Highwoods Properties (HIW) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Highwoods Properties (HIW 2.01%)
Q4 2022 Earnings Call
Feb 08, 2023, 11:00 a.m. ET

Contents:

• Prepared Remarks
• Questions and Answers
• Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Good morning and welcome to the Highwoods Properties earning call. [Operator instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded today, Wednesday, February 8, 2023. I would now like to turn the conference over to Hannah True. Please go ahead.

Hannah True -- Investor Relations

Thank you, operator. And good morning, everyone. Joining me on the call this morning are Ted Klinck, our chief executive officer; Brian Leary, our chief operating Officer; and Brendan Maiorana, our chief financial officer. For your convenience, today's prepared remarks have been posted on the web.

If you have not received yesterday's earnings release or supplemental, they're both available on the investors section of our website at highwoods.com. On today's call, our review will include non-GAAP measures such as FFO, NOI, and EBITDAre. The release and supplemental include a reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures. Forward-looking statements made during today's call are subject to risks and uncertainties.

These risks and uncertainties are discussed at length in our press releases as well as our SEC filings. As you know, actual events and results can differ materially from these forward-looking statements, and the company does not undertake a duty to update any forward-looking statements. With that, I'll turn the call over to Ted.

Ted Klinck -- President, Chief Executive Officer, and Director

Thanks, Hannah. Good morning, everyone. We had a strong end to a strong year for Highwoods. In the fourth quarter, we enjoyed solid leasing in terms of both volume and economics; acquired a best-in-class property in Uptown Dallas; placed in service our highly successful Midtown West development in Tampa; announced Midtown East, our second development in Midtown Tampa; and delivered strong FFO of $0.96 per share.

Our healthy leasing during the fourth quarter is somewhat contradictory to the broader macro environment, with interest rates up sharply, limited capital availability, and widespread concerns of a pending recession. We continue to believe that, to be resilient, our portfolio must be diversified and not be overly reliant on any single customer, market, submarket, industry, or lease size. This diversification is a core component of our long-stated, simple, and straightforward goal to generate attractive and sustainable returns over the long term. Our largest market, Raleigh, is less than 22% of revenues.

Our largest customer, Bank of America, is less than 4%,. Our top 20 customers account for less than 30%. Our largest industry, the highly diversified professional, scientific and technical services category, is less than 30%. And our average lease size is under 15,000 square feet.

We believe this purposeful diversification, our high-quality portfolio, and continued strong population and job growth across our markets has driven our strong leasing since the onset of the pandemic, including throughout last year. In 2022, we signed 1.5 million square feet of new leases, the most in any year since 2014. We ended the year on a positive note with 337,000 square feet of new leasing and 924,000 square feet of total second-gen leasing. In the fourth quarter, we signed 28 expansions, nearly half of our renewal count, with expansions outpacing contractions by a ratio of 3.5 to 1.0, equating to 81,000 square feet of net expansions.

In addition, we signed a 312,000-square-foot renewal at a 50-50 JV property in Richmond. This renewal was for 100% of the customer's prior space with a roll-up in cash rents and limited TIs. As a reminder, JV leasing is not included in our overall leasing statistics. As we move into 2023, our occupancy and same property cash NOI will be negatively impacted by the 263,000-square-foot move-out by Tivity in the Cool Springs BBD of Nashville at the end of this month, a space that we have already substantially backfilled.

The backfill customer's lease isn't scheduled to commence until early 2024. As is our practice, we do not remove in-service buildings from our same property pool. In addition to our solid leasing efforts in 2022, we are also pleased with our investment activity during the year. We acquired $400 million of best-in-class assets in Charlotte and Dallas, both with meaningful long-term growth potential.

We placed in-service roughly $100 million of 99% leased development. We announced over $400 million of development in Dallas, Atlanta, Tampa, and Charlotte. And we sold $133 million of noncore land and buildings. This volume of work, combined with our high-quality office portfolio in the strongest BBDs throughout the Sun Belt, gives us the building blocks we need to generate additional long-term growth.

Turning to our results. We delivered FFO of $0.96 per share in the fourth quarter. Our full-year FFO was $4.03 per share, including $0.13 of net land sale gains. Excluding land sale gains, our full-year FFO was $3.90 per share, $0.06 above the midpoint of our initial 2022 outlook, even with the unanticipated sharp rise in interest rates.

Turning to investments. In the fourth quarter, we expanded our presence in the dynamic Dallas market by once again partnering with local sharpshooter Granite Properties, this time to acquire McKinney & Olive in Uptown Dallas in a 50-50 JV for a total investment of $197 million at our share. McKinney & Olive is a trophy mixed-use building with approximately 500,000 square feet of office and 50,000 square feet of retail. The building is well-leased with growing customers and average rents estimated to be 35% below market.

This investment, priced below replacement cost, provides a unique combination of an attractive going-in cash flow yield with the opportunity to earn development-like returns as we roll rents up to market. Further, this building is only four blocks from our 23Springs development, providing ample opportunity for leasing and operating synergies with what we believe will be two of the best buildings in Uptown. During the quarter, we also announced the Midtown East development in a 50-50 JV. This project will encompass 143,000 square feet in the highly successful Midtown Tampa mixed-use development.

The total cost is estimated at $83 million with our share being half of that. This announcement follows our first office development in Midtown Tampa, Midtown West, which we placed in service during the fourth quarter, as originally scheduled, at 97% leased. We started Midtown West on a fully spec basis in late 2019. And despite the pandemic, the project leased up successfully at rents at or above our original pro forma.

Our 1.6 million-square-foot development pipeline now represents a total investment of $518 million, at our share, across five different markets and is a combined 21% pre-leased. Three of those developments, representing nearly 800,000 square feet and $234 million of total investment, at our share, are scheduled to deliver in 2023 but are not projected to stabilize until 1Q '25 through 1Q '26. With rising interest rates and reduced debt availability, the investment sales market has slowed meaningfully over the past few quarters. Fortunately, our balance sheet is in excellent shape, which allows us to be patient with our disposition efforts.

