Good morning. I'm Suzanne Osberg, Vice President of Investor Relations, and it's my pleasure to welcome you to Martin Marietta's 2021 Investor Day, SOAR to a Sustainable Future. We regret not being able to host you in person this year and truly appreciate you joining us for this virtual event. Today, we're live from Raleigh, North Carolina, home of our corporate headquarters, and we're excited to share Martin Marietta's foundation and vision that have and will continue to position us for enduring success. In a moment, you'll hear from Ward Nye, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and Jim Nickolas, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, about our strategic priorities, growth opportunities, and bright outlook for our company. Next, our division presidents will join us to highlight key initiatives and business drivers in the attractive markets we serve.
We will then discuss long-term demand trends that we believe will provide sustainable growth for our business, followed by a question-and-answer session with Ward and Jim. Anyone interested in asking a question today may do so by using the Post a Comment/Ask a Question feature on the right-hand side of your computer screen. Before we move on, a couple of quick things to remember. Statements made today may contain forward-looking information. The slide you now see provides details about risks to those forward-looking statements, as well as where to obtain additional information about our risk factors. We will make available a replay of today's events, along with our presentation slides, on our website following today's events. Again, welcome, and thank you for your continued support of Martin Marietta. It is now my great pleasure to introduce Ward Nye, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Martin Marietta. Ward?
Thank you, Suzanne, and good morning to all of you. Thank you so much for being with us here today, and thank you for joining us in a virtual fashion. We wish we could do this in person. We enjoy being with each other as a management team. We enjoy being with our customers, and we enjoy being with you, our owners. We'd much rather do this in person, but at the same time, here we are at the beginning of 2021 with a brand-new five-year plan: SOAR to a Sustainable Future. As many of you know who've watched Martin Marietta for years, SOAR stands for our Strategic Operating Analysis and Review. We've had several SOAR plans over the last 10 years. In fact, now we're entering one for the next five.
And as we go into these next five, we wanted to have an opportunity to speak with you not only as the senior management team, but also our division presidents. As we go through the day, you will also have an opportunity to ask questions of us so we can be certain that we're answering the questions or thoughts that you have going forward. But importantly, as we talk about the next five years, part of what we'll address today is how we're building on a sustainable foundation at Martin Marietta. And importantly, too, as we look at that, part of what we want to make sure that we speak to you very clearly on is we believe we're uniquely positioned as an aggregates-led growth platform, unlike anyone else in our space. As we think about our company, we often speak of it in three distinct ways.
One, we have an upstream building materials business that's led by aggregates. Aggregates is nearly 70% of our gross profits. But importantly, we also have a strategic cement business, and that strategic cement business is uniquely in the state of Texas, where we're a leader. Our aim is not to be a national cement company. It's to be a strategic cement company. We'll talk more about that. But importantly as well, we do have targeted downstream products. We have ready-mix concrete, and we have asphalt and paving. They're both for us in the western United States. We have ready-mix concrete in Texas and in Colorado, but we have asphalt and paving uniquely in Colorado. We'll talk more about that and why. But we also have something that others in our space don't. We have a Magnesia Specialties business that's been our highest margin-producing business and highest free cash flow.
But as we look at these businesses and think about how it ties together, we always look first at upstream materials. As you can see from this slide, there's a good reason why. The upstream portion of our business comprises 82% of our consolidated gross profits. And if you look at the aggregates piece of it, again, which is 70% of it, you see several things that strike us as critically important. One, aggregates has shown real pricing growth through economic cycles that tends to endure. We don't see anything that changes that. But more than that, we also have an incredibly attractive cement business in Texas, again, where we're a leader. But part of what you're going to see is that cement business in Texas is performing very much like you would expect an aggregates business to perform. To us, that's not a surprise.
That's something that we promised you when we bought that business in 2015. But similarly, if you look at our downstream products, you'll notice something that we think is important. Asphalt is 95% by weight aggregates. Ready-mix concrete is 80% by weight aggregates. So again, we're using these targeted downstream products, one, to move our very valuable upstream products. But number two, in the process, we're also making money with them. As you can tell, that's 10% of our consolidated gross profits. As we move to the next slide, you'll notice that this is a slide that if you followed us for a while, you've seen before. Here's the number on this slide that I want you to remember: 140 million. 140 million represents the growth in U.S. population that will occur by the time we get to 2050.
Here's what's important to remember: 70% of that population growth will reside in one of 11 different megaregions, as shown on this slide. Part of what we've been intentionally doing over the last 10 years, and what you should expect from us over the next five, is we're going to continue to grow our business in these megaregions. Let's take for a moment and talk about three of them. First, let's start with the Front Range mega region that follows the I-25 corridor in Colorado. That's the nation's smallest but fastest-growing megaregion. What does that mean? It means between now and 2050, nearly 1.3 million more people will live within 25 miles of Denver. And what do we have there? The leading aggregates position, the leading ready-mix position, and the leading hot-mix asphalt position. That's what we're trying to build, not just in the Front Range.
That's what we're building across the United States. It's equally what we've done in the Texas Triangle. The Texas Triangle goes from Dallas-Fort Worth in the north, south and west to San Antonio, back east to Houston, and then closed the triangle with Austin somewhere in the middle. What does that mean? Those are three of the top 10 cities by population in the United States. But more than that, I-35 bisects that triangle. The population on I-35 in Texas is greater than the population in Pennsylvania. But what do we look like in that Texas Triangle? We're the aggregates leader. We're the cement leader. We're the ready-mix leader. Where you are matters in this business. We'll finish that March by equally looking at the Piedmont Atlantic. This megaregion, between now and 2050, is apt to see population growth of over 70%.
But think about the footprint that we have there. Are we the aggregates leader in North Carolina? Absolutely. Are we the aggregates leader in Georgia? You bet. And have we had very targeted strategies in these megaregions that have placed us in those positions? We have. And that's exactly what you should expect to see from us in the future as well. SOAR has truly transformed our business. As SOAR has transformed our business over the last decade, it's done so on a series of foundations, and you see the foundations on this slide. What are they? They're safe operations. They're environmental stewardship. It's employee well-being, but it's more than that. It's also community well-being. It's about providing a platform for growth around which we provide for operational and commercial excellence.
But as we do that, part of what you'll hear from Jim Nickolas later today is how we allocate capital. We've been very careful about where we spend your money. As we've gone through changing our foundation, here's something that is truly foundational to us. It's safety. Again, if you watch Martin Marietta for any period of time, what you'll see is this: we open most meetings, and we start most conversations around safety, which is a value for us. When we looked at the slide a little while ago showing megaregions, I asked you to remember a number. I asked you to remember 140 million. The number I want you to remember on this is not 140. The number is zero. And here's what that means to us.
We believe that every employee, in fact every person who comes on any site in Martin Marietta, can leave after their visit or after their shift in exactly the same condition that they came to that site at the beginning of their shift or their visit. You can look on this slide and see very impressive statistics on how well we do in that regard. Here's what I'll tell you: for the last four years in a row, world-class safety metrics on lost time. We can do better, and we will. And you should expect that from us. But just as safety is a value, and just as we're now giving you world-class performance in that dimension, we're also going to give you world-class performance environmentally. Martin Marietta operates over 400 locations coast to coast, the vast majority of which are aggregates. What's the primary pollutant from aggregates? It's dust.
As we're crushing rock, dust will come from it. How do we combat that? We combat it with high-pressure water sprays. That knocks down dust and keeps the atmosphere clear in our quarries. But at the same time, sometimes we have to discharge that water. Here's what's important for you to remember: when we do discharge water at our operations, by the time it's discharged, it's drinking water quality. What does that mean? When we put it in a stream, tributary, or river, the water that we're adding to that water body is of a higher quality typically than the water that's in that water body. Now, in fairness and in total transparency, which you can always expect from us, do we produce in some instances greenhouse gas emissions? We do. At four of our locations, our cement plants, as well as our Magnesia Specialties business.
Those two portions of our business are responsible for 87% of our overall greenhouse gas emissions. But rather than just talk about them, we're telling you what we're going to do about them. And what you see on this slide are goals that we've already published on how we intend to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. More than just telling you how much we're going to reduce them by, we tell you how. We're going to use alternative fuels. We're going to use operational upgrades and production innovation to make sure that when we make you this promise, just as we've done in the past, we deliver on it. But a fidelity to safety and environmental doesn't happen without the right team. And that's part of what we've been doing at Martin Marietta since well before the SOAR years began.
Part of what we've been doing is hiring the right people. We're not looking for people who are looking for a job. We're looking for people who want a career, and what you'll find when you come to Martin Marietta are a series of people, some of whom have been here for a very long time, some of whom have joined our team just over the last few years, but part of what they're all dedicated to is each other, but most importantly, in making sure the investment that we're putting in our facilities and in our people, and in our communities, works for you and the overall benefit of our shareholders and our stakeholders, so we've talked a little bit about safety. We've talked about the environment. We've talked about people. One other aspect that's important for us to talk about is oversight and governance.
