Acadia Realty Trust (AKR) Q3 2018 Earnings Conference Call Transcript

Acadia Realty Trust (AKR -1.13%)
Q3 2018 Earnings Conference Call
October 25, 2018, 1:00 p.m. ET

Contents:

• Prepared Remarks
• Questions and Answers
• Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen and welcome to Acadia Realty Trust's third quarter of 2018 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question and answer session and instructions will be provided at that time. If anyone should require operator assistance during today's conference, please press * then 0 on your touchstone telephone. I'd now like to turn the conference over to Nishant Sheth. Please go ahead.

Nishant Sheth -- Senior Vice President of Capital Markets and Investments 

Good afternoon and thank you for joining us for the third quarter 2018 Acadia Realty Trust earnings conference call. My name is Nishant Sheth and I'm a Senior Analyst in our Capital Markets department.

Before we begin, please be aware that statements made during this call that are not historical may be deemed forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934 and actual results may defer materially by those indicated by such forward-looking statements.

Due to a variety of risks and uncertainties, including those disclosed in the company's most recent Form 10-K and other periodic filings with the SEC, forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this call, October 25th, 2018 and the company undertakes no duty to update them.

During this call, management may refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures, including funds from operation and net operating income. Please see Acadia's earnings press release posted on its website for reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial measures with the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures.

Now, it's my pleasure to turn the call over to Ken Bernstein, President and Chief Executive Officer, who will begin today's management remarks.

Ken Bernstein -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Nishant. Good afternoon. As you saw in our release, we had a solid quarter where most importantly, we're seeing continued momentum in leasing fundamentals, especially in our higher barrier to entry, street, and urban assets.

So, today, I'll discuss some of the relevant leasing and retailing trends we're seeing and we've positioned ourselves to benefit from them. John will drill further into our operating metrics and balance sheets and finally, Amy will discuss the progress we're making in our funds platform.

In terms of our core portfolio and retail leasing environment, we're seeing further confirmation of the separation between the haves and have-nots, both among the retailers as well as retail real estate. As it relates to the retailers in the have category, sales growth has been significantly more robust than had been either feared or forecasted as recently as a year ago.

We're seeing this in retailer categories, ranging from discount department stores to off-price retailers, from specialty grocers to new up and coming screens to stores retailers. We're seeing this from tenants ranging from Target to TJ Maxx, from Aritzia to Allbirds. From all of these retailers great real estate is going to be a key component and a critical area of differentiation for their growth, especially in an omnichannel world.

So, if retailers in the have category can post same-store growth of 3%, 4%, 5%, and some instances even higher, it's worth asking what might rental growth look like in the future for locations that can drive this level of profitable growth. What we're hearing so far from many of our retailers is that we're thankfully past the concern of perpetually declining sales and store profitability and we're now heading back to the age-old battle of supply and demand.

In other words, retailers with strong sales can once again pay more rent for mission-critical locations, but they won't unless they have to. Where there is abundant supply, that could take a while and might feel like pushing on a string, but where that supply is more constrained or where the growth is more robust, then longer-term rental growth feels more achievable.

Even the best streets in SoHo or Georgetown or Lincoln Park, Chicago have enough vacancy to make this a tenant's market for now. But the right retailers are showing up and aggressively enough that it's becoming clearer to us that these tides will turn.

This does not ignore the fact that the US is over-retailed, that much of the secondary or have-not retail real estate may become functionally obsolete and they have to repurposed as non-retail, nor does this negate the fact that have-not retailers are still hanging around, overstaying their welcome and grabbing a disproportionate amount of the headlines. This too will pass.

So, what does this mean for our core leasing efforts? As John will discuss in connection with our quarterly results, after a quiet 2017, we are seeing significantly improved tenant interest, especially for the high-quality, high barrier to entry retail in key gateway markets that define the majority of our core portfolio.

Thus, we're well on our way to achieving our leasing goals for the year and importantly, our goals for longer-term growth. This growth is coming from a variety of retailers -- in Georgetown, DC, a market where young brands are enthusiastically reentering. We recently signed leases with Aritiza, Reformation, Outdoor Voices. Similarly, in Lincoln Park, Chicago, newcomers such as Allbirds and Outdoor Voices are joining Serena & Lily, Bonobos, and Warby Parker in our Armitage Avenue Property.

