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Text: If you did not receive a copy, these documents are available through the quarterly disclosures and supplemental SEC information links on the Investor Relations page of our website, cousins.com.
In particular, there are significant risks and uncertainties related to the severity and duration as the COVID-19 pandemic and the timing and strength of the recovery there from.
We began the third quarter with the expectation that our customers will begin bringing their teams back to the office post Labor Day.
Since then, the delta variant hit the Sun Belt hard and created delays.
However, as cases have now significantly declined, we're increasingly hearing from our customers that they plan to return toward the end of this year or early next year.
Our team delivered strong financial results during the third quarter.
Here are a few highlights.
On the earnings front, the team delivered $0.69 per share in FFO.
Same-property NOI on a cash basis increased 3.6%, and importantly, we leased over 597,000 square feet, including over 500,000 square feet of new and extension leases with 7.7 years of weighted average lease term and a net effective rent of $24.06 per square foot, which is higher than our 2019 average.
Second-generation cash rents increased 23.1%, our strongest rollout since 2015.
And we ended the quarter with net debt to EBITDA of 4.54 times.
While the macro narrative around office remains ambiguous, our leasing performance highlights three office sector trends that are becoming quite clear.
First, innovative and growing companies recognize that they are stronger in person at least most of the time.
In this persistent remote environment, employee attrition is at an all-time high.
Contrary to many of the media headlines, forward-thinking business leaders are connecting the dots between the great resignation and eroding corporate cultures.
Thus, companies are firming up plans for their return strategy and making long-term real estate decisions that they were not prepared to make just a few quarters ago.
Second, the migration of the Sun Belt has accelerated.
Cisco, Visa, Ark Invest and Tesla are just the latest examples.
There are more in the pipeline.
The rapid urbanization is places like Downtown Austin, Midtown Atlanta, in the south end of Charlotte, have changed the equation for companies previously located in more dense, larger cities in the Northeast and West Coast.
Sunbelt cities now offer a dynamic urban experience in addition to an attractive climate and a lower cost of living and doing business.
It's the best of both worlds.
Lastly, the flight to quality is intensifying.
Earlier this week, I've toured our recently completed Norfolk Southern headquarters project with a local business leader.
His feedback, much better than working at home, he said.
It was simple and spot on.
The development includes innovative collaboration space, neighborhoods for private working, state-of-the-art technology and countless amenities, all in the heart of Midtown Atlanta.
Our customers recognize that interesting and inspiring space will be a competitive advantage in retaining and recruiting talent as well as rebuilding culture and connectivity.
At Cousins, we have a unique and compelling strategy that positions us at the intersection of these trends.
As the market moves faster, we are responding.
Most recently, we acquired Heights Union, a 294,000 square foot office property in Tampa for a gross price of $144.8 million.
The Heights neighborhood has emerged as one of Tampa's signature gathering spots providing a unique live, work, play experience.
The two 6-story buildings, which were completed in 2020 are highly amenitized, authentic and efficient.
Including Heights Union, we have invested approximately $1.1 billion in new acquisitions and development since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
We are excited about the RailYard in Charlotte, 725 Ponce in Atlanta, Domain nine in Austin and New Hawk in Nashville.
They are representative of the Office of the Future in our all differentiated products in their respective markets.
During the same period, we have sold approximately $1 billion of noncore properties, including Hearst Tower and one South in Charlotte, and Burnett Plaza in Fort Worth.
The net result of these strategic transactions are value-add returns on a blended basis and a trophy portfolio positioned to capture outsized customer demand and a reduced capex profile.
As I mentioned earlier, we have completed the Norfolk Southern headquarters project.
The development was a highly profitable development for Cousins and a great outcome for our customer, a true win-win.
Nonetheless, we are excited to transition to the other side of this unconventional transaction.
The declining development fee stream has created challenging year-over-year earnings comps and the 370,000 square foot lease expiration on December 31 at 1,200 Peachtree created uncertainty.
Looking forward to 2022 and beyond, our story simplified, and we are already making great early progress on our releasing efforts at 1,200 Peachtree as we are approximately 40% committed including LOIs.
Richard will touch on this more in a moment.
In closing, Cousins is well-positioned for the future.
We have assembled a trophy portfolio in fast-growing Sun Belt markets.
We have organic growth opportunities within the portfolio as we drive occupancy gains and rental rate increases.
We have external growth opportunities in our $663 million development pipeline.
In addition, we have a well-located land bank that can support another $2.6 billion in development, including over three million square feet of trophy office and over 1,500 multifamily units.