And when it comes to oversight and governance, you can also rest assured that you have a very capable, diverse, and visionary board of directors. Just as you see in our employee base, these directors have wonderful histories. Some have been with us through every iteration of SOAR. Some are much newer. If we look at our newest board members, Anthony Foxx and David Wajsgras came on in 2020. David Wajsgras spent a very distinguished career at Raytheon Corporation, among other roles as Chief Financial Officer. And Anthony Foxx was the last Secretary of Transportation in the United States that saw a long-term highway bill come in. We think we'll see more of that. But more broadly, if you look across this board of directors, you'll see that nearly 45% of them have been current or former CEOs of public companies. We think that's important.
But equally, 90%+ of them are independent. What does that mean? It means they ask us the right questions. They bring rigor to what management is looking at, and that's important. They debate with us. They assure that we're making the right decisions because the right decisions are what drives value in this business. So what happens when you combine safety, environment, people, good governance, and good oversight? Good performance is what follows. What we've had is a very disciplined execution of a proven strategy with SOAR. And that's exactly what you're seeing on this slide. This slide covers a very definitive period of time. It's going back in time to 2005. Why did we pick 2005? Because that's for Martin Marietta and for our industry overall peak aggregate sales volumes. Martin Marietta in 2005 sold 205 million tons.
We've taken that time frame from 2005 at 205 million tons to the year just ended in 2020. And we've looked at what we've done relative to our single largest domestic peer, and we've compared ourselves relative to total revenues, adjusted EBITDA, and total shareholder return. What you'll see is we've outperformed in every single metric. And in the last one, total shareholder returns almost two times our single largest domestic peer. Now, many of you watching today may be watching overseas, and your view may be, "Well, you have more than one competitor, and you're entirely right." So let's look at what that overall universe looks like because this next slide takes broadly the same time frame. But rather than simply Martin Marietta and our largest domestic peer, it's looking at Martin Marietta, our international peers, the S&P 500 as well. And here's what you see.
Our international peers and the S&P 500 over that same time period have not performed the way that Martin Marietta has. But here's the important one as well. Even if you had invested in the S&P 500 over that long period of time, you would have a 40% better return with Martin Marietta. That's part of what we're focused on. We're not a company to come into for a quarter or two. We're a company that builds shareholder value over time. That's why we look at SOAR over five-year periods. That's why over the last two periods of SOAR, we've transformed our company. And that's why we believe over the next period of SOAR, we're likely to be able to do it again.
One of the big reasons we've been able to do it over the last two periods of SOAR is because we bring to you a differentiated business model that we believe provides a sustainable foundation for growth. We've seen it over 10 years. We're going to see more of it. So now let's talk about exactly what that looks like. Going back to some of the conversations we had here at the very beginning of this dialogue, as you recall, 90% of our total consolidated gross profit comes from three places: our aggregates-led business, our strategic cement, and our Magnesia Specialties. Again, part of what's so important to remember is our aggregates-led business has a number one or number two position in 90% of our markets. That's an impressive number all by itself. But here's something else to keep in mind.
If we went back 10 years, you would find that we had a one or two position then in only 65% of our markets. To find that you can move a heavy industry that many percentage points over a decade's time is a real testament to our team. But keep in mind too, we've spoken to the fact that we have a strategic cement business. What does that mean? We're the leading cement producer in the leading cement state in the United States. When we acquired TXI nearly six years ago now, our view was that Texas was likely to be the single most attractive heavy-side building materials market in the world. It has not disappointed. And being aggregates-led with strategic cement has made a big difference. But here's something else that you need to remember about Martin Marietta. We have never cut, and we have never suspended a dividend.
If there's any other public company in our space who can tell you that, you find them, you call me and tell me who it is because I haven't found them yet, and one reason why is because of our Magnesia S pecialties business. That business performs extraordinarily well through cycles. Even in the year just ended when steel, which is the major driver for that business, performed very poorly, that business found a way to expand margins. It also provides the best free cash flow conversion in all of Martin Marietta. Aggregates-led, strategic cement, Magnesia Specialties, that's our differentiated business that brings you 90% of our overall gross profit. Now let's take a deeper dive into each one of those. Let's start with the one that leads our company because we're first and foremost an aggregates business.
You can see on the left-hand side of the slide a number of the reasons why. Diminishing natural resources overall in the space is something that we're taking advantage of. Remember, we have 90 years of reserves at our locations. It's a business that's capital-intensive and hard to get into. It's a business in which there are very few substitute products. But it's also a business where you have a value-to-weight ratio that creates natural logistical moats around your business. Here's a good way to think of it. If we're selling aggregates on average for $14.77 a ton, most of those aggregates will move from our quarries to a customer location by truck. And it's usually by the customer's truck. It costs anywhere from $0.25 to $0.30 per ton per mile to move stone by truck.
Quick math will tell you that once you've hauled stone 50 miles, the cost of the haul equals the cost of the product. That tells you where you are matters in this industry. Now, if you're in the right places and you have the right leadership positions, how does that translate? It translates into an average selling price that's attractive. If you look at the right-hand side of the slide, we're going to take you through that same time period I spoke to earlier, 2005, which was peak tonnage in the United States. But here's the difference. 2005 was peak tonnage. 2011 was trough. What do I mean by that? Between 2005 and 2011, volume fell 38% or nearly 40%. And look at what happened to pricing. It went from $7 and change to over $10. That's nearly a 5.3% CAGR.
But if you look at where it is over that same time period from 2005 to 2020, a 4.5% compound annual growth rate. Importantly too, look at what happened to cash gross profit per ton and margins over that same time frame from the high 30s at peak to the high 20s at trough and 40% in the year that we just finished. That gives you a very good snapshot of why we're an aggregates-led company. But we also have a strategic cement business. You can look on the left-hand side of this slide and see exactly what the values are. Our strategic cement, remember, is in Texas, where demand outstrips supply. That's an important and nice place to start. The other thing that we're focused on is value over volume. We recognize that our valuable reserves in the ground are worth more tomorrow than they are today.
It's not our intention to sell our cement for less than what we believe is appropriate value. Importantly too is where we're positioned in Texas. We're positioned in the Dallas-Fort Worth area at Midlothian and in the San Antonio area at Hunter. Those are superbly positioned plants. But importantly too, we've seen the overall market structure even since we acquired TXI improve. How does that translate? Again, look at the right-hand side of the slide. What you'll see is 2013 in this instance to 2020. Why 2013? That was the last year of cement in Texas before Martin Marietta introduced itself to TXI. And you can see over that same time period what the compound annual growth rate has done relative to pricing for cement in Texas. In other words, pricing for cement in Texas is behaving very much like pricing for aggregates has done in Texas.
If you go back over time, you'll find that that's exactly what we indicated we believed would happen when we combined our business with TXI. More than that, you can also see what's happened to product gross margin and profit over that same period of time. Margins in 2013 in the high 20s, margins today in the high 30s with a 12.1% compound annual growth rate. Finishing the trifecta of our differentiated business is our complementary Magnesia Specialties business. You can see on the left-hand side of the slide what our value drivers are in this. What you probably don't see is how even this business ties back then to our aggregates-led business. For example, in Woodville, Ohio, where this business begins, we produce nearly 24% of the dolomitic lime in the United States.
But that dolomitic lime goes from Woodville either to the steel industry or to our chemicals facility in Manistee, Michigan, where it's put together with a magnesium-rich brine that produces largely industrial-grade milk of magnesia, not only for customers in the United States, but indeed for customers around the world. John Harmon will tell you more about that business in a conversation we'll have here shortly. But importantly, as we look at that business and we start thinking about SOAR and its execution and what that has provided as far as a sustainable future for generations to come, it's important not only to think about where we're taking you, but where SOAR has brought us. And that's what we'll see in these next series of slides.
As you can see, if we go back to the beginning of SOAR back in 2010, at the end of that year, after we had presented SOAR to our board in August, we had a market capitalization of $4.2 billion. Five years later, at the end of December 2015, our market cap had risen to $8.8 billion, and in the year just ended, $17.7 billion. Whether we're looking at revenues, adjusted EBITDA, or otherwise, you can see on those two metrics that we've had growth of 2.7 times and 3.7 times respectively, but perhaps most importantly, we've seen our market cap grow since the original SOAR launch by 4.2x . That's one of the reasons we wanted to make sure we had a chance to talk to you today, even if it was virtually, because SOAR launches for us have been awfully important and they provide a foundation.
But more than anything else, what happens with us with SOAR is we have a very disciplined strategic planning process and execution. And what does that mean? In the final analysis, it's a partnership. And that's what you'll hear about today. It's a partnership between executive leadership, division leadership, strategy and development, and local operating teams. We're focused together on several things: identifying M&A targets and why, looking at growth opportunities and where we can continue to grow our business. Recognizing, though, that as we grow our business, portfolio optimization is important. But where we grow our business is what's so vitally important. We want to understand market dynamics, not just today, but what they're going to look like in five and 10 years. And not just at a statewide level. As you can see from the slide, we're looking at very much local demand drivers.