We're also seeing positive signs from solid long-term veteran retailers like TJ Maxx, who last month opened in our Clark & Diversity redevelopment as our second-floor anchor. With construction of that project now complete, TJ Maxx and Blue Mercury are both now open and we're in a position to lease up the balance of the ground floor space. All of these openings are going to help drive our performance in 2018 and 2019.

Then, as we think about longer-term growth in our core portfolio, the combination of these current lease-up with additions from our two key redevelopments and then contractual and market to market growth that we expect over the next several years, all of this should provide us with the 4% NOI growth over the next five years that we have outlined on prior calls.

Then as we look out, we see encouraging signs for additional long-term upside for a couple reasons. First of al, as I mentioned earlier, for the key gateway locations that we own, tenant demand and tenant sales growth will likely cause a supply demand imbalance to swing in our favor and enable more aggressive growth than is currently in our forecast.

Hopefully, that growth won't be as aggressive as the 2010 to 2015 period. That level of outside rental growth had too many unintended consequences, but the thought that market rental growth is somehow limited to 2% or even 3% in key locations seems too conservative, especially if tenant sales growth can continue and omnichannel execution becomes increasingly more important.

The second reason for optimism is the fact that our current forecast does not include additional redevelopment opportunities such as the recapture of RK Mart in Westchester. We discussed the potential profit from the recapture of this box since we went public 20 years ago and have been quieter about in the last couple of years, but now given the reason bankruptcy of Sears and given that there is limited term left on the lease, we are reengaged for the possibilities for this very profitable redevelopment. John will discuss the potential short-term impact of the few K-Mart departures to our SFO, but the upside far outweighs the downside.

In terms of adding properties to our core portfolio, it's still a bit premature. While rent in key streets seem to have stabilized after some steep declines, sellers have been reluctant to face this reality, thus making the pricing of high-quality assets in our core markets more difficult, even for cash buyers. Then for those of us reliant on the public markets, we also have some progress to make before we can compete with even cash buyers and find investments that are accretive to our existing portfolio.

While it's been a while, sooner or later, accretive acquisition opportunities will present themselves and will be there. In terms of our funder platform, Amy will discuss it in further detail as it relates to the trends I've just discussed and their impact on fund investment. A few things to note -- for new fund five investments, the volume has been lower than we might like. On one hand, the opportunistic purchase of high-yielding suburban centers is still compelling, but we're having to be surprisingly selective. We're willing to go to many varied markets but the cashflow must be either stable or fixable.

In too many cases, we're just having a task. Then on the value add front, it's still a bit early. Ground up redevelopment and mixed-use projects can certainly be compelling, but we need to carefully watch construction costs. As it relates to adding other asset classes, we need to recognize the reality that we are late cycle for many other types of real estate. We've been in the fund investment business for longer than the 20 years that we've been public. It's a cyclical business and patience, discipline, and aggressive execution seem to be the only way to create long-term value for stakeholder.

So, we'll continue to invest with that focus knowing that in the short-run, being disciplined may be less accretive to short-term earnings growth, but in the long run, it's a long way to go.

So, in conclusion, after many corners of uncertainty in the marketplace, we now see increased stability and increased momentum and we like how we're positioned. Our core portfolio is poised for solid growth with very manageable redevelopment activity and CapEx spend. Our balance sheet is right where we want it and our fund has plenty of dry powder to drive growth as it makes sense.

This growth will require hard work. It will require focus and discipline, but our team is ready for that. In fact, that's what we're here to do. So, I'd like to thank the team for their hard work, their focus, and their discipline, and I will turn the call over to John.

John Gottfried -- Chief Financial Officer

Thank you, Ken, and good afternoon. i will spend a few minutes talking about an overview of our third quarter performance in key metrics, followed by an update on our 2018 guidance, and then closing with our balance sheet.

Starting with our same-store NOI, as Ken discussed, our third-quarter same-store NOI was strong, with results that exceeded our expectations. Our growth of 3.4% was driven by the profitable lease up in our street portfolio along with lower than anticipated credit loss.

