Empire State Building One Grand Central Place 111
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WORLD’S MOST FAMOUS BUILDING 10 MILLION SQUARE FEET LEADER IN ENERGY EFFICIENCY AND SUSTAINABILITY 21ST CENTURY INFRASTRUCTURE 876 EMPLOYEES 2015 ANNUAL REPORT 1400 BROADWAY ONE GRAND CENTRAL PLACE FIRST STAMFORD PLACE MERRITTVIEW 501 SEVENTH AVENUE 10 UNION SQUARE EAST EMPIRE STATE BUILDING 1010 THIRD AVENUE 77 WEST 55TH STREET 1542 THIRD AVENUE 112 WEST 34TH STREET 111 WEST 33RD STREET 1333 BROADWAY 1350 BROADWAY 1359 BROADWAY 103-107 MAIN STREET 69-97 MAIN STREET 250 WEST 57TH STREET METRO CENTER 500 MAMARONECK AVENUE 10 BANK STREET 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Performance for Today. Perspective for Tomorrow. 9 10 11 SUSTAINABILITY MATRIX Empire One Grand 1400 111 West 250 West State Central Broadway 33rd Street 57th Street Building Place Whole Building Energy Retrofit Analysis (Replicate ESB Model) Whole Building Energy Retrofit Implementation Low-e window retrofit High Performance Tenant Installation Required per Lease Submetering of All New Tenant Spaces Utilities Billed by Submetering (as installed) Building Management System (BMS) Status (I) BMS in place Hybrid/package (II) No BMS in place HVAC (III) Partial BMS in place No central HVAC No central HVAC Energy Star Certification Waste Management/Recycling (I) Construction Debris (II) Tenant Waste (III) Separate Electronic Recycling (IV) Single Stream Recycling Green Cleaning Products and Practices Green Pest Management Products and Practices Demand Response/Peak Load Shaving Sustainability Committee Annual & Long Term Sustainability Targets Leadership & Sharing To Our Fellow Stockholders: It is our pleasure to present Empire State Realty Trust’s 2015 annual report. In our second full year as a public company, we continued to deliver on our goals and promises. Our team, augmented by our President and COO John B. Kessler who joined us in February 2015, is talented and committed. We used our strengthening and increasingly flexible balance sheet to generate growth and create value through our existing portfolio’s redevelopment, and we also assessed opportunities to grow through acquisitions. Redevelopment and Leasing Success Continue We completed 245 lease agreements totaling 1.2 million square feet, a 54% increase over 2014’s pace. We signed expansion or new office leases with LinkedIn, Workday, Media General Digital, HNTB, OnDeck, and Coyne PR, among others, and new and renewal retail leases with Sephora and Footlocker at 112 West 34th Street. We believe our strong leasing results have outpaced the market, driven by our continued redevelopment success and the market’s elevation of our modern, full floor and pre-built office spaces and the positive reception of our upgraded buildings by current and prospective tenants. When we redevelop space, we consolidate previously demised, smaller unimproved spaces through planned co-termination of leases, gut the floor down to the columns and walls, and upgrade all building systems. We then offer that clean floor as a full floor We availability or build it with energy efficient, ready-to-move-in suites. In 2015, completed building on the new residential and retail developments on West 57th Street, we began the transformation of 250 West 57th Street from multi-tenant floors 245 lease to primarily full floor tenancy floors and were pleased to sign COOKFOX agreements Architects as our first full floor user. totaling The proof of the success of our strategy can be found in our above-market 1.2 million leasing spreads, with starting cash rents per square foot for new leases in our square feet, Manhattan office portfolio 54% above the previous fully escalated cash rent. a 54% In 2015, we redeveloped approximately 390,000 square feet of space. We believe 2016 offers significant, embedded “derisked” growth with eight full increase over floors ready to offer as redeveloped space for lease. We see upside in cash 2014’s pace. flow and value, as we continue to execute leases with better credit quality tenants at today’s market rents. Empire State Building, the Urban Campus Within a Building The World’s Most Famous Building’s transition to Manhattan’s only urban In 2015, we campus in a single building is near completion and continues to gain signed 27 recognition in the market. The Empire State Building now offers an experience office leases for our tenants and prospects that matches the iconic nature of the asset itself. totaling In 2015, we introduced additional amenities which include the world’s first nearly Starbucks dedicated to in-building delivery service. We now offer tenants a 358,000 total of six on-site dining options, with more to come. Our 15,000 square- foot tenant-only fitness center, tenant-only conference center, distributed square antenna system for strong cellular signals throughout the building on any floor, feet at the Platinum WiredScore broadband, and upgraded or restored common areas Empire State resonate well with tenants and brokers. We are now more than 75% of the Building. way through the world’s largest elevator modernization program with fast and efficient Otis Compass System controls and ReGen