Dear Hartman Team Members,
I hope you thoroughly enjoy your Memorial Day weekend surrounded by loved ones remembering our fallen military. As we enter the halfway mark of this year, I reflect on the incredible strides we are taking to reach our goals. I am so proud of you all!
Our leasing team is moving with great vigor as they propel our occupancy towards our year’s goals. The team has leased nearly 275,000 square feet and counting through April, ahead of this time last year. Every day, we are all working toward a common goal and pushing towards raising our occupancy. It is tremendous to see all the departments working together to achieve this; congratulations to you! Thank you for your concerted efforts in helping the company move closer to our goal of 88% portfolio occupancy by year-end.
As we look back on last month, we are nicely ahead of budget at the end of April with 83.87% occupancy. Our leasing team ended April with 37 new leases and over 64,000 square feet. Ami Figg was our top performer in April, with over 12,000 net square feet leased in her portfolio.
I was delighted with the outcome of our recent department brainstorming sessions. This year, we are moving forward with our new custom ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) software, improved construction capabilities, increasing our customer service through NPS, and fresh marketing initiatives to attract more prospects and continue raising our brand awareness. The new custom ERP system is at the end of Phase I and covers our accounting and financial portions and is scheduled to launch in July. Phase II will include dashboards, CRM version 1 and Lease Deal Flows and is scheduled to launch at the end of the year.
The company refinance is on schedule to close by the end of July. We are refinancing our current variable-rate debt structure into a fixed-rate debt instrument. This will lock in our interest rate and debt repayments moving forward in what we believe will continue to be a rising interest rate environment for the near future. Hartman will also be able to free up capital to finance ongoing building improvements and leasing expenditures and pay for investors’ redemptions. It is no small feat! Thank you to our Financial Committee for all their grit and determined heavy lifting to keep this project on schedule.
Related to the ongoing refinance effort, I want to thank our accounting department for their hard work, dedication, and focus on Estoppel form compilation. These forms are a key requirement and include detailed tenant and lease information. The department recently exemplified our core values and worked through the weekend to get it done. With the help of our property management team, signed forms are rolling in!
I want to congratulate our Marketing Team on winning a 2022 American Marketing Association Crystal Award for their excellence in SEO (Search Engine Optimization). It is an honor to work with such a talented team! Their efforts in promoting the case for investing in Texas and whitepaper on corporate relocations to our great state earned them one nomination; the second came from their astounding results in increasing our website traffic by over 151% in the past 18 months.
I want to encourage you all to become involved in our weekly bible studies. The men’s bible study is on Thursday mornings at 7:15 am, and the women’s bible study is on Thursday at 12:00 pm. I also want to recommend that you immerse yourself into the Word each day and take time to meditate and pray about your purpose, your path, and what God wants for your life.
“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose.” – Romans 8:28
Sincerely,