During the past quarter, our leasing team has continued to make strong progress on two key objectives. First off, notwithstanding the typical summer slowdown on leasing velocity, we are now over 85% leased against our 2018 goals. As Ken mentioned, we continue to see the haves showing up to fill our remaining inventory, with the most recent leases executed in New York, Chicago, and Washington DC.

Secondly, our team has made great progress over the past few months on the blocking and tackling that is required to get our tenants open and paying rent, which they successfully accomplished on several key street locations, again, in New York City, Chicago, and Washington DC. In terms of lease economics, we are continuing execute leases at rates in line with and increasingly above our initial plan. In fact, we're starting to feel an increased level of optimism about exceeding our $8 million leasing goal.

We have some of our best relocations remaining in inventory, including SoHo and Madison Avenue in New York as well as a few spaces in the Gulf Coast of Chicago. As outlined in our release, we are seeing this growth continuing with an expectation of 3% to 5% for the final quarter of the year. More importantly, as we look out the next several years, we see this quarter as an inflection point with us returning back to 3% to 4% of NOI growth that we expect from our portfolio at a fairly nominal cost to our shareholders.

Keep in mind that not every year and certainly not every quarter will be identical, while the 4% of long-term NOI growth feels pretty good given the strong progress we've made over the past year in the key drivers of our plan and any given quarter, we will inevitably experience the temporary but typically profitable dips in short-term NOI from retailer distress, such as we are now dealing with on mattress firm and K-Mart.

We currently have seven Mattress Firm and three K-Mart locations in our core portfolio. While the short-term impact is still fluid as the retailers navigate the bankruptcy process, we currently anticipate a same-store impact of roughly 100 basis points to the fourth quarter along with a penny or two of FFO in 2019. So, while we can't avoid the quarterly choppiness that these bankruptcies create, this necessary retailer evolution expedites our ability to unlock and better value in our portfolio.

Now, moving on to spreads -- consistent with our expectations, comparable leases were approximately 8% and 15% on a cash basis. Approximately 95% of the reported new and renewed lease spreads occurred within our suburban portfolio, representing 21 leases on approximately 160,000 square feet at all-in cost of just under $2.00 a foot.

I also want to continue to highlight hat a fair amount of the spaces that we have leased over the past year are non-conforming, for reporting spreads that we are either combining or splitting spaces. Consistent with our policy, we only report lease spreads on same-size space. That being said, I wanted to reaffirm that of the $8 million of annual NOI that we have established as a our leasing goal, we continue to see an incremental $1.5 million if not potentially more of NOI above what we are previously collecting on the space.

Further, of this $8 million goal, we continue to anticipate $3 million of that NOI showing up at our 2018 results with the balance of 2019 and beyond. We are still finalizing our budges for 2019, we have a few known lease explorations. The vast majority of these locations, are already spoken for with exciting retailers and attractive spreads. However, it will result in a bit of downtime a few cents of FFO as we turn this space.

Now, moving on to FFO, our third quarter came in strong at $0.35 a share. As outlined in our release, we have updated our 2018 guidance to $1.36 to $1.40. So, notwithstanding the light year in terms of core and fund acquisitions, our earnings are expected to come in pretty much on top of our initial midpoint driven by the strength of our core portfolio.

In fact, this strength is highlighted when stripping out the transactional income and other potential non-recurring items. This results in baseline FFO of $1.33 to $1.34 per share, which exceeds our original expectation of $1.29 to $1.34. I'd like to highlight a couple of other points on our 2018 guidance. In terms of the 2018 promote, we continue to see $10 million remaining in fund three. However, we could see some of this slip into 2019 as we work through the monetization process.

Additionally, we have updated our guidance for straight line rent and above and below market release adjustments for the balance of the year. This is driven by a couple of items. The first item is simply the result of the timing differential between the rent commencement date for GAAP purposes and cash collection. This was driven by the strength of leasing in our core portfolio. Secondly, the accounting rules also require that we update our estimate of the amortization period for below market leases on a quarterly basis.

Based on this analysis, along with potentially recapturing below market leases, we are anticipating a non-recurring adjustment of $0.01 to $0.03 of FFO in the fourth quarter. Looking into 2019, we would expect that these GAAP adjustments revert back to historical norms. Also, as a reminder, we are required to adopt a new accounting standard in 2019 for lease accounting. We anticipate this will have impact of approximately $0.02 upon adoption.