Over the long run, we will continue our strategy of monetizing properties we believe have below average growth prospects, limited upside, or are capex intensive, and we'll use the proceeds to replenish our dry powder and ultimately recycle into higher-growth properties. As illustrated in our 2023 outlook, we expect to be a net seller this year, although the volume of dispositions will depend upon the stabilization of the office investment sales market. Our plan is to sell up to $400 million of noncore assets this year, while we believe acquisitions are unlikely. Our initial 2023 FFO outlook is $3.66 to $3.82 per share.

At the midpoint, interest expense will be significantly higher due to rising rates, and we also project higher same property operating expenses. Same property cash NOI growth is projected to be flat at the midpoint, below our historical average, due to higher opex and lower average occupancy, largely as a result of the Tivity move-out. While our 2023 FFO outlook is below 2022 actual results, as a reminder, we have grown normalized FFO per share each year for 12 consecutive years at a 4% compounded average rate. Since the onset of COVID at the beginning of 2020, we have acquired 3.2 million square feet of best-in-class office assets for a total investment of $1.2 billion, delivered 1.2 million square feet of highly leased office development for a total investment of nearly $500 million, and sold 6.4 million square feet of noncore properties for $1 billion, all the while growing normalized FFO per share 11% and continuing to strengthen our cash flows.

With our ever-improving portfolio quality, we're now even more resilient and better poised for long-term growth. In conclusion, while our high-growth BBDs and high-quality portfolio receive most of the attention from our shareholders, our humble, hard-working, and talented teammates are the ones who drive our success. I would like to thank our entire Highwoods team for their continued commitment and tireless dedication to our company during the past year. It is their effort that has positioned us for continued success for many years to come. Brian.

Brian Leary -- Executive Vice President, Chief Operating Officer

Thanks, Ted. and good morning, everyone. As Ted mentioned, a strong fourth quarter capped off a strong 2022 and a strong three-year run through the pandemic that saw the team and portfolio meet every challenge and produce compelling results. We've leaned into our BBD strategy to upgrade markets and assets by taking a deliberate approach to diversify geographic reach across the Sun Belt's high-growth markets, which include six of the top10 and five of the top six U.S.

Markets to Watch per the most recent PwC/Urban Land Institute Emerging Trends in Real Estate report. Within these markets, our BBDs are both urban and suburban and have proved successful in meeting our customers where they prefer to be. Suburban workplaces have proven to be competitive options when weighing an individual's and organization's flight to quality-of-life calculus as evidenced by the highest physical occupancy and leasing activity across our portfolio and the Sun Belt. It is our belief that the greatest determining factor of a workplace being commute-worthy is the magnitude of the commute burden the worthiness has to overcome.

Our urban and suburban BBD portfolio provides a variety of options and amenities with regard to commuteworthiness and has attracted a customer base across a broad spectrum of industries and sizes. Small and medium-sized customers, our bread-and-butter with an average customer size less than 15,000 square feet, are disproportionately back in the office and expanding. This customer mix has allowed our portfolio to weather the ebbs and flows of previous cycles, a pandemic, and evolutions in the so-called future of work. While concrete, steel, and glass may not be the most flexible of materials, we are formalizing the variety of flexible work options we offer under our Highwoods Commons banner based on the success we've had to date.

Whether it is convening a Town Hall in our Spark conferencing hubs, taking occupancy on one of our dedicated full-floor spec suite collections, or booking one of our ultimate Zoom rooms we call the (co)lab, the Commons platform provides our customers scalable flexibility with regard to space and duration and can be tailored to their specific needs. It includes both formal and informal spaces, all conceived around collaboration, and the platform enters 2023 having delivered over 100 such spaces with healthy new net rental income associated with it. This deliberate diversification across a variety of factors makes our portfolio more resilient. Coupled with our approach to creating compelling and competitive work-placemaking experiences, we are confident that the Highwoods portfolio will continue to serve as a location of choice for the best and brightest individuals and organizations.

To that end, our team finished the year with solid financial and operating results for the fourth quarter, signing 924,000 square feet, including 28 expansions, the most net expansions we have signed since the beginning of 2018. As Ted mentioned, this does not include the 100% renewal of our 312,000-square-foot JV-owned property in Richmond through 2034. Net effective rents for the quarter were higher than our five-quarter average, and our net effective rents for the year represent a record high. While there is often much focus on cash or GAAP rent spreads, we have long stated that our leasing focus is securing the best overall economics.

For example, we may trade lower face rents for lower TIs or free rent if the overall net effective rents are attractive. Our all-time high for net effective rents during the year is a strong endorsement of our Sun Belt, BBD, and diversified portfolio strategy. Drilling down on our market activity. In Raleigh, we signed 263,000 square feet and ended the quarter 92% occupied and where market rents grew 5.1% year over year per CBRE.

Our local team is seeing healthy activity so far this year, and we expect this to continue, led by job growth in professional and financial service companies. Second, in terms of volume for the quarter, Nashville signed 225,000 square feet and is nearing the finish line on Highwoodtizing almost a million square feet of assets in Brentwood and Cool Springs, the two BBDs that garnered the majority of leasing activity for the entire Nashville market in 2022. Our signature reimagining and repositioning of these assets have been well-received, leading to the substantial backfill of our portfolio's largest 2023 lease roll in Tivity five months prior to expiration. According to Cushman & Wakefield, the Nashville market posted positive net absorption for the quarter and a 4.7% year-over-year increase in market rent.

As Ted mentioned previously, occupancy will be lower in our Nashville portfolio in 2023 as Tivity vacates and our replacement customer's lease doesn't commence until the beginning of 2024. Moving further south to Tampa, which leads the State of Florida for net New York City resident relocations, we placed in service our 97% leased Midtown West joint venture development in the quarter and announced Midtown East, a 143,000-square-foot mixed-use development which will offer the highest views in the Westshore BBD. Midtown has established itself as an address of choice for blue-chip organizations who have placed a priority on recruiting, retaining, and returning talent. Our newest markets in Charlotte and Dallas are great examples of decisively leaning into our simple and straightforward strategy and executing successfully via the wide and deep relationships we've built over time.

