This quarter, we executed 106,000 square feet of total new leasing volume, the highest level since the first quarter of 2019.
As a result, our signed not open ABR of $3 million nearly doubled since last quarter.
Today, we have an additional $1.5 million of ABR that is currently in lease negotiations with significantly more in advanced LOI stages.
Along with our solid leasing activity, we achieved double-digit growth in our releasing spreads, including a 43% increase on new leases, the highest level since the second quarter of 2018.
In fact, since mid-2018, after the new management team started, our new releasing spreads have averaged 30%, with an incremental return on capital of 12%, reflecting the mark-to-market opportunity embedded throughout the portfolio.
Each reported impressive quarterly earnings and sales, while Aldi recently announced plans to open 70 new U.S. stores in 2020.
Our collection rates in the third quarter showed noticeable improvement, with 87% of base rent and recovery income collected as of October 30.
We have seen further improvements in October, with 90% collected thus far, which is ahead of the pace we experienced for September at the same point in time.
As a result, our second quarter collections have increased to 76%, up from 65% as reported last quarter.
We also continue to collect rent from our local mom-and-pop tenants at a very high rate of 94% in the third quarter.
We also believe our relatively lower exposure to this category of just about 10% should provide some shelter from potential future fallout.
With our percentage of open tenants by ABR at 94% and October collections sitting at 90%, absent any macro headwinds, we are cautiously optimistic that we will continue to drive collections higher.
They recently launched same-day delivery to complement their BOPIS and curbside pickup services that fueled an 89% increase in digital channel sales and the first positive comparable sales growth quarter in almost four years.
Today, 10 of our 13 Gap concepts are Old Navy and Athleta.
On the tenant risk front, about 3% of our ABR is currently in bankruptcy proceedings, and we expect to retain about half of this amount.
During the quarter, we recaptured eight of 15 ascena locations and we're actively working on backfills well before the bankruptcy filing.
We have already released one location and are in various stages of negotiations on the remaining 7.
In the fourth quarter, we expect to recapture two Stein Mart boxes, representing roughly 60,000 square feet.
At just under $11.50 per square foot, we also see a sizable mark-to-market opportunity upon release of those spaces.
In total, 4% of our ABR comes from theaters, 3% of which is with Regal, that recently announced that it would temporarily reclose due to a lack of studio releases.
We have roughly $95 million of excess cash on our balance sheet that we could strategically and accretively deploy as opportunities arise.
Our rent not probable of collection and abatements were roughly $4.5 million in the quarter, which included about $900,000 related to prior quarter billing, primarily our theaters.
The clean rent not probable of collection for the quarter was $3.6 million.
As detailed on page 33 of our supplemental, our third quarter rent, excluding prior period amounts, is down 7% or $3.7 million versus the pre-COVID first quarter level.
The puts are items such as signed not open ABR backlog of $3 million, the $1.5 million of signed not open ABR associated with leases in negotiation and embedded annual contractual rent growth.
Regarding third quarter uncollected rent, it's totaled about $6.4 million for the quarter, of which $3.6 million was reserved, as I noted earlier, and $2.6 million was deferred net of reserves, leaving about $200,000 unaddressed.
For reference, this is detailed in our supplemental on page 33.
During the third quarter, we signed 44 leases covering 279,000 square feet.
Blended rent spreads were 10.7% driven by our 43% new lease spread, our highest since mid-2018.
We ended the quarter with a leased rate of 93.3%, down 30 basis points sequentially as the effects of COVID-19 begin to impact our occupancy statistics.
Given our solid leasing activity during the quarter, our anchor leased rate was actually up 10 basis points from last quarter, fueled by our Nike and Burlington deals at Front Range Village in Fort Collins, Colorado, where we are seeing excellent leasing demand.
As Brian noted, our small shop leased rate was impacted this quarter as we recaptured eight ascena spaces, which unfavorably impacted our leased rate by 30 basis points.
Bolstered by our rising rent collections of nearly 90% and as a result of liquidity measures we took earlier in the year, we ended the quarter with a healthy cash balance of $220 million, including $125 million of revolver borrowings and $95 million of cash.
Our cash balance before debt repayments increased by about $20 million.
With our strong third quarter cash flow generation and incremental confidence in our business, we paid off another $50 million of our revolver during the quarter.
We entered the third quarter with trailing 12-month net debt to pro forma adjusted EBITDA of 7.2 times, up slightly from 7.0 times last quarter as another COVID-impacted quarter entered the calculation.
We remain committed to bringing leverage into our long-term target range of 5.5 to 6.5 times as the impacts of the pandemic move behind us.
As I alluded to earlier, and as part of our continuing effort to improve transparency into our business, we have provided a granular breakdown of our first and third quarter recurring revenue and a bridge between reported base rent and recoveries to build an unaddressed rent on page 33 of our supplemental.

Summary:
Our collection rates in the third quarter showed noticeable improvement, with 87% of base rent and recovery income collected as of October 30.
We also continue to collect rent from our local mom-and-pop tenants at a very high rate of 94% in the third quarter.
With our percentage of open tenants by ABR at 94% and October collections sitting at 90%, absent any macro headwinds, we are cautiously optimistic that we will continue to drive collections higher.