Retail Properties of American Earnings Call Nuggets: Small Shop Occupancy and Leasing

Retail Properties of American Inc (RPAI) recently reported its fourth quarter earnings and discussed the following topics in its earnings conference call.

Small Shop Occupancy

Todd Thomas – KeyBanc Capital Markets: First question. Looked like the small shop occupancy was roughly flat sequentially, some small improvements, I guess, in the occupancy and the lease rate for 0 to 5,000 square foot spaces. All the other categories seemed to see much greater increases. Are you starting to see any increase in demand for those smaller spaces in your portfolio? And what’s the strategy to increase leasing velocity here?

Shane C. Garrison – EVP, COO and CIO: Todd, this is Shane. Now that our anchored occupancy is north of 96%, it’s certainly a much more compelling asset discussion when you’re talking to prospective tenants and showing space to the smaller shop users. Last year, our average leasing pipeline deal was approximately 8,000 square feet at this time. Right now we’re running about 6,000 square feet. So we’ve clearly focused on the right space, the big space first, and now that we’ve got the lights onto those bigger spaces, I think we’re going to see much more compelling traction in that space this year.

Todd Thomas – KeyBanc Capital Markets: And then looking at some of the leasing spreads, so you mentioned that the one anchor lease led to the decline in new leasing spreads in the quarter. And I know it’s also a relatively small sample, but what should we think about for 2013 leasing spreads, any thoughts or visibility at this point?

Shane C. Garrison – EVP, COO and CIO: Yes. I think, we’re comfortable with low-single digit somewhere around where we ran this year, which is that 4.5% range.