Now, moving on to our balance sheet, our balance sheet is exactly where we want it in terms of overall leverage, borrowing cost, our maturity profile and no unfunded capital commitments. As of the third quarter, we have fixed substantially all of our debt all at interest rate at 3.6% with virtually no maturities through 2023. Further, through the use of long-dated interest rate swaps, we have fixed a significant portion of our interest rate exposure for the next ten years.

In summary, we have a strong quarter with an increasingly positive outlook as we look forward. Further, a few quarters beyond what we had originally expected, we believe that we have finally hit the point in the cycle, where we return back to the performance you should expect from us and our best in class portfolio.

With that, I will turn the call over to Amy to discuss our fund business.

Amy L. Racanello -- Senior Vice President of Capital Markets and Investments

Thanks, John. Today, I'll review the steady and important progress that we continue to make on our fund platform buy six sell mandate. As discussed on several calls, our funds have been pursuing a barbell strategy, acquiring both high-quality value add properties and higher-yielding or other opportunistic investment. To date, we've allocated nearly 30% of fund five's capital commitments. So far, all the fund's investments have been higher yielding or a hybrid of the two strategies.

Year to date, we've completed $105 million of acquisitions. This includes a previously discussed $59 million acquisition in the Sacramento MSA during the third quarter. We also have another high-yield investment under contract. This acquisition would bring our total 2018 volume to approximately $150 million. Today, we still have $1.1 billion of dry powder available in fund five to deploy through the summer of 2021.

Although our fund five acquisition volume has been lighter than we expected, we are clipping a mid-teens leveraged return on our existing investments, which we find compelling, as long as we remain selective. After all, our high-yield thesis, is not predicated on strong NOI growth, but it does require NOI stability.

As an added benefit, we've generally been able to buy these assets at a discount to replacement cost. In fact, we've acquired our fund five investments at a weighted price per square foot of approximately $150.00. In comparison, to build a suburban shopping center, it costs approximately $200.00 to $250.00 per square foot on average if someone gives you the land for free.

Since the beginning of the year, we've seen material improvement in retailer interest in higher quality real estate. As previously discussed, in July, Fund IV executed a lease with Lululemon at 938 West North Avenue in Lincoln Park, Chicago. Lululemon has leased 26,000 square feet on three levels and will introduce exciting new elements into this super-sized store.

At City Point in Downtown Brooklyn, we recently welcomed Joybird and HiO to Prince Street. Joybird is a digitally native furniture retailer and this is their first brick and mortar store. HiO on the other hand, is a market haul up store for young, primarily international brands. This is their fourth pop-up location and second in the US.

Regarding our lease up strategy for City Point's street-level availabilities, we remain focused on continuing to cultivate an eclectic and experiential merchandise mix to complement our food, entertainment and value-oriented anchors.

Turning now to dispositions, year to date, we've completed $65 million of fund dispositions, including $31 million completed by Fund IV during the third quarter. To that point, Fund IV sold Lake Montclair Center, a 106,000-square foot supermarket-anchored center in Virginia for $23 million. Lake Montclair is a 2013 high-yield investment. During our five-year hold period, we extended the supermarket's lease term, which increased the center's long-term stability and we also maintained strong occupancy. This sale generated a 26% internal rate of return and a 2.0 multiple on the funds equity.

On the other end of the barbell, Fund IV also sold 1861 Union Street, a 5,000-square foot street retail property in San Francisco, California, for $6 million. This compares to an all end cost basis of $3.7 million. The property was sold vacancy for occupancy by the buyer and this sale generated a 24% internal rate of return and a 1.7 multiple on the fund's equity. Fund IV also sold another Broad Street property for $2 million and looking ahead, we will continue to selectively sell our stabilized properties. Given our aggressive disposition efforts over the past few years, we are not sitting with a lot of inventory.

So, in conclusion, we had another productive quarter in our fund platform. We continue to execute on our barbell investment strategy, create value within our existing fund portfolio and sell our stabilized assets. Now, we are happy to answer your questions.