technology, which uses the downward descent of elevators to generate power instead for ascending elevators, adding to our already impressive energy efficiency results. These improvements to the common areas, amenities, and tenant spaces have been recognized in the market. In 2015, we signed 27 office leases totaling nearly 358,000 square feet at the Empire State Building, with cash rent spreads of over 74.4% versus in-place fully escalated rents. We look forward to more leasing success in the coming year. Empire State Building Observatory Sets New Revenue Record With the strengthening of the dollar and the reported decline in the global economy, overall travel and tourism spending decelerated in the second half of 2015. While attendance at the Empire State Building Observatory was not immune, our pricing strategy continued to yield benefits, as revenue increased from 2014 to a new record in 2015. As we have noted repeatedly, the Empire State Building Observatory has shown steady resilience in the face of economic cycles and new competition in the past. We remain The Center of It All, The Heart of New York City, and a “must do” experience. We received a $2.5 million Disciplined Acquisition Strategy break-up In 2015, we increased our review and analysis of potential growth investments, fee which including single building and portfolio transactions. In August, we contracted we believe to buy an off-market property within our return criteria under an agreement which included a right for the seller to seek a higher price prior to the close in was the best exchange for a break-up fee. The seller obtained a higher sales price that we outcome chose not to match, and as a result, we received a $2.5 million break-up fee for our which we believe was the best outcome for our shareholders. While we work constantly to identify attractive growth investment opportunities, we apply shareholders. discipline and our firm belief in cycles in our underwriting. We remain focused on relationship driven transactions which fit well with our business. We simply will not overpay for assets, especially when we see compelling and significant embedded de-risked growth within our portfolio. Leadership in Sustainability Our industry-leading energy efficiency and sustainability work, which we first implemented at the Empire State Building, continues to be implemented through our entire portfolio, and we monitor our reduction in energy consumption for our buildings and tenants. Our energy efficiency practices not only help save tenants money through reduced direct utility costs, they Our energy also create healthy workplace environments. ESRT is an EPA Green Lease efficiency Leader, and our updated sustainability matrix is included herein and posted on practices not www.empirestaterealtytrust.com. only help We remain nonbelievers in GRESB and no longer pursue LEED certification. save tenants We believe the programs that were used in the past were not well thought money out. These practices have not adapted to new and more progressive, investment and return oriented measures of success. We believe facts through reported clearly speak for themselves, and our innovation in sustainability reduced gives us a competitive edge as we attract and lease space to quality tenants, direct utility and thus improve shareholder value. costs, they On a related note, our Chairman and CEO chairs the Sustainability Policy also create Advisory Committee of the Real Estate Roundtable and was the industry driver healthy behind S535, a new law which specifically addresses energy efficient tenant installation practices pioneered at the Empire State Building and allows the workplace creation of Tenant Star, a new tenant fit-out design and construction program. environments. Our Balance Sheet Our performance has allowed us to maintain one of the strongest balance sheets in the public real estate sector. Not only is our leverage low, but in 2015 we successfully issued $615 million in new long-term unsecured debt, with attractive interest rates fixed contractually or through hedges. We ended 2015 with total debt outstanding of approximately $1.6 billion, which reflected a leverage ratio of just 25%. We have no material debt maturities until 2017, and our $800 million unsecured credit facility had $760 million available at year end, with additional expansion features which we can activate under certain circumstances for up to an additional $450 million. Our balance sheet supports our goal to maximize financial capacity and flexibility to pursue our growth strategies, which include internal redevelopment and external growth. Our Performance 150 140 130 120 110 INDEX VALUE INDEX 100 90 10/07/13 12/31/13 12/31/14 12/31/15 PERIOD ENDING Empire State Realty Trust, Inc. S&P 500 Index NAREIT All Equity Index NAREIT Office Index The graph shall not be deemed incorporated by reference by any general statement of incorporation by reference in any filing made under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "Securities Act"), or the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the "Exchange Act" and, together with the Securities Act, the "Acts"), and shall not otherwise be deemed filed under such Acts.