We had no significant business at all in Colorado. We look up and down the Front Range today. We’re the clear leader in aggregates up down the I-25 corridor. Remember, that’s where 80%-plus the population in Colorado lives. And again, the biggest piece of it being in Denver. And now between the Walstrom quarry, which we picked up in our Spec AGG quarry, a very attractive position in that marketplace. If we go and look at Bluewater, obviously, that transaction has not closed. We’re going through the Hart-Scott process soon and we’re hoping to have that done half year-ish heavy on the ish, by the way. It could clearly push into the second half of the year. If we look at the overall tonnage, that’s going to be around 13 million tons of stone. But importantly, if you look at the markets in which it gives us a nice footprint, these are markets that we’ve long talked about wanting to have a natural position.
And so suddenly, we find ourselves in Nashville. Suddenly, we find ourselves in Knoxville. Now we find ourselves in a much more significant way in South Florida and around Miami. So, if you go back and take a look at the slide presentation that we gave to the analysts and investors in February of 2021, we talked about a series of markets that we wanted to enter when we talk about Northern California, Southern California, Arizona, in and around Austin, Texas. We talked about Middle Tennessee, we talked about South Florida, and we talked about in Northern Virginia. We are literally in a place now that we’re putting checks in most of those boxes. So, again, if you take a look at the overall pricing at these facilities relative to our corporate average, it’s modestly below our corporate average.
So, again, I’m hoping I’m giving you something directionally that you can work with. But that gives you a sense of the market, it gives you a sense of the overall volume. I do think we will operationally bring increased efficiencies to these markets, and we’re thrilled to, number one, have already brought the Frei team into the Martin Marietta fold, and we look forward to bringing the Bluewater team into our organization as well. So, hopefully answer that response to your question.
Angel Castillo: That’s very helpful. Thank you.
Ward Nye: You bet,
Operator: Thank you. Your next question is from Jerry Revich from Goldman Sachs. Please ask your question.
Jerry Revich: Yes, hi, good morning everyone.
Ward Nye: Good morning Jerry.
Ward Nye: I’m wondering if we just take a step back, historically, in a flat end demand environment, the industry has realized 4 points of price or less. And obviously, we’re putting up much better performance here in the price/cost spread widening. As you think about what the industry learned over the course of the hyperinflation period, I guess, do you think the fear of inflation stays with the industry beyond this year? Or could we return to slower pricing cadence in 2025 towards that historical rate? I know it’s super early, but I feel like the industry got burned with inflation surprising on the upside. I’m wondering — does that change the mindset for obviously, you folks and others in your markets?
Ward Nye: Well, Jerry, the only thing I can speak to is Martin Marietta, of course. And I would say several things. One, obviously, inflation has moved significantly over the last couple of years. And we took the actions that were smart and prudent to protect our company as that went up. Secondly, at least here in our company, we recognize that having these long-lived reserves is significant. We’re sitting here today at current extraction rates with reserves in excess of 70 years. Something that I think we talk about inside our company is these reserves are worth more tomorrow than they are today. In some geographies, it’s very difficult to replicate or replace the reserves. And I think as we think long term, and that’s how we tend to think about this business.
If we go back to one of the questions that was earlier, they were asking about SOAR and the fact that we look at our business in five-year increments. But the simple fact is, Jerry, we think about our business in terms of decades, not years, not five years, but really decades. And as we look at it through that lens, we recognize that we have the product that is absolutely essential in every form of heavy side development. You don’t need asphalt in every piece of it. You don’t need concrete in every piece of — but you need the aggregates in absolutely every piece of it. So, from our perspective, as we looked at what aggregate sells for on a per ton basis and then we consider, one, its vitality to a product or to a project and its overall cost relative to the project, we think we’re actually adding more to an individual project than we’re costing a project.