Questions and Answers:

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question, at this time, press the * then the 1-key on your touchstone telephone. If your question has been answered and you wish to remove yourself from the queue, you may press the # key. Once again, that is * then 1 to ask a question.

Our first question comes from Christy McElroy with Citi. Your line is now open.

Christy McElroy -- Citigroup -- Analyst

Hey. Thanks, Good afternoon, guys. John, just looking at same-store NOI growth sort of trajectory heading into 2019, I'm trying to put all the different pieces together you talked about in your opening remarks. Q4, you're looking at 3% to 5%. You'll have the full impact of the leasing that you've done in 2018 coming on.

You also talk about 10 basis points potential impact from K-Mart and Mattress Firm and then another additional impact from lease expiration downtime. If I put all that together, what are we looking at in terms of total impact? Are you willing to offer a glimpse about how you're thinking about growth into next year?

John Gottfried -- Chief Financial Officer

Sure. We're in the middle of doing our budgeting as we speak, locking in 2019. What I will say is as we look out over the next several years, the 4% still feels incredibly good. There are some other things offsetting the points you raised there below. We have Clark and Diversity that you'll see has opened this year.

Every year, we have lease rollover that comes and goes. We don't have a specific number for 2019, but continue to feel that what we've done to date is going to be indicative of getting back to more of a sense of normalcy than we experienced the past couple of quarters. We don't have a precise number, but we're set up good for '19.

Christy McElroy -- Citigroup -- Analyst

Okay. Then Ken and Amy, you both made some comments about being more selective on the funds side, investments. Is the issue that cap rates aren't high enough to get you to your targeted levered IRR or are you just seeing too much risk in the assets there? I guess does the Sears filing sort of acts as a catalyst to open things up and potentially add some more clarity to some of these potential investments?

Ken Bernstein -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Let me take a first cut in and then Amy, jump in as well. I would say we have found ourselves being selective the whole way through. So, it's not necessarily being more selective, but it's more selective than we thought a couple years ago when we saw cap rates back up and it looked to us as if there would be a significant amount of volume that would meet these needs. The volume has been less for a couple reasons.

One is this is a levered return play and rates have gone up some. While cap rates have stayed in the 7.5 to 8.5 range, the levered yields have come down a bit, so we have to be cognizant of that. More significantly and to your question and point is we have found it harder and we are having to be more selective to find stable cashflow.

We don't need a lot of growth, but we either need stability, meaning if we're buying a 7.5 or an 8 or an 8.25 depending on the specifics of that deal. If we're levering it 2 to 1, which is what we usually do, we need to make sure that cashflow is there or replaceable. For reasons that would take too much time on an earnings call , but issues of co-tenancy, rent to sales, rent to market, there are too many deals we have to pass on.

That being said, to your point of K-Mart Sears or the fact that now, there is enough price transparency and retailer transparency. We are seeing volume pick up. We have found sellers to be realistic and it's just a matter of culling through the relatively large volume that our team looks at and figuring out which ones have stability.

So, I remain optimistic about the business. It just may not be the multi-billion dollars of acquisitions that we once thought.

Christy McElroy -- Citigroup -- Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Todd Thomas with KeyBanc Capital Markets. Your line is now open.

Todd Thomas -- KeyBanc Capital Markets -- Analyst

Hi, good afternoon. First question, sticking with investments a little bit, Ken -- 2018, you mentioned it's obviously a little bit of a slower year in the core-end and in the funds business for investments. What are you seeing as the year wraps up, though? What sign posts are you looking for? What shall we look for before we start to see Acadia getting a little bit more active in this environment?

Ken Bernstein -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Yes. Too often, Todd, by the time I know it's three days before we're actually moving on something. It's not as though there are months and months of advanced notice. Let's start with the core. I think most people understand this, but there are very different capital structures to our core investing and the funds.

On the core side, in order for us to be able to compete and the markets that we're most excited about, which are the key gateway markets of DC, New York, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, maybe one or two others, in order for us to complete with cash buyers, we have to have a currency that enables us to at least get to par and we're not there yet. We're getting closer, but we're not there yet.

Thankfully or of some comfort should be the fact that sellers have not yet gotten there in any significant way. So, there's not a lot of transaction that I could point to and say if we had the cash, we would have done it. In fact, if it was really compelling, you would have seen us do it because we do have cash in the funds, but I'll get to the funds in a second.