Importantly, we have a rock-solid balance sheet that provides financial flexibility and a highly capable team to execute on the strategy.
They are the cornerstone of the company's success.
This quarter, we continue to see economic recovery in our core markets and along with it, an increase in leasing and transaction activity.
In short, our third quarter operational performance was strong.
While the pandemic still remains and the delta variant delay the return to the office for some, we are encouraged by the demand for high-quality office space across our markets.
Due to the delta variant, portfolio level utilization, as we measure it, did not significantly increase this quarter.
With that said, there is noticeably more activity and energy at most of our properties compared to last quarter.
This is evidenced by a 27% increase in transient parking revenue quarter-over-quarter.
Turning to third quarter results.
our total office portfolio lease percentage and weighted average occupancy came in at 91.3% and 89.8%, respectively.
Our lease percentage increased 30 basis points this quarter driven by new and expansion leasing activity at Terminus and 3350 Peachtree in Buckhead and at Domain Point in Austin.
Conversely, weighted average occupancy declined 120 basis points with the impact of the previously disclosed move out of Anthem at 3350 Peachtree in Buckhead.
As for general leasing activity this quarter, our team and portfolio produced fantastic results.
We executed 43 leases totaling 597,000 square feet in the quarter, and new and expansion leases were accounted for 84% of total activity.
Net effective rents were $24.06 this quarter, an improvement over the second quarter and $0.24 higher than our reported net effective rents for the full year of 2019.
The rent growth was outstanding this quarter as well with second-generation net rents increasing 23.1% on a cash basis.
Similar to this time last quarter, we are still seeing encouraging activity in our leasing pipeline, both for our existing portfolio and new development.
Tour volume in our portfolio was on a clear upswing in the second quarter, and it has held at a consistent level since then.
We are also optimistic about our Sun Belt markets' continued recovery as compared to the U.S. economy in the aggregate.
According to the Urban Land Institute, every market lost jobs during the pandemic, but the recovery has been much quicker in Sun Belt markets.
ULI projects that by the end of the year, those markets will collectively regain nearly all of their lost jobs in comparison to the greater United States, which is expected to still be down almost 2%.
Now I'll speak to some specifics about current conditions and activity in our markets.
I'll begin with Atlanta.
According to JLL, Atlanta saw positive net absorption this past quarter for the first time since the pandemic began at 756,000 square feet.
This is an encouraging milestone.
In our nearly eight million square foot Atlanta portfolio, we signed an impressive 299,000 square feet of leases in the third quarter.
That includes the previously disclosed 123,000 square foot lease with Visa at 1200 Peachtree in Midtown, serving as Visa's new Atlanta office hub.
We also have a final LOI in hand with another potential customer at that property for 31,000 square feet.
We view this activity at 1200 Peachtree as a strong validation of a truly irreplaceable location and quality of the to-be-repositioned assets.
Another example of demand for high-quality and well-amenitized properties is our redeveloped Buckhead Plaza project, producing 121,000 square feet of leasing activity year-to-date at record rental rates.
Our overall Buckhead portfolio also produced great activity this quarter, accounting for 43% of our Atlanta leasing activity.
This includes 29,000 and 50,000 square feet of new and expansion leasing at 3350 Peachtree and Terminus, respectively.
At one of our newest Atlanta assets located in Alpharetta, 10,000 Avalon, we signed a 51,000 square foot new lease after quarter end with [Indecipherable], a newly public financial technology company, taking the building to 99% leased.
In Austin, population growth continued to be strong as ever this quarter.
Further, CoStar showed a 496,000 square foot decline this quarter and Class A total sublease space available for lease.
The unemployment rate in Austin this quarter was at its lowest since March of 2020 with average asking rents and the market climbing.
Our Austin portfolio is currently 95% leased, with our 1.9 million foot -- square-foot operating portfolio and the core of the domain at 100% leased.
With regard to leasing activity in Austin, we signed 236,000 square feet of leases in the quarter, including a 73,000 square foot new lease with a growing technology company at Colorado Tower, which will entirely backfill the expiration of Atlassian at the end of January 2022.
In Charlotte, our now 1.4 million square-foot uptown and South end operating portfolio is well-ositioned at a solid 96.1% leased with very little existing space available.
Like in Austin, CoStar showed that Charlotte had a meaningful 139,000 square foot decline this quarter and Class A total sublease space available for lease.
According to JLL, third quarter activity was robust in Tampa, where we recently acquired Heights Union in the downtown submarket.
