Question-and-Answer Session
[Operator Instructions]. Your first question comes from the line of Craig Schmidt.
Robert S. Taubman - Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer
Craig?
Craig Schmidt - Merrill Lynch
...leasing spread on the unconsolidated?
Robert S. Taubman - Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer
Craig, we didn't hear your question at all. This is the very end of it. Could you repeat it please?
Craig Schmidt - Merrill Lynch
Why is there a negatively leasing spread on the unconsolidated properties?
Lisa A. Payne - Vice Chairman, Chief Financial Officer
As we said in, I think most of our discussions on rental spread, because of the size of our portfolio, leasing spreads are really not a strong indication of any kind of trend line because it can be very... it dependent on what opens or what closes, which by the way are not linked with any quarter. In this case, there was a very, very large space in one center that closed there by... no I am sorry that opened thereby driving down that spread, because the opening rent of that large space is much lower than on what you would think of is an average space.
Craig Schmidt - Merrill Lynch
Okay. And the increases...
Lisa A. Payne - Vice Chairman, Chief Financial Officer
I am sorry, Craig, one other thing in, that's why we always obviously focus on the gross in total portfolio rent, which in this case was excluding the Arizona Mills thing, it was about 3% as I discussed in our... in the script, which is obviously very, very high. In 05, we had growth in our portfolio rents of only 0.6%, then it was 1.7% in 06 and in 08... I mean in 07, we are seeing it being about 3%. So, it's very strong for the quarter.
Craig Schmidt - Merrill Lynch
Okay. And the higher lease base relative to the occupancy; is that something that trails and the occupancy may pick up as well closer to the 93.7?
Lisa A. Payne - Vice Chairman, Chief Financial Officer
Yeah. We said that due to the Twelve Oaks and coming online as well as Stamford... thanks, Bobby... we may not see that happen. We won't see that in the first part of the year, but we expect the end of the year to be somewhat higher in occupancy; and obviously our lease based statistic is a forward-looking view of that.
- To read the full transcript on Seeking Alpha, click here »