But here's the last piece of it that's important. We like to look at ourselves and we want to look at ourselves critically. We want to be candid. We want to know what are our strengths, what are our weaknesses, what are our opportunities, and what are our threats. It's bringing those conversations and those teams together with a vision and then followed up not just with good planning, but with good execution that we believe makes SOAR operate and function and drive value in ways that few strategic plans in our industry ever have before. Now, importantly, when we go through a SOAR process and we're coming to you with this presentation today, I'm sensitive that different companies will tell you different things. Some of our competitors will come to you and tell you, "We're going to be focused internally on our business.
That's what you can and that's what you should expect from us for some period of time." Others will come to you and say, "We're going to be focused on M&A growth. That's what you should expect from us." What I'm going to tell you is you should expect both from us. And that's a differentiator. We're going to spend some time first talking about organic growth. We're going to talk about growth capital investment. We're going to talk about commercial excellence. We're going to talk about operational excellence. And then we're going to talk about inorganic growth. But as we talk about inorganic growth too, we're going to discuss portfolio optimization. Because as we grow, on occasion, you'll find pieces of what you're growing that belongs better in someone else's portfolio. Let's first turn our attention to organic growth. So let's start the dialogue with growth capital investments.
We're going to go to a place that you know well. We're going to Texas, our largest state by revenue. As you may recall, when we combined our business with TXI, we had wonderful synergies at Bridgeport and Chico. To remind you, Chico was a Martin Marietta quarry, Bridgeport a TXI quarry. What separated them? A fence, literally. In the intervening years, we've taken the fence, pulled those operations together. That single operation is the largest supplier of quality stone in the growing Dallas-Fort Worth market. Here's what we know. Despite the fact that we're producing 10 million tons of stone at that quarry today, we need more. What are we doing? We're adding nearly 3.5 million tons of capacity today at Bridgeport- Chico. Here's what you need to know. When we're looking to make that investment, it's competing. Capital in our world is competitive.
Bridgeport- Chico has to compete with what's going on in Charlotte, what's going on in Atlanta, what's going on in Denver, what's going on in Baltimore. And what you'll find is when we're making this investment, we're getting the types of return on this that you would expect. But equally, if we look across town at our Midlothian cement plant, here's something that's worth keeping in mind. We have something incredibly valuable at Midlothian that many don't. We have permits that actually allow us to bring more capacity online at Midlothian. And that's exactly what we intend to talk to our board of directors about and hopefully plan to do beginning next year. Because our view is to bring on nearly 500,000 more tons a year at Midlothian. But here's the important part.
We can do it with the permits we have in place, with the facilities we have in place on a per ton cost that's half of what it would ordinarily cost to bring on that type of product on a per ton basis at a new cement plant. That's how we're looking to invest in our operations today. But more than that too, we're looking to make sure that we're using pricing all the way through a cycle to continue to generate shareholder value and assure that we're taking this business forward in the most productive fashion. Here's the time frame that you've seen before. We talked about 2005 being peak aggregate tonnage in the United States all the way through the year just ended last year. Here's what you'll see. Aggregate tonnage moves all the way through those years. You'll see the peak in 2005.
You see the trough in 2011. And you see where we finished in 2020. But what's important is while tonnage can move and it can move up and on occasion it can move down, pricing tends to move up and to the right. Over that 15-year period of 4.5% pricing compound annual growth rate, that type of consistent pricing growth through economic cycles separates our businesses from others. But equally, where we've chosen to build our business should underscore this type of very bright pricing future. But even if we go beyond that and we say pricing has had a wonderful history, what gives us the sense that it's got equally as bright a future? Several things do. Number one, we set very clearly a value over volume strategy at the center.
People across our organization understand that that's the way that we approach our business and it's something that we have a commitment to. But here's what's important. While we may set a strategy here in Raleigh, the enterprise itself is being led in that respect locally. So what do we have? We have local teams who recognize that is our philosophy. We intend for them to meet that aim, but we're also going to give them the autonomy to make market-based real-time decisions as they have to day in and day out. But to enable them to do that, we're also going to make sure that we're investing in our sales personnel. We want them to make sure that they understand and can articulate the value of our product both internally, but importantly, externally to our valuable customers.
But equally as important, we're going to make sure that we bring transparency of that to you. If you look at our releases and the dialogue that we have with you, what you'll see is we're going to give you mix- adjusted metrics so you have a good sense of same store sales, same product quarter after quarter. So you will not only be able to hear what we're doing with our pricing strategy, you'll be able to see precisely what we're doing with our pricing strategy. That tells you, if nothing else does, the level of confidence that we have in its continued performance. But what's important too is to come back and see where it's been, where it is, but where we think it can go. So this slide gives you three different bar charts.
It shows you where pricing was in 2010 at the beginning of the SOAR years. It shows you where pricing was last year at the end of 2020. And what you see is a 47% increase in ASP over that 10-year period. But you equally see that third bar that says $18.50 a ton. Now, you may be wondering, what does that represent? Perfectly fair question. Here's what it represents. That's the average selling price in significant portions of the Southeastern United States. Now, to give you a sense of it, across our geographic footprint in the U.S., aggregates pricing tends to vary anywhere from $3 to $7 a ton. But equally, there are some places in the United States that we're selling aggregates for as much as $25 or $30 a ton.
What's important to remember is in those markets, we are not seeing that type of price having a chilling effect on overall construction. So let's make two different assumptions. Let's assume that across our footprint, we were able to get everyone to today's average selling price. What that would mean to Martin Marietta is actually an incredibly attractive number of $140 million worth of opportunities simply from pricing normalization across our footprint. But let's say in this instance, we could get everybody not to our average price today, but even to the average price that we have in the Southeast, which by the way, will keep going up. If we got everyone to that number, it's a much bigger number for our organization. As you can see, that's nearly $700 million of annual opportunity from realizing an $18.50 per ton ASP across our footprint. Pricing has had a great history.
Pricing has a great future. Now, separate and distinct from pricing though, we're also committed to operational excellence. Here's what I want to offer. As great as our history has been on pricing, we're still selling stone for $14 a ton. There are very few things in your life that you want that you can buy for $14.77 a ton except our product. What that tells me is we better be good on the production side of this. So if we go back and reflect on the slides that you've seen, think about what I shared with you at Bridgeport- Chico. Are we focused acutely on plant design? You bet. Are we going to be zeroing in on what our mine planning needs to look like to assure that we're in the right areas with the lowest overburden, getting the highest specification rock? Absolutely.
But more than just performance improvement, are we also going to remain focused on our supply chain and how that's managed? Of course, we are. Are we going to be focused on transportation and logistics? We have to because we're moving stone in some instances from our quarries long distances, oftentimes by rail. Are we also going to be focused on procurement? We have been for a long time. We choose our partners in this regard very, very carefully. Throughout this COVID period, one of the things that we watched most carefully and one of the things that we reported regularly to our board of directors is how our supply chain was holding up. As you know, we just turned in 2020 our single most profitable year and our safest year.
And one of the main reasons that we were able to do that was through supply chain management and having the right partners. Operational excellence matters. That together with commercial excellence makes a big difference. But what does operational excellence get you? It gets you this. It puts you in the position that we are the clear low-cost producer. You can see this slide, two different metrics. One, aggregates cost of sales per ton on the left and consolidated SG&A as a percentage of total revenues on the right. Take a look at the SOAR years. Look at where we were from aggregates cost of sales per ton in 2010 and where we were at 2020. That's a 2.4% CAGR over that period of time, trailing nicely what you've already seen has been happening with average selling prices.
But importantly too, look at our consolidated SG&A as a percentage of revenues over that same period of time. It's gone from 7.5% to 6.5%. You should expect that from us. You should challenge us on that. You should look at our competitors and you should compare our number to theirs. I think when you do that, you'll like what you see. So what happens when pricing discipline and operational excellence comes together? This is what you see. You see sustainable and industry-leading unit profitability growth. So again, if we go back and look at the SOAR years, looking at 2010 to 2020 and we look at aggregates gross profit per ton, what you see is a compound annual growth rate over that period of time of nearly 8.7%. In other words, going from $1.98 per ton in 2010 to $4.55 per ton in 2020.
But what's important is just that. It's the growth rate. While others may look at their cash profit per ton and say that they have the highest, no one else has a growth rate that can touch ours. We believe the growth rate is what's most important to you as an investor. Because what do we tell you we believe we're going to do between now and 2025? We think we're going to continue to deliver to you a mix- adjusted average selling price compound annual growth rate of 4%. We believe we're going to continue to manage costs to be at or less than inflation. And we think by doing that, we're going to give you best in class aggregates unit profitability. That's the type of sustainable industry-leading business that we have and that we intend to grow. Now, how are we going to grow it?
We're going to grow our business through two different mechanisms. We're going to grow it through M&A and we're going to grow it through greenfielding. But our primary tool, to be clear, will be M&A. And there are several reasons why. M&A gives you day one cash flows. M&A gives you synergy potential. M&A gives you regulatory clearance once you're in a new market. M&A gives us more ways to grow through both bolt-on and platform acquisitions. But more than anything else, we have a team that has demonstrated it is uniquely skilled in this dimension. By contrast, while greenfielding needs to be a part of a strategy, it cannot be the strategy. We would submit to you it shouldn't be the leading strategy for several reasons. One, you're putting significant money upfront and you don't know when you'll get it back.
