Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from Jeffrey Donnelly – Wachovia.
Jeffrey Donnelly – Wachovia
First I have a question or two on leasing. I recognize that conditions are soft, to some degree weakness in leasing performance is to be expected but in your supplemental your new leasing spreads were fairly negligible despite some hefty TI's. Is that a function of market fundamentals exclusively or should we expect it to persist, or is it more indicative of perhaps the unique spaces leased or the type of tenants you placed this quarter.
Donald Wood
It's a combination of both. We tried to in the prepared remarks, when you're talking about doing 60 or 70 deals a quarter for us, first of all a couple of big deals matter as they impacted the results this quarter and they have as you look historically that way. But when it comes to the new deals, there is no doubt that today the leverage is far more with the tenant than it is with the landlord.
So when you're talking about great upfront space in a terrific shopping center that they've been trying to get to forever, we still have leverage. When you're talking about more of a secondary space, we don't have that leverage. So it definitely is space by space and when you're talking about a sample size, let's say 60 or 70 leases in a quarter, it can certainly vary in that direction.
What I'm trying to say is it would be very hard to give you a run rate on new leases in terms of roll over. I think if you take the past couple of years and you see where the trend has gone in the fourth quarter of 2008 and now the first quarter of 2009, I would certainly see that trend being around where we are today and maybe improving a little bit as the year goes on but it's so dependant upon the specific transactions from that quarter that it's hard to forecast.
Jeffrey Donnelly – Wachovia
Building on that, in the past you used to always give metrics around the roll over of your anchor spaces because I believe you had made the point that certain large leases tend to be the driver behind your big step ups in rent.
Donald Wood
That shouldn't change. It's pretty symptomatic. You kind of see it in the first quarter too and you'll see it in the second quarter. We've already done a couple of deals in the second quarter on anchor spaces that are rolling up pretty significantly, and that's terrific.
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