The reason there has been a lag in these key gateway markets is rents grew too fast, they fell significantly and sellers were hesitate to acknowledge where rents are today. 2018 has been a turning point because there's now enough leasing activity that sellers can get comfortable with where stabilization might look. I actually am getting pretty bullish on the fact that 2018 very well may be a low point and going forward, we can see some growth.

So, with sellers more realistic about where rents might be, then it's an issue of cap rates. The volatility in the bond market certainly has some impact, but I am hopeful that the stars align sooner rather than later so that we could be acquiring in these key markets within our core competencies sooner rather than later, but we're not there yet.

As it relates to the fund side, unlike being beholden to the public markets, we have the money on call. If there is a compelling investment opportunity, we'll take them so far. What you have heard us say is the high-yield investments have been worthwhile, clipping a mid-teens return in this environment feels pretty darn good, but we're having to do less volume than we wanted. Could that volume increase for that type of product? I hope so, but we're not going to force it.

Then on the value add side, which is a big chunk of what we enjoy doing, whether it's buying vacant Sears and K-Marts, whether it's buying and redeveloping urban mixed use, whether it's buying distressed debt, we can do any of those things as long as the deals pencil out and we are dealing with a unique time period where we are very late cycle in some respects, including the economy and need to be careful about that, a rising interest rate environment and a rising distress on retail.

How that all mixes is I am looking forward to 2019 being a very active investment time period, but I can't tell you exactly when it all hits.

Todd Thomas -- KeyBanc Capital Markets -- Analyst

Okay. That's helpful. John, a couple questions for you -- the $3 million of annualized NOI from that $8 million NOI opportunity that you've talked about, you expect the $3 million to be realized in '18, the balance of it in '19 and beyond. How much of that NOI on an annualized basis was recognized during the third quarter?

John Gottfried -- Chief Financial Officer

Yeah. I'd have to get the precise number, but I think it's come in partially throughout the year. It wasn't all crashing through in the quarter. So, I'd have to get back to you on the specific number. I would point to you if you look at just as a data point, our same-store occupancy Q3 '18 to Q3 '17 was pretty flat. I think a good portion of that is just the rental growth or the $1.5 million incremental value from the $8 million we've leased. So, it's blended in throughout the year on a lease by lease basis, but don't have the exact number off the top of my head.

Todd Thomas -- KeyBanc Capital Markets -- Analyst

Okay. Then the 100 basis points of potential impact, the same-store NOI growth from the Mattress Firms and Sears or K-Mart, is that the impact to the same store if you recapture all of the spaces?

John Gottfried -- Chief Financial Officer

No. I think it's, as I mentioned in my remarks, it's incredible fluid. None of our Mattress Firms were on the initial 200 list that went out. But as the process unwinds, there are various negotiations that I've assumed a portion of that, we do get that. That is truly an estimate given that it's still as we speak in process of navigating. When I threw out that 100-basis impact, that's based off the up to the minute information I have today.

Todd Thomas -- KeyBanc Capital Markets -- Analyst

Okay. Great. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Once again, ladies and gentlemen, if you do have a question, please press * then 1 on your touchstone telephone. Our next question comes from Craig Schmidt with Bank of America. Your line is now open.

Craig Schmidt -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Managing Director

Thank you. Good afternoon. When we look at the store location choices on the first wave of the emerging internet retailers, it was clear that they had a much higher level of high street and urban locations in the location strategy. Do you know if the next wave of emerging retailers shares that same perspective?

Ken Bernstein -- President and Chief Executive Officer

For the most part, yes, Craig. There will be exceptions. Some retailers who want to have stores in every important market in the country could very likely end up in other alternatives. You're reading some about that and in our conversations with retailers, they will test other styles of real estate, whether it's lifestyle centers or malls, but for the most part, what retailers in the digitally native or screens to stores category is looking for is how to enhance their direct to consumer DTC relationship. That doesn't mean most likely that they need to have stores everywhere.

They've gone from the point of view a couple years ago where they said, "We never need to have a store," to recognizing how important stores are. But it's only going to be one component of how they're going to drive growth and what the retailers have recognized is their cost per acquisition of a customer is significant reduced when they have a certain number of stores.