It's a process that's difficult, it's lengthy, and it's not getting easier, and you're also eroding goodwill in communities. We operate in over 400 communities across the United States today. We want to be viewed consistently as a productive and meaningful member of those communities. This slide begins to show you very clearly, using a real-world example, why we believe M&A is the superior vehicle to Martin Marietta than greenfielding. We're looking at an actual acquisition that we did several years ago and looking at it over a four-year period of time. Here's what you see. Cash gross profit at that acquisition from year one to year four went up 87%. If we're talking about a greenfielding opportunity in year four, you would be somewhere in the middle of your land use permitting and operational permitting process.
Now, equally, if we look at another transaction, this one on the East Coast and tied to our Bluegrass transaction several years ago, remember this: 2017 was Martin Marietta's last nine-year Bluegrass impacted year. If we look from 2017 to 2020 in this specific market, here's what you'll see. Aggregates average selling price went up by a 6.9% compounded annual growth rate or 22%. You can equally look and see what aggregates gross profit per ton did over that same period of time. So again, whether we're looking in Texas as we were before or whether we're looking in a Bluegrass market, when we're looking at what our value over volume strategy and targeted new markets means relative to greenfielding, we do believe this is the better mechanism going forward. Now, one of your questions may be, if M&A is your primary driver, what makes a market attractive?
Part of what I love about this slide and what I think is so important to reiterate to you today, this slide has been incredibly consistent for over a decade. When management first presented our initial SOAR to our board of directors in August 2010, this slide was on the board because we were outlining to the board why these six items made markets attractive and why they were going to be drivers for us going forward. I won't speak to every one of them, but I will speak to three of them. So if we think about what we've done with our business over the last decade and we look at high barriers to entry and you think about transactions that have occurred, Colorado clearly fits that category.
Equally, if we think about business and employment diversity, that's exactly what we see in places like Dallas-Fort Worth and what we did with TXI. But if you also are looking for employment and population growth, think back to what we've done with Bluegrass and think about what we've done in Georgia. Again, there's nothing more important than a strategy that stays grounded in reality and leads you to continued success. And that's exactly what we're doing with SOAR. So with respect to that strategy, it's going to be twofold on growth. We're interested in bolt-ons. We're interested also in platform expansions. So this slide will show you very clearly on the left-hand side where we're looking at bolt-ons. And what you see are the outlines of our divisions: West, Central, Southwest, and East.
We'll be looking for bolt-ons in those parts of the country because we're good at it. We can literally bring in business in over the course of a weekend. But more than that, we're going to be looking for platform expansions. We're looking on the West Coast, in Florida, in DC Metro, and in Tennessee. Keep in mind, that's exactly what we did from a platform position several years ago in Colorado. But now today in Colorado, we're looking for bolt-ons. You can see very clearly how SOAR matures over a period of time. So with all of that as background, I'll now turn the stage over to Jim Nickolas, our Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Jim, over to you.
Thank you, Ward. And good morning to everyone. It's my privilege today to talk to you about our capital allocation priorities. Those have remained constant for years. And as you'd expect, they support our growth strategy. The right acquisitions get the first call on capital. Our next priority is reinvesting in the business through capital expenditures, followed by returning capital to shareholders. Of course, our balanced approach does not mean equal funding for each priority. We differentiate and we prioritize, and it's working. You can see that through the company's best-in-class total shareholder returns. And it's also been seen in our higher return on invested capital, whether that's comparing against our closest peer or versus our own performance since the TXI acquisition in 2014, where we improved our returns over 400 basis points.
This approach has worked well for us, and we're going to stick with it to drive shareholder value even higher. Over the last decade, there have been a number of mergers in the industry, although only a few sizable ones. We've played our part by investing over $4.8 billion in acquisitions. However, there still remains a highly fragmented industry. The largest six aggregate producers account for only 35% of production volumes in the U.S. There are roughly 1,700 other companies providing the remaining 65%. The industry has years of consolidation ahead of it. Of course, the timing of acquisitions is opportunity-driven, so we need to be ready when good companies come to market, and we are. We have ample dry powder for acquisitions, great access to capital, and a debt maturity profile with modest amounts coming due in 2024, and no meaningfully sized bonds coming due until after 2026.
We are extremely well positioned to help further consolidate the market while maintaining an investment-grade financial profile. And we can do this while reinvesting in the business. Capital expenditures are a more steady recipient of capital as we are replacing equipment, buying land to enhance reserves, improving safety, or expanding capacity in targeted growth markets. We can hit the brakes on CapEx when it's needed. We did it during the Great Recession, as did others. But one key difference between us and them, we took a measured approach to it. Our reductions and subsequent restoration of CapEx weren't as steep or volatile as others in our industry. As a result, we've been able to keep our CapEx spend and investment returns more consistent over an extended time horizon. Our operational focus extends to CapEx efficiency as well.
Over the last several years, our aggregates capital spend per ton produced has been roughly 10% lower than that of our closest peer. Going forward, 9% of total revenues is a good proxy for modeling our total company annual capital spend. There will be years where it varies above that or below that level. What will not vary is continuing to deploy our capital expenditures in a disciplined way. We've returned over $2 billion to shareholders since SOAR was launched while still funding acquisitions and the CapEx needs of the business. We remain focused on paying a meaningful and sustainable dividend through the cycle. As Ward mentioned earlier, and as many of our long-term investors know, we are the only company in our industry that has never cut its dividend. Through the most recent SOAR period, 2016 to 2020, we've returned over $1.2 billion.
Half of that has been distributed through our dividends. Half has gone through share repurchases. Our dividend policy targets a payout ratio of 25% of earnings over an economic cycle. As our income has grown to keep pace, we've grown the dividend each year since 2015, increasing it by 43%. We expect that to continue, and you should as well. While a dividend is a commitment to our shareholders, we view share repurchases in a more opportunistic light. Maintaining our investment-grade profile is important to management and the board, and so where we stand with our leverage heavily influences our share repurchase plans. The other key determinant is whether acquisitions or other near-term needs warrant pausing stock buybacks. Since 2015, when our board of directors authorized repurchasing 20 million shares, we've repurchased 6.5 million shares at an average price of $174.
We view stock buybacks as a wonderful way to return cash to shareholders opportunistically and to keep our balance sheet efficient. So far, you've heard from Ward how SOAR has transformed our business for the better, what makes the market attractive, where we are looking to grow, and you've heard from me how we think about capital allocation priorities. So I'll wrap up this section by summarizing SOAR 2025, our playbook for the next five years. I think of it in terms of three legs to drive profitable growth. The first leg is inorganic growth. We've demonstrated we know how to acquire, integrate, and grow revenues. We'll pursue bolt-on acquisitions in existing markets. To that end, we've already identified our priority bolt-on opportunities by division. The second leg is organic growth. We'll continue to allocate CapEx disproportionately to high-growth markets to further boost the top line.
The Midlothian Cement Plant and the Bridgeport Quarry are two good examples of that. But the single largest driver of our organic growth is our value-over-volume philosophy. Commercial excellence is our hallmark. We are not bashful about expecting fair value for all of our products. Investors expect it. Our team understands it, and we'll deliver it. Operational excellence means we'll maintain a laser focus on cost and lean operating principles to ensure our cost per ton remains industry-leading. And finally, the third leg is portfolio optimization, where we will continue to assess strategic fit and divest assets where we are not the best owner. This will keep the organization focused where it can bring its competitive advantages to bear and drive returns higher. Let me conclude by saying we're confident this new phase of SOAR will provide a sustainable future for generations to come. Thank you for your time.
Next up, Ward will be leading a question-and-answer session with each of our division presidents.
Jim, thank you so much. We're going to change gears now, and we're going to have a dialogue with our division presidents. But most importantly, as we're doing this while you're listening, please remember you can submit questions on the screen as we're here today. So as we get to Q&A later in this presentation, we can come back and answer your questions. So first up is going to be our East Division President, Ron Kopplin .
Martin Marietta's East Division is a pure-play aggregates business. HeaDquartered in Raleigh, North Carolina, the division's operations span across nine states in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast and two countries outside the United States. We serve a number of attractive markets from Atlanta, Charlotte, Tampa, and Baltimore. Through the industry's largest long-haul distribution network, the division supplies quality aggregate for infrastructure, residential, and non-residential construction activity. Our offshore quarries in the Bahamas and Nova Scotia supply granite or limestone to markets along the Gulf Coast and Eastern Seaboard. Our extensive rail network enables us to target coastal markets not easily reached by ship. That, along with our truck-based quarries, enables us to supply high-quality specified aggregate, meeting the growing demand in our markets. In terms of size, the East Division is the company's largest, as measured by profitability, aggregate shipments, and geographic size.
As promised, we're now going to start a conversation with our division presidents. And first up is Ron Kopplin, who's our East Division President. Ron, it's good to see you this morning. As people have heard about your business over the years, here's some of the things that they know. They know that within Martin Marietta, you have some of the most attractive aggregate pricing. And so there are two basic questions. Number one, why is that the case? And number two, how do you sustain that?