With the off-market acquisition of 650 South Tryon in Charlotte, the Queen City now stands as Highwoods' fourth largest contributor to NOI. With the December acquisition of McKinney & Olive, a 557,000-square-foot, 99%-leased tower in the heart of Dallas' Uptown BBD, which was tops in the market for annual absorption and rental growth for 2022, we're on track for Dallas to contribute 6% of pro forma NOI to our bottom line following the completion and stabilization of our two development projects. In conclusion, each and every Highwoods teammate remains focused on making our diverse portfolio the most talent-supportive and commute-worthy it can be. We believe this approach will enable our customers and their teams to achieve together what they cannot apart, and when we do this, we will create value for our customers and, in turn, our shareholders. I'll now turn the call over to Brendan.

Brendan Maiorana -- Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer

Thanks, Brian. In the fourth quarter, we delivered net income of $27.6 million, or $0.26 per share, and FFO of $103.1 million, or $0.96 per share. There were no significant unusual items in the quarter. For the year, our FFO of $4.03 per share came in at the midpoint of the upwardly revised outlook we provided in October. This was $0.19 above our original 2022 FFO outlook.

Excluding $0.13 per share of land sale gains, net of impairments, core FFO in 2022 was $3.90 per share, or $0.06 above the midpoint of our original outlook. The upside in core FFO in 2022 compared to the midpoint of our initial outlook was due to the following: $0.08 of higher NOI, largely driven by lower-than-forecast opex and higher parking revenues; $0.02 from less disposition activity than originally planned; and $0.01 from acquisitions. These items combined for $0.11 of upside and were partially offset by $0.05 of higher interest expense attributable to higher-than-forecasted rates on our variable rate debt. In addition to strong FFO during the year, our cash flows continue to strengthen.

Even with what we believe is an attractive current dividend yield of over 6.5%, we had strong coverage in 2022 with a CAD payout ratio under 75%, providing us meaningful retained cash flow to reinvest. We have been purposeful with our focus on strengthening cash flows. We've sold assets that were capital inefficient and recycled into acquisitions and development projects with higher long-term cash flow yields. To quantify this, since 2019, our cash NOI is higher by 16%, or $75 million, and our capital spend, leasing and maintenance capex is down 8%, or $12 million, resulting in $87 million more in cash generated from our portfolio and a ratio of capex to NOI that has improved by 15%, without any meaningful increase in our equity base.

Capex spend is often lumpy quarter to quarter or year to year, but regardless of the short-term fluctuations, the trend is clear. Our portfolio has become more efficient and our cash flows have continued to strengthen. Our balance sheet is in excellent shape. We ended the year with debt to EBITDAre of 5.9 times, up from the third quarter due to the acquisition of McKinney & Olive and continued investment in our development pipeline, but still low overall.

We have ample liquidity, with over $550 million between our line of credit and undrawn amounts on the construction loans at our Dallas development JVs, which provides us plenty of room to fund the remaining $359 million to complete our development pipeline. We have purposely set up the balance sheet with ample flexibility as we have over $900 million of debt that is prepayable without penalty, and no consolidated debt maturities until the end of 2025. This fits well with our investment plan for the year where we expect to be a net seller. We expect to reduce our floating rate exposure as we move throughout the year with planned disposition proceeds.

We also have a solid pool of unencumbered assets and the financial flexibility to obtain longer-term, fixed-rate debt. As Ted mentioned, our FFO outlook for 2023 is $3.66 to $3.82 per share. As you know, the largest headwind for 2023 is higher interest rates. Based on the current SOFR curve, we expect to incur $0.25 to $0.30 per share of higher interest expense in 2023, compared to what the forward curve implied just 12 months ago.

As I mentioned earlier, we purposely structured our balance sheet to provide us optionality to be able to repay debt without penalty. While this means we expect higher projected interest expense in the short term, given the forecasted peak in SOFR during 2023 and with no fixed rate debt maturities until 2027, we are positioned to benefit from a downward trend in the interest rate curve after this year. In our release last night, we stated an anticipated headwind of $0.08 per share at the midpoint from higher opex, net of anticipated recoveries. The higher projected opex, combined with lower average occupancy, principally related to the Tivity moveout, has negatively impacted our same property cash NOI outlook in 2023.

Year-over-year, same property comparisons are often helpful, but 2023 is somewhat distorted by the unusually low opex from the first half of 2022. Using our more normalized second half of 2022 as a comparison point, we expect positive cash NOI growth in our same property pool in 2023. Finally, as you may have noticed, we made some routine SEC filings yesterday and this morning. Under SEC rules, S-3 shelf registration statements sunset every three years.

It has been three years since our last shelf filing. As a result, last evening, we filed a new S-3 with the SEC. This was a joint shelf filing by the REIT and the operating partnership that registers an indeterminate number of debt securities, preferred stock, and common stock for future capital market transactions. With this new shelf in place, we also needed to refresh our long-standing ATM program, which we filed via Form 424(b) this morning.

As you know, keeping an ATM program in place is one of the many arrows we like to keep in our capital-raising quiver. To be clear, the FFO per share outlook that we provided in last night's release assumes no ATM issuances during 2023. Operator, we are now ready for questions.

Questions & Answers:

Operator

Thank you. [Operator instructions] Our first question is from the line of Camille Bonnel with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Camille Bonnel -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst

Good morning. Just a few questions on the same store NOI outlook you provided. When we think about your occupancy guidance, excluding the impact of the large move-out in Q1, what sort of retention ratio is embedded in your outlook?

Brendan Maiorana -- Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer

Hey, Camille. It's Brendan. Thanks for the question. So, our retention, when we look at 2023 in terms of what's remaining at year-end 22, is below average.

So, with the Tivity move-out, that is -- overall, including that, we're probably around 40% of the 2023 expirations. So, if we back that number out, that goes back up to -- we're probably a little bit under 50% overall, and I need to kind of just grab that right in front of me, but that's probably about where that number would be, which is roughly in line with average when we're at this point in the year where you have just the forward four quarters. Over time, we do a lot of early renewals, so that number tends to be higher. But 50% as we roll into a new year for the forward four quarters is about average for us.

Camille Bonnel -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst

Thank you. And really solid leasing last year. Looking forward, though, and understand it's a very challenging time, but can you also talk to your expectations for new leasing volume this year?

Ted Klinck -- President, Chief Executive Officer, and Director

Sure, Camille. It's Ted. Look, obviously, last year, we had a really good year. We signed 3.3 million square feet of leases, 1.5 million square feet of new leasing.