So, I do think -- what are retailers are telling us is they want to be on M-street in Georgetown. They are clustering with us in Lincoln Park, Chicago, on Armitage Avenue. That's' not to say in other markets where it may not be a city that there won't be other means for them of having stores. Warby Parker, who was an early mover, seems to be opening a lot of stores in a variety of cases. There are other retailers who say we only want and envision 10-20 stores for the next several years.

Either way, what they are telling us is the most profitable locations are those where those dense foot traffic, where there are high conversion rates and where there is a halo effect that really can drive their online sales as well. That tends to cause them to want to be in the kind of the locations we own.

Craig Schmidt -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Managing Director

Great. What are you hearing from the more traditional established retailers? Are they opening more of their open to buys to high street urban locations or are they sticking with the previous strategies?

Ken Bernstein -- President and Chief Executive Officer

We may never hear the term open to buy again or not for many years, but what we are -- look at what Target is doing. I think they're opening another four stores in Manhattan. Their level of confidence as to their execution and their success so far is very impressive and speaks to the more dense, more urban street and mixed use locations that we own.

So, we're excited about that. TJ Maxx opening on our Clark and Diversity -- strong, veteran retailer who's done quite well in suburbia and is stepping up the key locations. Then in the food supermarket segments, which is changing dramatically and will change dramatically over the next five or ten years, we're seeing similar responses from those retailers.

So, in general, every retailer needs to, wants to get closer to where the consumer is. Most of them are enhancing their in-store sales with some type of online connection. That seems to cause them to gravitate to these kinds of locations.

Craig Schmidt -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Managing Director

Great. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Vince Tibone with Green Street Advisors.

Vince Tibone -- Green Street Advisors -- Analyst

Good morning. Since the acquisition market seems a little bit more challenging, is there a scenario where Acadia could put capital work within the structured finance business in the near-term?

Ken Bernstein -- President and Chief Executive Officer

We have a fairly wide mandate within our funds business and have bought distress debt and other types of structured finance. What we don't do -- well, Vince, tell me, what is your definition of structured finance?

Vince Tibone -- Green Street Advisors -- Analyst

Similar stuff you were doing before, maybe little mezzanine, secured debt, just really higher-yielding debt instruments.

Ken Bernstein -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Absolutely. The one thing we wouldn't do is, as we're set up now, trade REIT stocks. One thing we couldn't do is buy our own stocks, just so there was no confusion around that. But otherwise, within our core competencies -- so, if the real estate is in an asset class and style that we're comfortable with, we have done a variety of transactions. We're part of the group that bought Mervyn's and Albertsons. Both were very successful transactions in a more structured finance way. Absolutely, we would continue to consider that.

Vince Tibone -- Green Street Advisors -- Analyst

That's interesting. Can you maybe just discuss trends in the financing market more broadly, both for the higher quality urban and street-type assets and then the higher yielding fund-type centers.

Ken Bernstein -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Sure. As Libor was shooting up, it certainly caused us some levels of concern on the high yield play because a big chunk of our thesis was borrowing at 300-400 basis points inside of the cap rate, if you could borrow at 400, you could buy at 700 to 800 and then if you're having to borrow closer to 500 or spreads had to come in. In fact, it was the latter.

So, what we have seen, for the most part, especially for stable cashflow is that financing spreads have tightened over the last year. There was a fair amount of debt in the markets and lenders are being fairly aggressive. As you move to higher risk or lower yield, then perhaps spreads have not tightened as much or lenders are being careful.

To be more specific, I still think it's difficult financing a secondary shopping center that has a lot of moving pieces. I'm not sure spreads have really come in demonstrably on that. If you're buying an asset at a three-cap, it could be a great location, but you're going to have coverage issues. With those two polar extremes aside, spreads have come in the financing markets feel healthy, feel robust, I don't want to say late cycle, but everyone is actively participating and putting dollars to work.

Vince Tibone -- Green Street Advisors -- Analyst

That's helpful color. Has the increase in the rate resulted in more retrade activity in your point of view?