Ward, a couple of reasons. First, let me talk about the high relative pricing. First, the quarries in the East Coast tend to primarily be granite, which, as you well know, is harder to extract and harder to crush, thereby garnering greater value. But also, in the East Coast, the barriers to entry are simply higher. Developing a large aggregate operation in this region is simply more difficult. It's more time-consuming, and it's definitely more expensive, all of which lend to favorable pricing fundamentals. Specific to Martin Marietta, one of the reasons why the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast divisions were merged in the middle part of last year was in recognition of the similarities with the East Coast pure-play aggregate operations. So from those sites, we offer a wide range of aggregates, both in quality and quantity. Many of those sites are in close proximity to high-growth markets.
And where we're not, we have an extensive distribution network that allows us to economically deliver our goods to the market. So that's why our pricing is high. How do we sustain it? Well, honestly, Ward, I consider it to be a core competency of our sales teams. We develop strategies for each of our markets, and we remain disciplined in its execution. I feel we can't lose sight of the fact that we're talking about a natural resource that is depleting. So we're unapologetic about asking and getting fair, reasonable value for it. So that's how we can sustain that high pricing.
Ron, as we look at your business, you go as far north as portions of Pennsylvania. You go as far south as Alabama, but you also go offshore. You have a granite operation in Nova Scotia. You have a marine limestone operation in the Bahamas. Talk to us a little bit about how those two offshore operations complement each other and why they're so important in bringing that material back into the U.S. mainland.
For two reasons. First, those operations allow us to expand our product offering. Certain markets and certain projects require a hard rock source such as granite to be used. Think about a Florida DOT project that requires hot mix asphalt. Oftentimes, the DOT will require a granite-type product to be used in that hot mix because of its durability and skid resistance, both of which play an integral role given the rainfall that that region sees every year. Whereas in other markets and other customers, such as the ready-mix concrete industry, actually prefer limestone in their products. And so having the flexibility to meet a varying degree of specifications and customer preferences allows us to take complexity out of the supply chain for our customers. Another way of thinking about it, we give them one place to shop.
The second reason is our offshore operations allow us to mitigate risk in the transportation of our products. As you well know, transportation costs oftentimes exceed the cost of the aggregate itself. By reducing our reliance on one mode of transportation allows us to better manage those costs and, where possible, take advantage of economies of scale. In the East, we deliver our products on ships, rail cars, and trucks. Frankly, Ward, I feel our network is unmatched in our space. Why is that so important? Customers want to rely on our supply in the event a business interruption occurs in one mode of transportation. We have that ability.
Ron, if we go back over time, the Bluegrass transaction that was done several years ago was the second largest in the company's history. If you will talk a little bit about how Bluegrass transformed or at least complemented the East Division. I think if we will speak specifically to what it did in Maryland and Georgia, that would be most helpful.
Absolutely. Well, Bluegrass complemented Martin Marietta in many of its existing markets, and you're absolutely right, most notably in Atlanta, where it expanded our number two position in the market as an aggregate supplier. At the time of the acquisition, we brought in key personnel into leadership positions, and we worked diligently to capture synergies throughout the operations, synergies such as sharing resources, both of managerial oversight and sharing equipment. The additional sites allowed us to expand our market coverage and enhance our relationship with market-leading customers and contractors, but where Bluegrass was truly transformational was in Maryland. Our heritage sites were located on the western side of the state, where growth tends to be somewhat tepid, but overnight, Bluegrass gave us a leading market position in the largest and fastest-growing market in the state, Baltimore, and with that position, we began our value-over-volume strategy.
And we began creating a market structure very similar to what you see in other heritage East markets. It was interesting, Ward. You showed a slide earlier that showed graphically the CAGR on ASP in Maryland since the acquisition. I believe it was 7%. That's value-over-volume at work. So in general, when you look at the transaction and its impact on the East, it was significant. We added 11 sites and over a billion tons of high-quality aggregate reserves.
Ron, what many may not know is you've been in the East and you've overseen what's going on with Bluegrass. But you were in the Southwest when we did the TXI transaction too. And we spent a good bit of time talking today about how important M&A is going to be for Martin Marietta going forward. You've been a part of integrating the two largest transactions we've done in our company's history. If you think about those two transactions and the synergies that have been realized, and the fact is that we've outperformed on those, what do you think the lessons learned were and how do we apply those going forward?
I think there are three things, Ward. First, our distinct culture can be embraced. We place a heavy emphasis on core values, things like safety, ethics, and excellence, just to name a few. And frankly, they're more than just words on a wall. And for most people, they're values that can be embraced. And so by integrating heritage Martin Marietta leadership into these newly acquired operations, we can be assured that this culture, our distinct culture, can not only flourish but maintain throughout these operations. Evermore the reason why we spend a considerable amount of time and resources developing our future leaders for such a time as that. Secondly, and I really saw this with TXI, many new employees have great ideas. And many of those ideas enhance shareholder value. But the acquirer didn't have the financial wherewithal or the scale to implement them. We do.
And we did with TXI. Finally, I just think we excel at identifying, integrating, and synergizing M&A transactions. With the same pursuit of excellence that our employees show daily, we work hard to capture not only the expected synergies but those that are unexpected. We call them found synergies. And they can take on many forms. And we saw this with TXI. Examples include sharing of a maintenance crew to reduce our reliance on outside contractors, or sharing a piece of support equipment when one breaks down. Taking one from a nearby operation saves us on rental expense. But more importantly, it reduces our downtime. I think at last look, when we stopped tracking synergies with TXI, it was at $200 million. So proof of the fact that those synergies are real and we are diligent in capturing them.
And so that's why I'm so confident in our ability to integrate newly acquired businesses into our Martin Marietta One Team philosophy.
Ron, thank you very much. Thank you for your time this morning. Thank you for what you're doing in leading the East Division. We have to leave you now because we're going to head to Indianapolis and catch up with Bill Gahan. But Ron, we'll see you soon. Thank you again.
Thank you, Ward.
Take care.
The Central Division facilities extend as far north as St. Cloud, Minnesota, south to Bowling Green, Kentucky, east to Parkersburg, West Virginia, and west to Omaha, Nebraska. We serve all the major metropolitan areas within that geographic footprint. Our operations are very diverse. We have sand and gravel operations, open-pit limestone operations, granite quarries, and underground limestone mines. The underground limestone mines make us unique to Martin Marietta. About 40% of our shipments are produced by our 14 underground limestone operations. Most of our material is hauled by truck. We do ship some material by rail. And we also ship some material by barge up and down the Ohio River system. Many of our core sites have been in Martin Marietta for over three decades. Our large geographic footprint and stable business drivers have provided very consistent performance over the years.
Hello, Bill Gahan. Having just left Raleigh with Ron Kopplin, we're now with you in Indianapolis. Bill, it's great to see you. Thank you so much for your time today.
You're welcome. Glad to be here.
Hey, Bill, look, as we discussed data centers and data warehousing, big businesses, big projects that take a lot of aggregates have really been going great guns in your part of the country for a while. And I think there are two questions that people have. Why are they going on in the Midwest? And what are the prospects that they'll continue to endure?
Ward, I think there are several reasons for those data centers locating where they are. First of all, there are some state and local tax incentives, and I'm sure it's made it attractive for these data center companies. Second of all, I think relatively low cost of land, competitive construction costs are also a factor. But I think a third factor that most people don't give a lot of credit to is the availability of wind-generated electricity. Iowa is now the second largest producer of wind-generated electricity in the country. And Nebraska is also ramping up their capacity pretty fast. And I think these tech companies like Google, Facebook, and Microsoft all really like the fact that their facilities are powered by sustainable wind-generated electricity. And as far as the likelihood of these continuing, I think it's fairly high. We continue to hear about additional phases to existing projects.
We continue to hear about additional land acquisitions for future projects. So we think these projects will continue for the foreseeable future.
Bill, one thing about those projects. One, we said they're very aggregate intensive. Two, you're supplying them from open-pit mines, but you're also supplying them from underground mines, and mid-last year, we brought together what had been the Midwest Division and the Mide ast Division to create the Central Division that you run, and now all of the underground mines in Martin Marietta are in your Central Division. Can you talk a little bit about what the advantages are, competitively or otherwise, with respect to underground mines?
The primary advantage is just having high-quality reserves close to the markets we serve. All of our underground mines are 300 feet or more below the surface. So it's really not practical to operate those types of operations in an open-pit situation. It also provides a couple of other interesting advantages. For example, we can continue to use the surface as we mine underneath. Of course, in some of our states, farming is very common. But also, there are some interesting surface uses. For example, there's an amusement park on top of our reserves in Missouri. And another interesting advantage is in our northern climates, where it can get pretty cold in January and February, we can continue to operate in those underground facilities because that environment is very consistent year-round.
Bill, we've spent some time talking overall about capital during the course of the day. And of course, you have one fairly significant capital expansion project that's underway in Nebraska at Fort Calhoun. Can you talk a little bit about, one, the status, and two, the benefit of a project that you have underway at Fort Calhoun?