New customers come into high woods is, you know, roughly 180 new customers that came into our portfolio, which was a great number. I think that was, you know, the most new leases we have since 2014. And I think three of the four quarters, we had over 300,000 square feet of new leasing. So, we've been very pleased with leasing.

And obviously, it's quarter to quarter. But, you know, we're off to a good start in first quarter. You know, our leasing pipeline is active on -- in all of our markets. I will say, as we look at the pipeline, it's a lot of smaller deals.

You know, I think we've all seen that and you've heard it from others, and that was the case for us really in 2022 as well. You know, leasing activity to large users sort of hit the pause button late in the year. But just, you know, the demand we're seeing right now plays to what our core portfolio is, smaller and medium-sized customers where we continued to see demand. So, first quarter, it's continuing, but it is a lot of small customers.

But the volume into our activities, you know, pretty good, maybe a little bit slower than, you know, second half of last year but still pretty decent.

Brian Leary -- Executive Vice President, Chief Operating Officer

Camille, Brian Leary here. I might just add on for a little additional complexion into that momentum that Ted talked about. The smaller, midsize, who are they? Law firms. So, it's interesting.

I know there's a theory that law firms just move around, but what we're seeing in our markets are a number of law firms that are coming in from out of market, planting a flag, and then growing. And so, we've seen that, say, in Charlotte where we landed an inbound law firm from New York, opened an office in one of our spec suites, grew into the space next door, and is now looking at growing further. Financial services, engineering. We're seeing the engineering firms, I think, start to get the momentum with the infrastructure bill starting to find its way down into the local markets as well.

So, just a little extra color.

Camille Bonnel -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst

Appreciate the detail there. Thank you for taking my questions.

Ted Klinck -- President, Chief Executive Officer, and Director

Thank you.

Operator

Next question from the line of Michael Griffin with Citi. Please go ahead.

Avery Tiras -- Citi -- Analyst

Good morning. This is Avery Tiras on for Michael Griffin. My first question is on return to office. How do you see return to office faring across your Sun Belt markets? Are there any market or tenant types that are coming back stronger than others from a utilization perspective?

Ted Klinck -- President, Chief Executive Officer, and Director

Hey, Avery. It's Ted. Look, as you know, the Sun Belt markets have probably come back quicker than a lot of larger gateway markets. I think not necessarily types of tenants, really size of tenants.

You know, our return to the office has really been the smaller customers, suburban customers as well have been the first ones back. They've been back for a really long time. It's larger companies, the large public companies as well, that have been a little slower in terms of their return. So, I think it's more customer size than has been type of customer -- type of industry.

Brian Leary -- Executive Vice President, Chief Operating Officer

Hey, Avery. Brian Leary. To clip on there, the three days of the week, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday is absolutely when we're seeing our occupancy. So, financial services in Charlotte, you know, the buildings are full.

Top-level parking garage is getting parked on, and so we're even seeing the larger ones have implemented their, you know, hybrid work week. You know, three-two is what we hear a lot of. So, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday is when we're seeing the majority of folks in our buildings driving restaurant sales, you know, sundry sales, things like that.

Avery Tiras -- Citi -- Analyst

Helpful. Thank you. My follow-up question is on the activity backfill. Wondering if you can comment on what the backfill rent is in 2024 relative to Tivity was paying.

Brendan Maiorana -- Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer

Hey, Avery, it's Brendan. Yeah, we had a modest roll-up from a cash basis versus where Tivity was and then a more -- you know, more normalized kind of GAAP roll-up in the double-digit range. So, we found that that was -- and we were very pleased with that execution given that Tivity was a build-to-suit done in 2007, 2008 and had healthy bumps that compounded over 15 years. So, I think we were pleased with the execution, from a leasing standpoint, to be able to roll that up on a cash and GAAP basis for the new customer.

Avery Tiras -- Citi -- Analyst

Great. Thanks for the time.

Operator

Our next question is from the line of Blaine Heck, Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

Blaine Heck -- Wells Fargo Securities -- Analyst

Great. Thanks. Good morning. You guys talked about the flexible work options you guys are providing within the portfolio.

Can you just expand a little bit on that? Are there specific buildings or markets that those suites or flexible spaces work best in? And how much of your office space do you think could eventually be converted to more of a flexible use?

Brian Leary -- Executive Vice President, Chief Operating Officer

Hey, Blaine, Brian Leary. Good morning. Thanks for that question. This is -- how much time does everyone have? Because I'm obviously pretty passionate about this.

So, I'll be honest with you, it started with the momentum that we garnered a few years ago with rolling out our spec suite program. And as we started to realize that not all spec suites are the same, or customers of the same, or BBDs are the same, or buildings are the same, we started to flush out a matrix that can be applied across markets in BBDs to custom tailor, for instance, in Brentwood. We've been very successful in Nashville rolling out floor by floor of our common spec suites where there's a certain different complexion of the user that goes in there, what their rents are, and that carries a certain amount of amenity base. Where you look at our Buckhead collection, the type of customer that's there will be able to demand and pay for something different.

And so, what we're doing is we're also realizing that folks want to collaborate and kind of get out of their own office. It's not even just a potential of going to 110% occupancy, if you will. It's just giving them a diversity of spaces. So, I don't think I could give you an idea of what percent could be transformed over time.

I think this is just now going to be embedded in the offerings that we provide. Yes, we've been fairly opportunistic when vacancies presented itself to do this, and it's been successful. But we really see this rolling up as kind of our flexible option that you get by having a kind of long-term relationship with Highwoods and not necessarily have to engage at the more typical kind of co-working environment.

Blaine Heck -- Wells Fargo Securities -- Analyst

Great. Thanks, Brian. That's helpful. For my second question, can you just talk a little bit more about your capital needs this year? I know, Brendan, you mentioned no ATM issuance was included in guidance, but should we expect you to issue any additional debt this year? And how should we expect the leverage to trend as we progress throughout 2023?

Brendan Maiorana -- Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer

Yeah, Blaine. Good question. So, we do have a lot of flexibility within the capital stack. So, you know, as I mentioned in my prepared remarks, no scheduled debt maturities until really the end of 2025.