According to CBRE's 2021 Tech Talent report, Tampa ranks tenth among the 50 largest tech talent markets with its millennial population increasing by 14.5% since 2014.
While average direct asking rents are down 2.5% year-over-year overall, many Class A buildings in the Westshore submarket, where the bulk of our portfolio is located, have increased asking rates to at or above pre-pandemic levels.
We signed 41,000 square feet of leases in Tampa this past quarter.
The Greater Phoenix area is one of the few places in the country that now has more jobs than before the pandemic, recovering 102.6% of jobs since April of 2020.
When comparing year-to-date data versus 2019, Phoenix is also the second fastest growing metro in the country behind Austin, according to the Greater Phoenix Chambers annual economic outlook.
While our completed activity in Phoenix was light this quarter, the recovery is reflected in our pipeline as we are currently in lease negotiations for 95,000 square feet of new and extension leases at our $100 million new development.
They continue to produce great results and deliver excellent customer service.
I am grateful for all that you do.
I'll begin my remarks by providing a brief overview of our quarterly financial results, including some detail on our same-property performance, our development pipeline and our transaction activity followed by a quick discussion of our leverage position, before closing my remarks with updated information on our outlook for the balance of 2021.
As you can tell from Colin's remarks, we've been extremely busy.
However, we don't want all that positive transaction activity to take attention away from our very solid operating performance during the quarter.
Leasing velocity in particular, was outstanding, while second-generation cash leasing spreads were up the most since the fourth quarter of 2015.
Over the past two quarters, we've signed almost 1.1 million square feet of leases with almost 2/3 of that total representing new leases.
The ability to attract so many new customers to our properties is a powerful indication of our Class A Sun Belt strategy.
However, it's a big decision for a company to open a new office, especially if they're coming from out of market.
It's not easy from space planning to construction management, to the endless logistical details surrounding moving existing employees, hiring new employees and establishing a new address, it all takes a lot of time, which means the typical period between lease signing and revenue recognition is extended compared to a simple renewal.
A significant portion of the new leases we have signed over the last six months do not begin revenue recognition until late 2022 or early 2023.
Attracting new customers, the Sun Belt is our competitive advantage.
It often just takes time for this to turn into revenue.
Turning back to the third quarter results.
Our same-property performance continued to generate a significant and constructive change in trend.
NOI on a cash basis increased a very healthy 3.6% over the last year and excluding the single large move-out that Richard talked about, Athem's departure from our 3350 Peachtree property in Buckhead to a new consolidated campus in Midtown Atlanta, NOI on a cash basis would have increased 5.3%.
The largest variable in our same-property performance remains parking revenues.
After bottoming during the fourth quarter of 2020, same-property parking revenues are up over 20% in the last three quarters, but still remain 20% below pre-COVID levels.
Focusing on our development efforts, one asset, Domain 10 an office property primarily leased to Amazon in the Domain submarket of Austin was moved off our development pipeline schedule and into our portfolio statistics, while another asset, Neuhoff, a mixed-use property in the Germantown submarket of Nashville was added to our schedule.
Total development costs for Neuhoff are estimated to be $563 million with our joint venture interest representing 50% of that amount.
The current development pipeline represents a total Cousins' investment of $663 million across 1.9 million square feet in four assets.
On the transaction front, as Colin laid out at the top of the call, we've been very active.
As this series of transactions has unfolded, we've maintained our net debt-to-EBITDA around 4.5 times, as we've done with very few exceptions since 2014.
We believe this leverage profile provides both defensive support during challenging times as well as offensive firepower to execute compelling transactions when the opportunity presents itself.
If and when we commence additional developments and/or acquire additional properties, you should expect us to continue to fund these investments on a leverage-neutral basis over time.
On the Capital Markets front, we closed a $312 million construction loan for our new house development joint venture during the third quarter.
This new loan matures in September 2025 and includes a potential one year extension option.
I'll close by updating our 2021 earnings guidance.
We currently anticipate a full year 2021 FFO between $2.73 and $2.77 per share.
This is up $0.01 at the midpoint from our previous guidance.
There are no other dispositions, acquisitions or development starts included in our guidance.
The most significant variable behind our guidance remains parking revenue.
Our customers continue returning to the office during the third quarter, and we anticipate maintaining this trend into the year-end.
Our current parking revenue assumptions reflect this outlook.

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cousins properties inc - qtrly ffo per share $0.69.
cousins properties inc sees 2021 ffo $2.73 to $2.77 per share.

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