Sure, well, the benefit, first of all, is, again, as I mentioned in the undergrounds, it's having high-quality reserves close to the market we serve. I've been part of the Omaha market for over 35 years, and during that period of time, it's proven to be a very consistent performer for us, and it's grown to the point we were having difficulty servicing that demand, so this Fort Calhoun project does two things for us. First of all, we upgrade our capacity, our annual capacity, to be able to serve that market today and into the future, and two, we have a large quantity of high-quality reserves to serve the Omaha market now and into the future, and also not only Omaha, but Eastern Nebraska and Western Iowa. You asked about the current status. We got down to the underground reserves in 2019.
We ramped up production enough so in 2020, we removed about a 1/3 of our production from the underground reserves. In 2021, we expect that to grow to about two-thirds. And after 2021, we should be 100% underground reserves at Fort Calhoun.
Bill, one more question. In a few minutes, we're going to talk to John Harmon in Magnesia Specialties. But I'll share a story with you, and that is we often talk about the fact that Martin Marietta has never cut or suspended a dividend, and the two businesses that really have kept this business so stable through cycles have been John Harmon's and Magnesia Specialties, but also yours in the Midwest. The story I share with investors on occasion is I remember being on a division presidents call in 2011 at the absolute bottom of the cycle, and we were going around the country and talking about what each division was experiencing, and I don't remember what division had been talking, but they had been talking about how tough things were, and then you came on the phone.
And you said, "Look, I really hate that all of you are struggling through it the way that you are. We just don't see it here in this part of the country." And that was actually really important to Martin Marietta. What makes your part of the country so stable relative to others?
I think there's a couple of reasons. First of all, I would say we don't necessarily see some of the boom times that other parts of the country see. For example, during the 1990s, we weren't really impacted by the tech bubble or the real estate bubble of the early 2000s. So when you don't see those get the benefit from those bubbles, you don't see the downturn after those bubbles either. Also, I think some of the market drivers are very stable. We're heavily reliant on agriculture and food production, which is pretty stable. And I think most people would be surprised on how important banking and finance is to most of our metropolitan areas.
Absolutely. Well, Bill, I can tell you day in and day out, thank you to you. Thank you for your team and all that you do to take care of that very good business and very stable business in the central part of the United States. I hate to say goodbye today in Indianapolis, but we're going to head to Baltimore and see John Harmon. So Bill, take care. Thank you so much.
All right. Thanks, Ward. Bye-bye.
All right.
The Magnesia Specialties Division is a niche business for Martin Marietta. We operate two manufacturing facilities. Our Woodville, Ohio plant is the single largest dolomitic lime operation in North America with an annual capacity of 1.1 million tons. Dolomitic lime is used in the steelmaking process and as a raw material in our magnesia chemicals production. At our Manistee, Michigan facility, we utilize dolomitic lime and magnesium-enriched brine to produce a broad range of high-margin magnesia chemicals for industrial, agricultural, and environmental applications. In fact, we're the only producer of high-purity synthetic magnesia in the United States. And with a diversified global distribution network, our products are shipped to customers in over 30 countries.
Good morning, John Harmon from Baltimore. It's good to see you from Raleigh. The viewers watching this morning have just seen some clips of your wonderful Magnesia Specialties business. We've been going through a slide deck this morning and talking about end uses primarily in the heavy-side building materials business. Today's viewers also want to know what markets are most important to your business in Mag Specialties.
Thank you, Ward, and it's good to see you this morning. As you know, the most important part of the Magnesia Specialties business is the broad range of products we produce and the markets that we serve. For example, in our chemicals business, domestic steel production, industrial wastewater, metal mining, rubber, plastics, fertilizers, they're all important markets. But the most important market for us is the industrial wastewater treatment market. Treating wastewater with our magnesium hydroxide slurry, and you can think of it as industrial-strength milk of magnesia, is a safe and environmentally friendly material that's used to neutralize acidic wastewater for industrial processes prior to discharging that water into lakes and streams. Customers that use our product are municipal wastewater treatment companies, food and beverage manufacturers, and a variety of chemical producers. In our lime business, domestic steel production is our most important market.
Lime is used to tie up impurities in the steelmaking process, and the lime that we sold in the steel industry in 2020 represented 33% of the division's sales revenue.
Hey, John, Magnesia Specialties is clearly a niche business for Martin Marietta. And one of the things I think our viewers are most interested in is how hard would it be for someone else to replicate what you guys do in Mag Specialties?
Martin Marietta has been in the magnesia chemicals business since 1969. We've got a long track record with the products we manufacture and the markets we serve. We've developed a strong relationship and reputation with the customers that we provide our products to. Similar to our aggregates and cement division, barriers of entry in our business are huge. The permitting process, plant startup costs, raw materials, transportation, packaging are just a few of the challenges. The diversified global distribution network that we have in place would take others years to develop. For packaging, we package our products to meet our customers' requirements, everything from five-pound low-melt bags to bulk truck and railcar quantities of our slurries and powders and a variety of packages in between. Another issue is permitting.
If we were to apply for a permit to install a new plant, especially a new kiln that burns fossil fuels, I'm not sure obtaining a permit would even be possible today. So for all of these reasons, I think it'd be very difficult for others to replicate what we have in Magnesia Specialties.
John, one thing that really makes your business stand out from much of Martin Marietta is the aggregates business is operating nowhere near capacity. By contrast, your Magnesia Specialties business is running pretty much near capacity. So it's really a question to us of growth. So if you're looking at growth for Magnesia Specialties, do you think that comes through organic growth, or do you think that can come through M&A?
I believe we can grow our business through M&A opportunities as well as organic growth opportunities. And we stay focused on M&A, but our highest priority is finding a company with the right fit, a company that has the same core values as Martin Marietta and similar margins to our Magnesia Specialties Division. But we're also fortunate to grow our business organically. And we're going to do that with our low-cost magnesium hydroxide product lines, such as our FloMag magnesium hydroxide slurry for water treatment or our MagShield line of powders, which are used as flame retardants in roofing materials and a variety of other industries. But we're also seeing some growth in our higher-end specialty magnesia markets. For example, our food-grade magnesia is used as a desiccant in powdered drink mixes. In rubber, it's used to control set times during the rubber curing process.
And in plastics, it's used as an acid acceptor in manufacturing. These product lines, coupled with good cost control, are going to sustain our margins well into the future. And I'm extremely proud of how our teams control costs during market downturns, as they did in 2020 at the onset of the pandemic. And as a result of their efforts, while our sales revenues were down 12%, our gross profit margin expanded by 80 basis points to 40.6% in 2020.
John, thank you for that, and thank you for so much more. You should know, too, this entire organization is incredibly grateful to and thankful for you and your team. 40% margins in the face of what you were confronting last year is truly extraordinary, so look, I hate to leave you in Baltimore this morning. We're going to go south and west. We're going to head to Dallas and spend some time with Kirk Light, but John, it's great being with you. It always is.
Thank you very much, Ward. I appreciate everything and the kind words you've expressed to me this morning. Thank you.
Thank you, John. Talk to you soon.
The Southwest Division of Martin Marietta is the largest heavy building materials business in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana. With a strategic focus on Texas, we are the largest aggregates producer, the largest cement producer, and the largest ready-mix concrete producer in the state. Our vertically integrated positions are centered around the highest growth metro areas. Our network and our footprint follows the I-35 growth corridor from Dallas to Austin down into San Antonio. We have an extensive and unique terminal network to serve these areas in a very efficient manner. In addition, we have a very large terminal network for both aggregates as well as cement in Houston. Now, it's no secret that Texas is a top state for growth. It's a magnet for jobs. It's a magnet for people. And it's a magnet for construction.
More than 1,000 people are moving here each day, driven by large corporate relocations, such as Tesla and Hewlett-Packard. As a result, Texas will enjoy outsized growth in infrastructure, commercial, and residential construction over the coming decades. The Southwest Division is uniquely positioned to capitalize on this growth in aggregates, cement, and ready-mix concrete, both now and well into the future.
Now we're in Dallas, Texas, with our Southwest Division President, Kirk Light. Kirk, when I lived in Dallas several years ago, one of the great things that I loved about Texans, I remember commenting to somebody one time, "Dallas is the seventh largest city in the United States." And they said, "Yeah, but third largest in Texas." I always thought that was a pretty good answer that said a lot about how Texans had great pride in their state.
Yeah, absolutely. That is exactly how Texans feel about their state.
You know what? You're sitting there in Texas. You're the largest producer of aggregates. You're the largest producer of cement. You're the largest ready-mix producer. And you're sitting on top of Martin Marietta's largest integrated vertical business. Talk a little bit about why being vertically integrated in that state in Texas is so important to our strategy.
Absolutely, Ward. Well, as you mentioned, we're the largest producer in all three of those categories. And we really think the combination of those businesses is more valuable than the sum of the individual parts. That's really where vertical integration comes in. Now, when I think about the value that vertical integration provides, it's really in three different buckets. The first is the market bucket. The second is how we can service large jobs. And the third is really around cost management. So from a market perspective, being the largest ready-mix producer in the state, that makes us one of the largest customers for aggregates and cement. And in fact, our ready-mix business purchased 10% of our aggregates last year and nearly 32% of our cement last year. So you can see from a revenue perspective, they're quite important.