So, we have no need to be in the capital markets. However, we do have a lot of freely prepayable debt that is outstanding. So, the two options there are, one, I mean, we would like to have some of the noncore disposition proceeds come in the door. As Ted mentioned, that's highly dependent on the investment sales market in terms of how much proceeds we get in the door there, but that would be used to help pay down some of that debt.

And then, I think we also have options with respect to longer-term financing to reduce the floating rate exposure that we have, and on that, we would be opportunistic. But I do think it's probably reasonable to assume that, at some point, it -- I would say it's more likely than not that we'll do some form of financing to term out some of the floating rate exposure that we have during this year. It's just we'll be opportunistic as to when and what form that takes.

Blaine Heck -- Wells Fargo Securities -- Analyst

Great. Thank you.

Operator

Next question from the line of Georgi Dinkov with Mizuho. Please go ahead.

Georgi Dinkov -- Mizuho Securities -- Analyst

Hi, thank you for taking my questions. So, could you please walk us through the occupancy trajectory through the year and what gets you through the low versus the high end of the guidance?

Brendan Maiorana -- Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer

Hey, Georgi, this is Brendan, and I'll start with that. And maybe Ted and Brian will add in some color. So, yeah, I mean, as we talked about, we obviously have the headwind from Tivity, the 263,000 square feet, that's in the first quarter, so that's 100 basis points. So, we ended the year at 91% and then expect that number to go down in Q1 with Tivity.

And the backfill customer doesn't commence -- is not scheduled to commence until the beginning of '24. And then, we have some other expirations that are some move-outs that will occur as well. We had a government user that was in soft term that gave us back a sizable amount of square footage. So, that also is impacting us.

And then, we have some leases that are queued up to commence into occupancy later in the year. So, with all of that, that's where we think, you know, when we mix all that stuff together, we think we'll end 2023 about 100 basis points lower than where we ended 2022. But keep in mind, we'll also have then -- as we start 2024, we will have the backfill customer for Tivity that will be in a sizable amount of that space. They do lag into that space over time, but they'll take the majority of their space at the beginning of '24.

Georgi Dinkov -- Mizuho Securities -- Analyst

OK, great. And what was the size of the space that was given back to you?

Ted Klinck -- President, Chief Executive Officer, and Director

This is Ted. Really, we had a couple that Brendan alluded to. One of the government customers, they were -- again, just to reiterate, they're in soft terms. They had the ability to terminate their lease on reasonably short notice.

I think it was 90-day notice. But it is 116,000 square feet in Atlanta. And then -- and they gave that back, I think they vacated mid-January. So, that's another big one for majority of the year.

And then, I'll just mention one other one. Those are the only two above Tivity. And the government tended above 100,000 feet. We had a -- we had about 120,000-square-foot customer that we went through a merger here in Raleigh, and they downsized to 46,000 feet.

So, they gave us back early -- as part of the renewal -- long-term renewal, they gave us back about 77,000 square feet effective January 1 of '23. So, that's a hit on the occupancy as well. Now, the good part of that story is we've already released 55,000 of the 75,000 square feet and with customers that will be starting, you know, throughout this year. So, really, those are the three big ones.

Georgi Dinkov -- Mizuho Securities -- Analyst

Great. That was very helpful. Thank you. And just my last question.

Can you talk about the sublet market? How is that trending in your markets and specifically in your portfolio?

Brian Leary -- Executive Vice President, Chief Operating Officer

Hey, Georgi, Brian Leary here to take that question. So, we've kind of talked about this before and we are very much focused on the sublet activity, the growth of it, the complexion of it. It looks different in certain cases. Not all of it is the same.

And so, where we see it growing, Raleigh is probably a market with the greatest amount of sublet space as a proportion of available space. That's kind of the headline. As you dig into that, you realize that almost 60% of all the subleased space in a market like Raleigh is in one single area called the Research Triangle Park, which we don't have any exposure to and have none in our market. And then, so what -- the big thing is who's leasing, who's the sublessor, and what are their motivations to write a check, to move someone in there, or how much term do they have left? And so, kind of if you look within our portfolio from a sublet standpoint, the average wealth of our sublet sources north of six years, if you even take out one user who's got, you know, 14-plus years, it's over four years.

So, we feel pretty good about the visibility and exposure that's within the Highwoods portfolio. And then, if you look at the general markets, you know, Nashville's actually going down and we are part of that with folks kind of backfilling. But it's out there. When it gets are -- the ratio of available sublet space gets over 25%.

We have seen that that starts to impact rents, and, you know, Raleigh's the place where that shows up. But other than that, most of the sublet amount has kind of stayed stable quarter to quarter. It's definitely up year over year. I mean, nationally and within our markets, quarter to quarter, we haven't seen a lot move.

Georgi Dinkov -- Mizuho Securities -- Analyst

Great. Appreciate the call and thank you so much for the time.

Operator

Next question from the line of Rob Stevenson with Janney. Please go ahead.

Rob Stevenson -- Janney Montgomery Scott -- Analyst

Good morning, guys. Brendan, you guys had north of 135 million of combined building improvements and second-gen expenses in '22 and just shy of 120 in 2021. What are you expecting in '23 at this point, given Tivity retenanting and other known spending?

Brendan Maiorana -- Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer

Hey, Rob. Yeah, that number is -- I mean, it's -- bounces around a lot. What I would say is I think the leasing that we did is probably -- I mean, that's the hardest one to figure out. And I would say that we probably think leasing is likely to be reasonably stable.

Depends a little bit on the volume of leasing and the nature of that leasing and things like that. We committed a little bit more in terms of dollars to leases in 2022 than what we spent. So, I think our expectation is those things probably normalize and we probably will be pretty steady on the leasing capex. And then, usually, the maintenance capex numbers are fairly steady as well.

So, I would guess we -- and we -- this is what we project, that it will be pretty consistent, '23 versus '22, but that is a hard number to gauge.

Rob Stevenson -- Janney Montgomery Scott -- Analyst

OK. And then, given Ted's commentary about the continued dislocation in the acquisition market, are dispositions in '23 likely to be back-end loaded? You have stuff teed up that could close in the first half of the year. How are you guys sort of positioning that at this point?

