why you know when we increased our occupancy guidance this quarter we increased our gap same store guidance by 30 basis points we didn't move the cash because these leases are going to be in free rent periods and so those free rent periods are you know, they generally range between six and 12 months. So you should expect to see the cash come in on this leasing sometime in 2027. And that's when you're going to see, you know, the cash same store start to catch up with the gas same store.

Thank you. And I share a last question in the queue comes from the line of Vikram Malhotra from Mizuho. Please go ahead.

Morning. Thanks for squeezing me in. Just two clarifications, I guess, just with how attractive the debt markets have been. You know, would you consider taking any unencumbered assets, perhaps utilizing this moment where the debt markets are so attractive? And then similar to sort of that in capital allocation, just the, you formed a JV a couple of years ago to buy, I guess, a value add, if I'm not wrong, or a value add office. I'm wondering in San Francisco, with the turn you're seeing and just overall the breadth in office, is that sort of a opportunity to deploy more capital now?

Look, on the debt markets, the secured markets and the unsecured markets are both very strong and attractive, as are the bank markets. And I think, you know, a high quality CMBS execution is going to be somewhere in the, you know, low 100 basis point spread range at a reasonable leverage rate. And our unsecured bonds are also pricing at that same level so if we were going to issue incremental debt I think we have both opportunities and we could weigh both opportunities so if we think about and we're really not thinking about issuing new debt we're more viewing ourselves as thinking about refinancing debt as it comes due and looking at the best opportunity to try to do the most attractive debt financing that we could in all of the markets that we have access to, and those markets, again, include the five-year bank unsecured term loan market, the five- to ten-year CMBS market, the five- to ten-year or even longer unsecured bond market, and even the convertible debt market like we did last year, which is a lower coupon, but obviously there's option value on the back end. So all of those opportunities are available to us, and we weigh them as we look at what our needs are going forward.

And then on the second part of your question, we do look at all acquisitions. The bar is high because whatever, if we buy an older building, we have to believe that we can make it into a premier workplace, number one, and we're comparing it to the yield requirement. We're comparing it to the development capital that we're investing that we believe we're getting an 8% yield for. But if we can find things like that, we certainly will look.

Thank you. That concludes our Q&A session. At this time, I'd like to turn the conference back over to Owen Thomas, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, for closing remarks.

Well, it's been an hour and 22 minutes, so we have nothing else to report. And thank you all for your interest in BXP.

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