In addition, our landscape across the business lines, it really gives us excellent market intelligence. This allows us to spot trends and to adapt quickly when needed. Now, moving on to our service capabilities, our integrated platform really allows us to do wonderful things on big jobs. This is very clear when you talk about the Grand Parkway project down in Houston. This is a large multi-lane highway extension where we're providing aggregates, cement, and concrete. The contractor needed us to supply also a portable ready-mix plant where we're delivering both the cement and aggregates. This integrated solution is really a construction solution as opposed to just supplying materials. Finally, on the cost management front, we're able to get advantages both in product design as well as in logistics. On the product design front, we can mix constituents to keep our concrete mixes cost-effective.
This allows us to blend things like manufactured sand, which is a byproduct of our concrete aggregate production, into our mixes, keeping the same great quality while making them much more cost-efficient. On the logistics front, we have a tremendous network of aggregates terminals and facilities, as well as cement. This allows us to minimize the freight into all of our ready-mix plants. A perfect example of this is our Hunter ready-mix plant, which is co-located with our cement facility and our aggregates facility. This means there's virtually zero freight before the mix gets made for concrete. That makes our Hunter ready-mix plant the most cost-efficient ready-mix plant in the entire state. With all of these advantages, we're really happy with our integrated platform here in Texas.
Kirk, part of what we've talked about earlier during the day is the fact that we have strategic cement. And strategic cement, as you know, in our parlance, really means what we have in Texas today. And I think part of what surprised people is that cement pricing in Texas is really looking and acting like historically aggregates pricing has there, too. If you will, talk a little bit about the underlying drivers of cement pricing and what you view as the importance of our value-over-volume pricing strategy in that particular market.
Absolutely. Well, if you look at the last few years, you can see that cement price has moved up about 3.5% a year for us in our assets here. That looks a lot like aggregates. Now, why is that? Well, for starters, our footprint between the two businesses is quite similar. In cement and in aggregates, we're centered around the high growth corridors here in the state. These growth corridors have high barriers to entry, putting a premium on the type of service that we can provide. In addition, on a value-over-volume basis, that's really our strategy. We're looking for scenarios and products where we can get good returns and not necessarily just chase volume. We want to be the right supplier to the right customers and not all things to everyone. The best example of this is our oil well cements.
These cements sell for 80, 90, and in some cases, $100 a ton more than construction cements. Now, they're much more difficult to make, and they've required a lot of investment and logistics capabilities, but we think the incremental margins are really worth it, and this really shows our value-over-volume strategy in action. In addition, as we mentioned with vertical integration, we have a very large ready-mix business. This large captive customer helps with pricing discipline for our upstream businesses, knowing that no matter what happens, that reliable large customer is going to be there year after year, so we can expect both cement and aggregates to perform similarly here in Texas, I think, on the pricing front for many years to come.
Kirk, when we were talking earlier about SOAR and we were looking at capital allocation in particular, we were looking at growth strategies, and we were looking at investments in upstream businesses. And I'm sure as you saw those slides come up and you saw two of yours, you saw Bridgeport, Chico, and you saw Midlothian. My guess is you saw this question coming. Can you talk to us a little bit about those projects, what the synergies and benefits will be from those?
Absolutely. I'm very excited to talk about both of these. The future is certainly bright here in Texas for us, and especially around DFW, so starting off with our Bridgeport- Chico discussion, Bridgeport is the area where a majority of the construction aggregates come from for the DFW market. It's also home to our largest facility, where we produce more than 10 million tons a year. It's an excellent facility with two crushing lines and reserves that will last for many, many decades to come. However, we're running into capacity constraints. Therefore, we're investing in a brand new state-of-the-art line, over 3,000 tons an hour of production capabilities, which will expand our capacity by more than 30%. At the same time, we're taking some old, outdated equipment offline, which will make us more efficient.
Finally, we're also investing in state-of-the-art loadout technologies, which will get our customers in and out of the quarry in record time. Now, moving down to the south a little bit at Midlothian, on the cement side of the business, we have a unique opportunity. I say it's unique because we can expand capacity at Midlothian by just investing in the finish mill side. This is unusual because typically, the kiln systems are what limit the production capacity of a plant. This is a result of the fact that in new construction, the kiln systems are usually responsible for 65%-70% of the capital requirements. Therefore, this is really what the design limitation tends to be for a new plant. However, at Midlothian, we were designed to be able to expand year over year. That allows us to drive up the capacity significantly with a new finish mill.
That's exactly what we're going to do. We're going to put one of the largest finish mills of its kind in place, and we'll be able to increase production capacity by nearly 500,000 tons a year. Similar to what we talked about at Bridgeport, we'll also be taking four old finish mills offline. These mills are 50-60 years old, so we will get tremendous improvements in efficiency and productivity. Finally, we're also going to be investing in our loadouts there as well. There will be fully automated loadout systems with more than six bays, which will allow us to have the best service for cement in the DFW area. When you take both of these investments together, we really feel like this will extend our lead in one of the best and most important construction markets in the entire U.S.
Well, speaking of things that are important to us, today, as we began the conversation, we talked about several things. We talked about safety. We spoke about people, and we spoke about the environment. We spoke specifically to sustainability. And we outlined that really, from a carbon footprint perspective, despite the fact that we have 400 locations across the United States, really four operations are the primary drivers of our carbon footprint, and two of them are there in Texas because that's where our two cement plants are. Can you talk a little bit about what we're doing in Texas to reduce our carbon footprint and other emissions?
Absolutely. And thank you for the question, Ward. This is an increasingly important topic. And as such, we've been putting a lot of time, energy, and effort into it. As you mentioned, we only have two cement plants. And those two plants, they're really state-of-the-art technology and have relatively low greenhouse gas emissions versus those of our global competitors. However, we are investing heavily to make them more efficient. The first area where we're looking at is really what I would call fuel flexibility. We can show this by the fact that we've increased our natural gas usage by more than three times over the last five years. At the same time, we were able to reduce our use of coal to less than 20% of our fuel mix. In addition, we're investing in alternative fuel technologies as well.
At Midlothian and at Hunter, both plants were using tire-derived fuels. We're able to process used tires and blow them into our system to use them as primary fuel sources. We consume a tremendous amount of tires each year. In fact, last year, we consumed more than 10 million tires. This really represents a great beneficial use to a product that would otherwise be landfilled. And at those numbers, you can see that Martin Marietta is a big part of the solution to the used tire problem here in Texas. Finally, we continue to invest in reliability and in our improved processes to reduce the emissions on a per-ton basis as we get more efficient. We have a number of small projects already permitted, which we'll continue to work on as the years to come.
Kirk, thank you so much for that. If experience is right, lots of big trucks in Texas leave lots of big tires in Texas. So my guess is you have plenty for fuel going into the future. Kirk, thank you for all you're doing. Thank you for your time today. And again, we hate to leave you in DFW, but Abbott Lawrence is waiting for us in Denver, so we're heading west. Kirk, take care. It's good to see you.
Thank you, Ward.
See you later.
The West Division is largely focused along the Front Range of Colorado, where over 85% of the state's population lives and works. This megaregion is one of the fastest-growing markets in the country, attracting people and companies to our active lifestyle and relative affordability. There are two important things to know about being the leading aggregates, ready-mix concrete, and asphalt and paving contractor in the Front Range. First, our market is well-structured and inherently vertically integrated, and second, the market is rapidly depleting rock close to population centers. Martin Marietta is thriving here because we have unique generational aggregate reserves in all the right places, and we have built a superior integrated vertical platform throughout our market. Additionally, the West Division has a culture that drives operational excellence and teamwork, and we have built a compelling value proposition that attracts the best contractors in our markets.
Together, our aggregate position, business model, and culture combine to create a defendable, sustainable, and profitable long-term strategic advantage.
Our last divisional stop today is in the West Division with Division President Abbott Lawrence from Denver, Colorado. Abbott, it's good to see you as well.
Nice to see you, Ward.
Hey, Abbott, alluvial reserves, in other words, the stone that's coming down out of the Rocky Mountains and getting into the rivers and streams that are there along the Front Range of the Rockies, have long been being depleted. To ensure our sustainable future along the Front Range, I know we've developed what we believe is an unrivaled long-haul network from Southern Wyoming all the way into Southern Colorado. Talk about the long-term implications of this and what we believe the competitive advantage of this network provides now and into the future.
Yeah, absolutely. That's a great place to start, Ward. Thanks for that question. You know, it's really kind of funny to say that we're running out of rock in the Rockies, but that's, in fact, what's going on. It might be worth me taking a minute to kind of explain what our market looks like from that perspective, and it'll put a lot of our conversation into context today. You'll hear me say the Front Range quite often, and that's really where the Great Plains come and meet the Rocky Mountains, and it's also where most of our market is. If you look at that market, down the middle of it is I-25, and from I-25, you can access most of the communities that people have been moving to here in our great state for much of the last couple of decades.
Names like Colorado Springs, Denver, Boulder, and Fort Collins are some people might recognize, but that's a lot of what's been driving our growth and where our market is. That's the landscape. What's really important when you're talking about aggregates, of course, is the rivers, as you mentioned, and so if you think about the rivers that are coming out of our mountains down into the plains, imagine those rivers rushing down and bringing the rock into the market, and the big rocks fall out first, and they're right up close to the market, and then as you go down the riverbeds, you get into ultimately just sand, well, for generations, the rock close to the market was very available. These were big rocks, the stuff you'd make a fireplace out of, or most of them were as big as my fist.