Ted Klinck -- President, Chief Executive Officer, and Director

No, I think you're dead on. Obviously, we put a pretty wide range of zero to 400 million for our dispo range. And it's highly dependent on getting back to a stabilized, fully functioning investment sales market. And I think you're starting to see some green shoots that are some encouraging signs, at least for other property types.

I think office is going to trail that a little bit. Got a little bit more headwinds, but we're starting to see, you know, some positive things falling maybe on the debt side. So, which is good. So, yeah, any disposals we do likely going to be back-end loaded.

We've got a couple of buildings and a couple of land transactions that are in the market now that, yeah, I'd say, so far, they're going well. So, we may have a couple of things late -- you know, late this quarter or late this first half of the year. And then, anything else we do will likely be heavily weighted toward the back half of the year.

Rob Stevenson -- Janney Montgomery Scott -- Analyst

OK. And then, Ted, I mean, any updated thoughts on the Pittsburgh portfolio and the potential sale now? Is that on the table for now? Is that more likely to be a '24 transaction, or are you still thinking that that might wind up going to market this year?

Ted Klinck -- President, Chief Executive Officer, and Director

Yeah, look, I think we can afford to be patient with Pittsburgh. There's no real rush. And again, until we get a fully functioning, you know, debt market and fully functioning investment sales market, I think it's probably put on hold. You know, we've hired the broker, we're preparing it to market, we do want to sell.

But in the meantime, again, while we're being patient, we're seeing some really good leasing activity in Pittsburgh. So, we're going to try and take advantage of the holes we have there and button that up. But so, we'll wait and see but likely not going to be, you know, for a while.

Rob Stevenson -- Janney Montgomery Scott -- Analyst

OK. And then, last one for me. Brian, you were talking about utilization before. Have you seen any change -- an uptick since the beginning of the year with more companies having a definitive plan with a date of January 1 coming back? Or has that not been really noticeable in your markets?

Brian Leary -- Executive Vice President, Chief Operating Officer

No, I think it has, Rob. That's a great point and question. I think the big firms, while they're not necessarily making decisions about moving or expanding, you know, some are putting stuff on the sublet market if they're contracting, they have a plan to get their people back in the office. They have their rhythm for the hybrid.

And I think, you know, you all have seen a number of leaders, CEOs be pretty definitive on this, you know, work -- where a work-from-work company is hard to manage by Hollywood Squares, things like that. And if you look at the -- again, the makeup of our customer base, if you kind of go ahead and capture the small and medium customers, as I mentioned, our bread and butter, which makes up a great majority, they have been back and they are back. And then, you look at the bigger users, the corporates, the publicly traded folks in the financial services or what have you, they have their plan. And we absolutely -- we absolutely have seen it.

I mean, so much so as we're working on how to, you know, exit the garages faster, you know, because now what we've done is we've been deliberately engaged with our customers. How do we kind of help them -- you know, the Jerry Maguire scene, help me help you, how do we help them with their return-to-work policy? Because they are committed that they're better together, and they want to see their productivity increase. Their productivity increases when they're in the building. So, that's kind of what we're doing.

We have kind of a campaign where we're literally partnering with them, specifically on recruiting and bringing their teammates back to the office.

Rob Stevenson -- Janney Montgomery Scott -- Analyst

And where is utilization midweek for you across the portfolio these days?

Brian Leary -- Executive Vice President, Chief Operating Officer

Where has it been a week? I mean, I -- you know, I think those places that have the -- you've heard the term commute worthiness that we talk about, and so, those places that might have the higher commute burden to overcome, right? So, interesting enough, while, you know, it considers itself the heart of the Sun Belt, you know, Atlanta because of its greater commute times and distances is probably, you know, trailing the likes of Nashville's. Pittsburgh, for sure is, you know, a more traditional hub-and-spoke kind of commute model. But I would say just -- you know, just Atlanta, to some extent, you know, has kind of plateaued, you know, between 50% and 75%. Again, Monday -- Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, we've absolutely noticed that -- we look the restaurant sales, the deli sales, the cafes, they're much busier, you know, back to kind of pre-pandemic levels in terms of that activity.

Rob Stevenson -- Janney Montgomery Scott -- Analyst

OK. Thanks, guys. Appreciate the time.

Operator

Next question from the line of Dave Rodgers with Baird. Please go ahead.

Dave Rodgers -- Baird -- Analyst

Yeah. Good morning, everybody. Brian, I wanted to talk about rent a little bit. And you talked about economic or effective rent earlier.

Maybe they're not where you'd love them to be, but they haven't been terrible. But your average deal size has been about 10,000 square feet. So, as you roll forward, is there any good evidence that you have now or that you're starting to have negotiations on these bigger deal, say, you know, 50 to 100 or north of 100,000 square feet are getting done where you're seeing a substantially greater amount of pressure on rents or effective rents? It just seems like that comp could start to come out and maybe surprise us, but I'd love to know what you're seeing on that front.

Brian Leary -- Executive Vice President, Chief Operating Officer

They haven't really seen that yet. You know -- and I know it probably just sounds like I'm just talking my book, but, I mean, the -- our customers, even the bigger ones, are, to a person, telling us that they want to get their people back, and they see the workplace experience as part of that. So, right now, the rents are holding up, you know. The free rent is absolutely there.

I think they'd like to finance their TI to higher rents. Again, not to go back, like, two years, and those who've been listening to me for a while, I think I sound like -- a little bit like a broken record, but a lot of these organizations, while they are cost focused for sure, you know, 1% of what they spend every year is on utilities, 9% is on real estate, 90% is on people. And they're pretty focused on that 90%. And so, it obviously does have a connection to the 9%.

And so, you know, nothing yet to connect those days. Sorry for the long answer for a fairly short yes or no. Ted, maybe your thought?

Ted Klinck -- President, Chief Executive Officer, and Director

Yeah. The only thing I'd add is, you know, Landmark, we did that third quarter of last year, you know, over 200,000 square feet, and the rent was, you know, pretty high on that space as well. It's been interesting, just looking at our portfolio and it sort of goes with the question, last year, we only did nine leases greater than 50,000 square feet, which I thought was an interesting stat. It's just a lot of the small and medium-sized users, which again plays right to our portfolio.

Brian Leary -- Executive Vice President, Chief Operating Officer

And that's out of 425 deals, right? So, I think it gives you an idea.

