Christine Mastandrea: We have – we’re doing three a year, and I’m looking to amp that up to like four to five in the following years to six. It depends. Like, Dana has a number of small pads that are already approved, but what we’re doing is working through the right leasing strategy to move those forward. Those are already fully approved at Dana Park. And those have – let’s see, I’ve got one, two, about seven pads there alone. So, in the portfolio we have about – we have well over, I think about 15 to 16 pads that we can work through over time. It’s just a question of making sure that we can manage it appropriately within our timeframe, the lease-ability with it, and also our resources with the team.
Mitch Germain: Great. That’s helpful. Thanks. And last one from me, just Dave, maybe some perspective on the timing of the resolution of the damages associated with the Pillarstone ruling. Obviously, I believe the ruling had provided some sort of timeframe where some sort of remedy or valuation was necessary to be provided. Maybe put some perspective on where that stands, please.
Dave Holeman: Sure. Obviously, we’re very pleased with the ruling, which on our investment in Pillarstone, the court ruled that obviously we had been damaged and what we’re looking for is an exit. We’ve communicated that all along. So, Pillarstone has some obligations to the court to provide a value as well as a payment to us. I would tell you, we’re moving into the collection phase, and we are focused on getting that collected and exited as quickly as possible. Scott commented that in the guidance, we only have a partial part of that monetization in this year. We have the balance in 2025. I’d love to report in the year that we got that much more quickly. So, right now, we’re very pleased with where we are as far as the decision.
We’re looking for an orderly monetized exit, a plan of exit, which I believe we kind of have in progress, and we’ll move quickly. It’s hard to give you exact timing just because we’re working through the court system. We’re working through a number of things, but all of the decisions have been very supportive and very much in Whitestone’s favor at this point.
Mitch Germain: Thank you.
Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Anthony Hau with Truist Securities. Please proceed with your question.
Anthony Hau: Good morning, guys. Thanks for taking my question. So, this morning, I saw the news that Erez Asset Management plans to nominate two directors to the board, and they raised a few questions, right? Since the December press release, what other discussions and conversation have the board had with Bruce and his proposal to liquidate, and have you guys thought about adding board members that have more relevant real estate experience?
Dave Holeman: Thanks, Anthony. It’s Dave. I’ll give a couple of comments to that. First of all, just off the top, obviously we don’t comment on articles like the Bloomberg article. We don’t comment on market rumors or quotes from unnamed sources. We did publish in December a letter we received from Mr. Schanzer with Erez. We did that because we think it’s important to be transparent. We want to have great discussions with shareholders, and we want to minimize misinformation. We love and welcome shareholder feedback and discussion, but we don’t discuss individual shareholder discussions, obviously publicly. Really proud of the progress we’ve made over the last couple of years. We’re focused on execution and delivery. And obviously, at this point, that’s kind of what we can say.
I think we’ve published the letter from Bruce. We’ve published our response. Obviously, happy with a follow-up question, Anthony, but I think that’s the comment I would make at this point on your question. Oh, the only thing I would add is, we’ve done a lot of refreshing and upgrading our board, brought on great new skillsets and diversity. Continue to look at that, continue to evaluate that we have the right people in place. And I think our board feels very good about that. Our board also takes the strategic role they have in looking at the ways we create value very seriously, and we take that very seriously.
Anthony Hau: Okay. Sorry if I missed this, but like property operating and maintenance was up 27% in the same-store pool this quarter. What drove that increase? Was it – and was that the main reason why same-store NOI for 2023 was at the low end of the guidance?
Scott Hogan: Anthony, it’s Scott. On the maintenance side, we accelerated some large maintenance items, exterior painting of buildings, parking lot resurfaces in six or seven properties in Arizona. We think that’s going to add value and help with leasing rates. Those properties happen to have a little lower recovery rate than the majority of our portfolio. So, that was a component of the same-store being a little lower than expected. The other one was, I think Christine mentioned, delayed commencement in EoS drove another portion of it. And then we had Bed, Bath & Beyond that was re-tenanted towards the end of the year that was a smaller piece. So, those are the three components of the same-store decrease. And then once again, on the maintenance side, those painting and parking lot resurfaces are once every 10-year type of expenses.
Anthony Hau: Got you. and then a quick one on Pillarstone, I know that you guys are going through the bankruptcy court now. What are the chances that Whitestone can fully recover the monetary judgment amount?
Dave Holeman: Hey, Anthony, it’s Dave. As you said, we are moving toward the collection phase at this point with receiving very positive rulings that we’d been damaged and that we had the right to exit. As you said, Pillarstone has filed bankruptcy, and we’re moving through that. We remain confident in the value of that investment. When you look at the underlying assets, our investment on our books is roughly $30 million. We continue to believe that the value of the underlying assets is north of that. So, it’s hard to nail down a number, but I do think we’re in the process now of moving through that and hopefully getting this noise out of the story very shortly.
Anthony Hau: Thanks guys.
Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Barry Oxford with Colliers Securities. Please proceed with your question.
Barry Oxford: Great. Hi guys. On the disposition market, when you guys are looking at that, is it fairly fluid and are the buyers able to get financing relatively easily?