Ken Bernstein -- President and Chief Executive Officer

I don't think so. If anything, what we are seeing and we welcome it is there are probably more legitimate entrants coming back into buying secondary shopping centers than a year or two ago. I would say if people are retrading, they do so at their own risk of losing the deal because it's not as though there's one bidder on deals these days.

Vince Tibone -- Green Street Advisors -- Analyst

Got it. Thank you. That's all I had.

Operator

Our next question comes from Michael Mueller with J.P. Morgan.

Michael Mueller -- J.P. Morgan -- Analyst

My question on the structured investments that was just asked and I tried to get out of the queue. Thanks.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Todd Thomas with KeyBanc Capital Markets.

Todd Thomas -- KeyBanc Capital Markets -- Analyst

Hi, thanks. Just a couple of follow-ups here. Back to the K-Mart. I was wondering if you could provide a little more detail and update in general. I think you mentioned threein the portfolio, Westchester, which is Crossroads, maybe you can talk a little bit more about the other two spaces and discuss where rents are versus market or how you're thinking about retenanting opportunities and maybe capital spend on those three spaces to the extent you get them back.

Ken Bernstein -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Sure. Let me go first on the exciting part, which is I think Todd, I may be joking you is my fantasy when we get this back we can do our earnings call from Crossroads in Westchester because we've been waiting decades to get this store back. When we do the rent will double, triple quadruple for who we split it for. You're talking about jogging distance from Scarsdale.

While this remains one of K-Mart's best stores, time has passed it by and we look forward to that redevelopment. We need to be prepared this may be one of the last stores to go and we need to be prepared to be active in terms of if we have to bid for it or whatever else we have to do given the remaining lease and option terms. We're fairly to very confident that we are the best user for that.

So, that's pretty exciting, but then, John, between now and then, we have three K-Marts and the potential exposure from that.

John Gottfried -- Chief Financial Officer

So, Todd, the other two are in our suburban portfolio, so we have both in the PA. Similar size to our Crossroads in the 100,000-square foot space. In terms of rents, we have that lined out in our supplemental as well, but between $2.00 to $5.00 a foot for those and still working through various redevelopment plans on those but from the total exposure on both of those remaining pieces, that's a penny on both of those went on. One of those route six is one the bankruptcy court has affirmed.

Todd Thomas -- KeyBanc Capital Markets -- Analyst

Okay. One more here -- I wanted to take another cut at Christy's question about '19 and ask in a slightly different way. If we look at the street and urban retail portfolio, some of those properties, a lot of them you acquired in '12, '13, '14 -- I believe there were some lease expirations five, six, or seven years out from when a lot of those properties were acquired. Are there any expirations that you know about that maybe could impact 2019 at this point?

John Gottfried -- Chief Financial Officer

Yes. In my remarks, Todd, I did point to we do have a handful of known moveouts and the biggest one is we're not in position to name-names and it's on the state of Washington in Chicago, the lease is measuring and we have a very good backfill on that. In terms of biggest, on the street, that's one we do have. So, there will be a period of downtime as we tend to that given the space, but that's our largest.

Ken Bernstein -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Overall, I think what you heard say is we feel very good about this 4% trajectory over the next several years and 2019 falls into that category. If we choose to call it three to five, so be it. That gives us the latitude because on any given quarter, there could be movement, but I don't expect to be talking about any significant departures from our current thesis as it stands right now. We feel good about the replacements on those and the trajectory perspective.

Operator

Thank you. If there are no further questions in queue, I'd like to turn the conference back to Ken Bernstein for closing remarks.

Ken Bernstein -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, everyone for joining us and we look forward to speaking with you next quarter.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude today's conference, thank you very much for your participation. You may now disconnect. Have a wonderful day.

Duration: 50 minutes

Call participants:

Nishant Sheth -- Senior Vice President of Capital Markets and Investments 

Ken Bernstein -- President and Chief Executive Officer

John Gottfried -- Chief Financial Officer

Amy L. Racanello -- Senior Vice President of Capital Markets and Investments

Todd Thomas -- KeyBanc Capital Markets -- Analyst

Craig Schmidt -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Managing Director

Vince Tibone -- Green Street Advisors -- Analyst

Michael Mueller -- J.P. Morgan -- Analyst

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