Dave Rodgers -- Baird -- Analyst

And then, some of the larger deals -- you know, you have talked about the backfill activity or the deal that you did in Richmond. The larger transactions seemingly have focused on suburban markets. Is that not enough data to make that conclusion or leap? Or are you seeing that definitely happening where the larger tenants aren't gravitating to Buckhead but maybe are gravitating toward Riverwood or something similar across your markets?

Ted Klinck -- President, Chief Executive Officer, and Director

I don't think there's really been, you know, any enough data points to know. I mean, part some of it is, you know, on renewals, right, you can only renew the ones you have and that's where the holes you have as well in your portfolio. So, obviously, Tivity, we had a hole, so we're able to go aggressively try and backfill it, and then some of the other ones. So, it sort of just depends, but I will say a blanket statement.

I think we've said this before that, during the pandemic, we have seen a disproportion of leasing out in the suburbs versus urban. But I don't think there's enough data points to say there's any trend one way or the other.

Brian Leary -- Executive Vice President, Chief Operating Officer

I think it's -- just to clip on, and this is, you know, decades in the making. You know, where people live is where they like to work. And so, there's a great, continued migration of homeownership and homebuying by the millennials to the suburbs. And so, I think that the concept it's not -- commodity suburbs is not something that we think, just because it's in the suburbs, is competitive by any stretch.

And so, if you think about what we've talked about, the repositioning of our assets in Brentwood and Cool Springs, Cool Springs, which said repositioning landed the backfill of that building, it's about amenitizing, walkable, mixed-use, a place to get a cup of coffee, a place to walk and grab lunch, a place to workout outside and within a fitness center, and have collaborative workspace. So, it's -- you just can't drop it down someplace in the suburbs or even in town and expect that to solve your problems, but that's what we've seen.

Dave Rodgers -- Baird -- Analyst

Thanks for that. And then last for me. On the dispositions, Ted, you mentioned in your comment maybe some land and maybe not Pittsburgh is kind of a full exit this year. So, what do you anticipate being able to sell this year? And I guess maybe the point of the question really is, if you're selling 400 million, how dilutive is that relative to the debt costs, you know, as you think about late '23 into 2024?

Ted Klinck -- President, Chief Executive Officer, and Director

Sure. I'll take maybe the first part and Brendan can jump in. So, you know, the mix of assets, it's a couple of land deals and then we've got a couple of single-tenant transactions in the market. But it's going to be a mix of typically what we've done the last two or three, you know, large transactions where we go out and sell, go out and buy an asset like we did in McKinney & Olive, flex up a little bit, and then pay off, bring the balance sheet back down over time.

So, it's going to be a mix of single tenant, some land, some multitenant assets, again, assets that maybe have a lower growth profile going forward. So, it's not unlike other stuff we've seen. Pittsburgh, you know, it may be in there. We will see.

But it is a large transaction, and larger deals are harder to get done these days. Now, in terms of dilution, Brendan, you want to take that?

Brendan Maiorana -- Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer

Sure. Dave, so what I would say is, I mean, I think the marginal cost of borrowing on what we would pay off, if you look at our forecast for 2023, you're probably in the mid to kind of upper fives. So, you can kind of apply the cap rates that you think versus those numbers. What I would say is, from a cash flow perspective, which is where we have focused, clearly, you know, there's capex associated with -- ongoing capex associated with the assets that we plan to sell.

When we pay down the debt, all of that, you know, interest savings falls to the bottom line. There's no capex associated with that, obviously. So, from a cash flow perspective, it's much less dilutive. And then, when we staple on to that the development deliveries that come online, that's where we do think, you know, over time, our cash flows will continue to get better even with the planned dispositions that we have.

Dave Rodgers -- Baird -- Analyst

All right, great. Thank you.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Dylan Burzinski with Green Street. Please go ahead.

Dylan Burzinski -- Green Street Advisors -- Analyst

Hi, guys. Thanks for taking the question. Just curious sort of if you can kind of touch on the development leasing pipeline and where it stands today.

Ted Klinck -- President, Chief Executive Officer, and Director

Sure. Dylan. Good morning. Yeah, let me just walk -- maybe walk through each of them, you know, and maybe I'll start in order of when they deliver.

So, 2827 Peachtree, just a reminder, that's now topped out, delivers third quarter of this year. So, it's come together nicely. And we do have a stabilization date of first quarter '25 and that -- at the end of the year, we are 75% leased and we've got a couple that's a very strong prospects to get us somewhere in the mid-80s prior to delivery. So, we feel good about that one.

GlenLake Three here in Raleigh also delivers third quarter of this year, stabilization is first quarter '25. We did -- if you remember, we started that one 15% pre-leased. We have not signed anyone else throughout so far. But I will say in the last, call it, even 60 days late last year, rolling into this year, activity prospect -- as we've topped off the building, you can now see the shell of the retail that we're adding as an amenity come together that our activity has picked up pretty good.

So, we're encouraged by that. The third one that delivers this year is the Granite Park 6. That's, as a reminder, in the Plano-Frisco submarkets, 50-50 joint venture with Granite Properties, a local sharpshooter that we're thrilled to be partners with. That delivers in the fourth quarter, so sort of toward the end of the year, 12% pre-leased, and that one's been interesting in that, you know, I'd say, mid-last year, the activity was just off the charts.

A lot of larger users we were chasing and we're moving down, you know, making progress with or some sort of progress. And all of a sudden, late last year or the third quarter, the big users, like we've all heard, they sort of just press the pause button. So, there's still smaller activity, but again, incredibly well-located building, and we're encouraged by -- again, by what's -- how the building's coming together. And the other two are 23Springs, also with Granite.

That doesn't get completed till first quarter '25, stabilizes in 2028. And activity has been very, very strong there even though the delivery is a couple of years out, so we feel great about that. And then the fifth one, just Midtown East. Obviously, we're just -- we put the silt fence around it, and we'll be breaking ground in the next week or two.

With that one, doesn't deliver until 2025. And we've actually had -- since we've had the fence go up, we've had some inquiries on that, which I didn't really expect. Tampa is really not a pre-leased market, so we'll see. Those are very early and haven't even responded to some of the RFPs, but we're getting some activity there.

So, again, we feel good. Got a couple of years until we get that one done. Does that answer your question?

