We suspended dividend distributions on both our common and preferred securities, preserving approximately $72.5 million, and we deferred all planned capital expenditures for the balance of the year, saving approximately $20 million.
Additionally, at the corporate level, we reduced our SG&A run rate by 25% for 2020.
While at our properties, we suspended operations at 21 of our 48 hotels, which led to a reduction in operating expenses, approximating 80% on a go-forward basis.
The lion's share of the 27 hotels that were opened in April and May consisted of our limited service drive-to resort offerings that were able to drive rate and occupancy, exceeding our internal forecasts.
Early April is when we saw the trough for our open portfolio, bottoming out around 19% occupancy but incrementally growing through the balance of the quarter, ending June at 39% occupancy.
Most of the 27 hotels that have remained open throughout the pandemic and the seven hotels that have opened since June one are able to run with a marginally sized staff, allowing for lower breakeven levels and the ability to generate gross operating profit with occupancies around 25% to 30% or a 60% to 70% RevPAR decline for EBITDA level breakeven at properties.
Our Sanctuary Beach resort was the best-performing asset during the second quarter, ending the period at 71% occupancy with a $340 ADR, and success continued in July with RevPAR growth of 12.4% for the month.
All of this led to 61% occupancy for our seven open New York City hotels during the second quarter.
Early results from July are promising, with ADR only down 25% across the portfolio year-over-year as occupancy showed some signs of growth, especially in our urban markets outside of New York.
Prior to COVID-19, New York was one of the toughest markets in the U.S. to achieve rate growth despite record visitation year-over-year as the city was seeing new supply increasing approximately 4% each year over the last several years.
We have already seen the headlines of big-box hotels in New York closing their doors forever as many as 5,000 rooms among them so far, and we think of this as the tip of the iceberg in terms of hotel closures.
Industry researchers have estimated that 20% of New York's total room count, about 25,000 keys, could permanently close.
The pandemic is also bringing about a decline in short-term rental demand as seen in recent data showing the top 25 markets experiencing significant year-over-year decline in inventory available.
Five of the top MSAs, including Boston, New York and Los Angeles, are seeing year-over-year declines from 25% to 40%.
Hersha has been a developer, owner and operator in New York for over 20 years.
Post 9/11, we increased our development pipeline in Manhattan.
This time, we have sufficient exposure to Manhattan, but expect to enjoy a strong recovery in New York in the next 12 to 24 months.
After 9/11 and after the GFC, New York rebounded with the highest growth rates in the country for the early years of the recovery.
After 9/11, there were significant deletions from supply.
So after a steep recovery in 2003 and 2004, the market continued to produce double-digit RevPAR for three more years.
Post 2009, New York rebounded quickly in 2010 and continue to grow in mid-single digits for three to four more years, but new supply made the rest of the cycle a bit more choppy, although values continue to reach new highs.
More permanent hotel closures, no construction financing, zoning restrictions for hotel development,etc.
As a quick reminder, we announced accretive binding sales agreements on four assets in our portfolio: the Duane Street Hotel in New York City; the Blue Moon hotel on Miami Beach; and the exit of the 50% ownership in two South Boston Hotel, two hotels: The Courtyard South Boston, the Holiday and Express South Boston.
Along with the extensions, we have provided a reduction in purchase price for the buyers at each of these assets, resulting in total expected net proceeds of $70 million.
In our 33 currently operating hotels, we've not only rightsized our on-site staff, but have also employed various asset management initiatives to lower our cost per occupied room, which resulted in a declining monthly cash burn rate through the balance of the second quarter.
Our operational strategy allows us to run our hotels with very lean labor models until demand achieves levels warranting additional staffing, typically between 30% and 40% occupancy.
At the end of the first quarter, we accrued less than $1 million for these costs, and we did not record any further severance costs during the second quarter and would not anticipate any further costs for the remainder of the year.
We've also zero-based budgeted our hotels and rightsized labor models with expectations to save 300 to 500 basis points when lodging returns to more stabilized levels.
All of these measures allowed us to reduce our operating expenses by 77% during the quarter.
During the second quarter for the 21 comparable hotels that remained open throughout the period, we were able to effectively breakeven on an EBITDA basis even with severely depressed operational levels as these 21 hotels had a RevPAR decline of 78% and approximately 34% occupancy.
Based on this history, we are comfortable that on a property level basis, our entire portfolio breaks even with a 65% to 70% RevPAR decline with occupancies approaching 40% and a 25% to 30% ADR decrease.
At the corporate level, our RevPAR breakeven occurs at 40% to 50% decline, factoring in 50% to 55% occupancies at a 15% to 20% ADR discount.
With our current operating model, we were able to generate gross operating profit at 80% of our open hotels during June and would anticipate that nearly all of our open hotels can generate positive GOP during the third quarter.
As I mentioned, with the execution of the aforementioned expense savings initiative, we're able to breakeven at below 40% at our open hotel, and we're forecasting that our next 25% to 35% occupancy gains should flow through at approximately 80% to the GOP line.
On our prior earnings call, we outlined our cash burn rate forecast, which was originally projected to be $11 million per month, including all hotel operating expenses, corporate SG&A and debt service expenses.
During April, which we would deem to be the trough of the industry with our comparable portfolio ending the month at 14% occupancy, our corporate cash burn rate actualized at $10.5 million.
Our burn rate sequentially decreased through the balance of the quarter, reducing to $8.6 million for the month of May and closing the quarter at $7.8 million for June.
Our cash burn rate for the second quarter totaled $26.9 million, 18% below our downside scenario and 13% below our internal forecast at the beginning of the period.
During the second quarter, we spent $5.4 million on capital projects, bringing our year-to-date spend to $16.4 million.
We anticipate a significantly reduced capex load for the back half of the year with estimated spend for 2020 at approximately $20 million, half of what we had planned to spend at the beginning of the year.
Since 2017, we've allocated close to $200 million for product upgrades and ROI-generating capital projects across approximately 50% of our total room count.
As of June 30, we have drawn $95 million on our $250 million senior credit facility and ended the second quarter with $23.2 million in cash on hand.
During the second quarter, we also took advantage of the low rate environment and entered into a new interest rate swap on the debt at the Courtyard L.A. West side at 3.425%.

Summary:
More permanent hotel closures, no construction financing, zoning restrictions for hotel development,etc.