Dylan Burzinski -- Green Street Advisors -- Analyst

Yeah, that was perfect. Appreciate the color on that. And I guess just you mentioned Granite Park. The follow-up on Granite Park 6, have you guys underwritten -- or underwriting expectations changed, given sort of the drop-off in leasing activity, or just kind of how should we be thinking about that?

Ted Klinck -- President, Chief Executive Officer, and Director

Not at all. Not at all. I think we feel very good about the underwriting. Again, we don't stabilize that one till, I think, first quarter '26.

So, again, we got plenty of time. There's no rush here. We didn't have a lot of pre-leasing coming in before the building was done. So, we -- you know, we think we were pretty conservative.

The proposals we're putting out are well in line with our underwriting, and so we still feel very good about it.

Dylan Burzinski -- Green Street Advisors -- Analyst

Thanks.

Ted Klinck -- President, Chief Executive Officer, and Director

Thank you.

Operator

Next question from the line of Peter Abramowitz with Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Peter Abramowitz -- Jefferies -- Analyst

Yes. Thank you. I just want to ask, what's kind of built into your guidance in terms of the mark-to-market that you're expecting for the year?

Brendan Maiorana -- Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer

Hey, Peter, it's Brendan. I would say, I mean, it's on a cash basis. We've been, you know, roughly kind of around flat for the pad, and really almost since the onset of COVID. So, that's probably a good marker.

And in the low double digits on a GAAP basis, those are probably good markers. Again, a little bit difficult to forecast just given, you know, the mix of expirations and new lease signings and things like that. But I think if you use those guideposts, that probably gets you to kind of where -- that probably ought to be in line with what we've got included in our outlook.

Peter Abramowitz -- Jefferies -- Analyst

OK. Got it. And then, I guess a slightly different way of asking something that was asked earlier, but a lot of you coastal competitors have talked about a pickup in activity pretty meaningfully since the new year. Are you seeing any signs of that in your markets and -- or generally kind of any signs of an inflection in terms of business confidence and business leaders being more willing to make decisions? Or is it still kind of the same that they've been for the past year or so?

Brian Leary -- Executive Vice President, Chief Operating Officer

Hey, Peter. Brian here. So, a couple of things to that kind of comparison. Our markets are submarkets, our BBDs are buildings.

We're already ahead of that curve. So, that's kind of the first thing. But so, again, our smaller and medium size, and particularly, suburban, were first back, then they came back kind of across the board. Now, the start of this year, I do think the bigger corporates, the ones that you've read about, their CEOs saying that they want to get their folks back, we have absolutely seen that now.

You know, what -- the great thing, I think, and we hope that this is the case, the issues around the pandemic, which still were hovering a year ago, just as a potential lag, those really kind of abated in terms of the reason why folks are not coming back. So, I think that's a good thing. Hopefully, that's in the rearview mirror, you know. But we have been fairly consistent, you know, ahead of the curve.

That curve's continued to go up. You know, peak occupancy is Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, for sure. Fridays are quiet. You're seeing more on Mondays than you did at the end of last year.

But I do believe that, to a company, there is a plan now that folks are back in the office three days a week.

Peter Abramowitz -- Jefferies -- Analyst

All right. That's it for me. Thank you.

Operator

We have a follow-up from Camille Bonnel, Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Camille Bonnel -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst

Hi. Just have one follow-up. Given the big debate on whether the weakness of CBD urban office is temporary or not, can you remind us of the breakdown of the urban versus suburban in your portfolio? And within that, are you seeing any clear distinction between the operating performance between the two, whether it be leasing activity, occupancy, or rents?

Brendan Maiorana -- Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer

Hey, Camille, it's Brendan. So, yeah, I mean, I would say -- I mean, from a CBD -- we kind of classify it in three different ways, so CBD, infill, and suburban. So, suburban -- they're not quite evenly distributed. You might have a little bit -- maybe suburban is about a quarter, infill is, you know -- and then evenly split between infill and CBD.

So, that's kind of the portfolio breakdown in terms of -- you know, maybe in terms of performance, I'll let that over to Brian or Ted to answer that.

Brian Leary -- Executive Vice President, Chief Operating Officer

Camille, just an add-on, our CBDs are fundamentally different from a CBD of the gateways. So, our customers and their teammates, who are commuting to our CBDs on the whole, are not spending an hour on the train each way. So, our CBDs have a different kind of complexion. I keep using that term.

Now, as I mentioned earlier, those regions that do look more like a gateway in terms of longer commutes and kind of that hub and spoke from the burbs and then back out again, they are looking more like kind of the coastal gateways in terms of the return. But to Brendan's point, the CBD infill and suburban kind of nature of how we break out our markets infill, that's basically a Buckhead in Atlanta, if you know that. It has a solid residential base with incredible incomes and educational attainment, then what happened is they added the shops and restaurants for that high-net-worth population to service. And then, because they already live there and they played there, they wanted to work there.

And so, that's Buckhead; that's SouthPark, Charlotte; that's, you know, North Hills here in Raleigh. So, that is a little bit of a nuance between the CBD within the Highwood Sun Belt portfolio and a CBD analog to the gateways of the coastals.

Camille Bonnel -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst

Thank you.

Brian Leary -- Executive Vice President, Chief Operating Officer

Thank you.

Operator

We have no further questions on the phone line.

Ted Klinck -- President, Chief Executive Officer, and Director

Well, thanks, everybody, for joining the call today. We appreciate your interest in Highwoods, and we look forward to talking to you again soon. Thank you.

Operator

[Operator signoff]

Duration: 0 minutes

Call participants:

Hannah True -- Investor Relations

Ted Klinck -- President, Chief Executive Officer, and Director

Brian Leary -- Executive Vice President, Chief Operating Officer

Brendan Maiorana -- Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer

Camille Bonnel -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst

Avery Tiras -- Citi -- Analyst

Blaine Heck -- Wells Fargo Securities -- Analyst

Georgi Dinkov -- Mizuho Securities -- Analyst

Rob Stevenson -- Janney Montgomery Scott -- Analyst

Dave Rodgers -- Baird -- Analyst

Dylan Burzinski -- Green Street Advisors -- Analyst

Peter Abramowitz -- Jefferies -- Analyst

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