And for years, those were crushed into aggregates for ready-mix plants and for asphalt plants. We've been through those reserves, though, and as you march down the river, we've either depleted them or we've built housing developments or shopping centers on top of them. And the deposits we're opening up today are farther down the river, and there might be just as much as 20% that is coarse compared to 60% at the other end. And those rocks are coarse when they're about three-eighths of an inch, which is not a lot bigger than the fingernail on my little pinky. So that's the environment that we're in. And for many, that's a problem, but for us, it's a great advantage.
We not only have great reserves in the middle of that market, including our Spec Agg Quarry, which is just due west of Denver, right in the foothills and one of only three such quarries in this marketplace. But in addition to that, we bookend this market with quarries and infrastructure that is the rock by rail you were talking about. So let me go to the north first. And the northern part of our market is a quarry that we've had for decades, even before the transaction that got us here in 2011. And that's our Granite Canyon Quarry. And for years, that served just the railroad. So the good news about that is it was connected to the rail. The bad news is it was developed for making rock that's ballast, which is that rock that's between the railroad ties when you see that.
But it wasn't very set up for commercial aggregates. So we've built that commercial plant, and we've connected it to a rail yard in northern Colorado. It's taken the better part of a decade to purchase the land, permit, and get in place. And in that rail yard is not only a ready-mix plant today, but we're also building an asphalt plant in the very near future. So that's the northern part of the market. If you come down to the south of our market, we did a transaction in 2015, which we bought the only rail-connected quarry in the state of Colorado. And we bought a rail yard in the Colorado Springs market, and we bought a railroad, which is kind of handy in this business.
So now you've got two places to get your rock to bring into the market, and we've got them connected to the northern part and the southern part of the market. And in the middle of the market, where most of our revenues are and most of our growth is, we have two rail yards that we're developing, one on the east side of the Denver market, where all the growth is out by the airport, and one on the south side of the Denver metro market. And both of those are permitted, and we've actually started the development for the quarry on the east side of town.
So when you think about it, with the depleting reserves and our advantages in that market to be able to get rock into a market where we're already very strong, that's quite an advantage that others are going to have a tough time duplicating. And it's taken us about 10 years to get there.
You know, Abbott, one thing you mentioned, you're talking about moving stone north, south, et cetera, but you also mentioned the downstream businesses. You mentioned ready-mix concrete. You mentioned hot-mix asphalt. Of course, Colorado is our second largest state by revenue, and similar to the conversation I had with Kirk Light just a few minutes ago, he was talking about a vertically integrated strategy in our largest state by revenue. Talk about the importance of vertical integration in our second largest state by revenue.
Yeah, that's great. It's a big part of who we are in this marketplace and also the success that we've had over the years that we've been here. It's important to realize that it's vertically integrated in this state because those same contractors that built the communities that I talked about a minute ago also developed a lot of those aggregate reserves that were available to them right up next to the foothills there. And for those companies, that rock was reasonably inexpensive to process and to get to market. And so as you can imagine, the downstream businesses is where the profits were really captured. And in fact, the aggregates were really just viewed as a cost of materials for those businesses. But that paradigm shift is changing.
In today's market and in the landscape I laid out a minute ago when we were talking about rock by rail, that infrastructure that's needed is really the venue for large institutional companies like ours that can afford to invest the capital in not only the reserves, but the plant and the transportation to get it there. So for us, that is the great opportunity that we saw in 2011 when we did the transaction. And since then, we've bought four companies. We've bought a lot of land, and we've developed the reserves, and we have built plants in strategically important places up and down the Front Range.
So, for Martin Marietta, that great opportunity is as an aggregate-led company, we're building that downstream business on the backbone of a fantastic aggregate infrastructure, and it's going to be something that others are going to have a tough time duplicating in their downstream operations, and so we've got opportunities to grow where I think others are going to end up being a little constrained.
Let's talk a little bit about that growth because you mentioned that megaregion that goes up and down the Front Range that really follows that I-25 Corridor, and it's always been fascinating to me when you and I have ridden up and down that corridor because it's clear that really you have three distinct portions of Colorado: northern, Denver metro, and Southern Colorado. As you think about those different parts of the state, where do you see the opportunities for consolidation?
You know, that's a great question, and it's kind of a good news, good news story. We're in the fortunate position of being a reasonably rationalized and consolidated market as it is, and so as a well-structured market, it's a place where we've been able to really prosper, and then if you think about those three market areas that we talked about just then, the northern market and the Denver metro market are starting to see a little bit of convergence, and the southern market down in Colorado Springs is really quite separate, so up and down that market, we are really the only company that serve all three very well. There's another company that serves about two and a half, and other companies that serve either the southern part of the market or that northern market and metro market a little of both.
So from a consolidation standpoint, there are companies in each of those markets that would fit nicely into our vertically integrated strategy, and we could take advantage of that in any of those markets. And we know those folks, and we're paying good attention to them. So over time, I think there's going to be opportunities for bolt-ons to grow through acquisition as well as organically.
Abbott, in this conversation, it's funny to me to sit back and hear you harken back to 2011 and recognize that it's been 10 years since we did that transaction that really started putting Martin Marietta on the map in that marketplace. A lot has happened in 10 years in what was then the Rocky Mountain Division, which is now the West Division. I'm going to ask an unfair question. In those 10 years, what are you most proud of?
Wow. Well, we talked a lot about the assets that are here, but none of that would have happened without the people. So at the end of the day, this business is about people, and I'm incredibly proud of the team we have here. It's an energetic place. You know that because you spend time here. But if our investors could come visit, they'd find a place where people love to work. They're excited about what we're doing. They work well together, which is incredibly important in a vertically integrated company. And I'm proud to be in a position where we offer a great place to make a career. And our employees really love that. And I'm not the only one that thinks that. For two years running, we have received from the Denver Post one of the best places to work in Colorado.
That's something that you get through the vote of your employees. So really, I'm very proud of that, Ward.
Abbott, we are too. You and your team have done such a great job. You've come to it with great ambition, but also great results. I'm looking forward to more. Abbott, thank you so much for your time. I'll talk to you soon.
Take care, Ward.
See you. You've just heard from our division presidents why the right strategies in the right markets matter. It matters a lot in our industry. What we're going to do now is talk about what we believe are bright prospects for sustainable long-term demand because we think we're entering a decade that's very much unlike the last 10 years. What do I mean by that? We think we're going to see a period of years where infrastructure, non-residential and residential continue to grow. What's different? The economic expansion that ended with the arrival of COVID was the first economic expansion in the lifetime of anyone watching this program that was not building-led in the United States. We think we're about to see trends over the next 10 years that will be very different, both in infrastructure, non-residential, and residential construction.
Let's start this dialogue by talking first about infrastructure and what we think is going to happen there. Keep in mind, what we've been managing through for the last several years has been the Fixing America's Surface Transportation Act, or the FAST Act. The FAST Act followed nearly 10 years of not having a long-term federal highway program. Rather, for 10 years, we went from one continuing resolution to another. The FAST Act didn't necessarily provide more money. It just provided more stability. What's important to keep in mind is what's happened not just in 2020, but what happened in 2019. In 2019, the United States Senate, in their committee of jurisdiction, which is the Environment and Public Works Committee, looked at a successor to the FAST Act. A Republican-controlled Senate's view was whatever the next bill was, it needed to be at least 28% higher than the FAST Act.
Then in 2020, the House of Representatives looked at it. Their committee of jurisdiction is the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. Rather than saying it needed to be up 28%, the House thought it needed to be up 42%. From Martin Marietta's perspective, whether it's up 28% or 42%, it doesn't really matter. Either one of those is the single largest increase that we've seen in federal infrastructure investment in over 15 years. But keep in mind, only half of what's going to infrastructure is coming from the federal government. The other half comes from the states. As you've seen in our slides, where you are matters. Part of what we'd identified as an attractive trait in states is what is their fiscal condition.
You can see, looking at our top five states, whether it's Texas, North Carolina, Florida, Georgia, or Colorado, each one of those states is in the type of fiscal condition that we'd like to see. And more importantly, we believe they'll be there for the next five years. But what's also notable is what voters are saying when they go to the polls. Just this past November, there were over 300 ballot initiatives either on local, state, or other ballots. And what was impressive when those ballot initiatives relative to transportation were voted on, they were voted in favor 94% of the time. That's a statistic that we've never seen before. It's never been that high. But here's the other thing that's worth knowing. They voted those numbers in, and the numbers add up to an awfully big number, $14 billion.
But what's even more notable, 82% of that money is going to be invested in our single largest revenue state of Texas. Again, it's about where you are. And as we've said, Texas is never disappointed. If you're in our business or you're in your business, part of what you're trying to determine is if we feel like there's a good outlook, and we do, what are the indicators that you can look to that can give you a good feel of exactly how you can expect aggregates to perform? Well, if you're in the business of making little rocks out of big rocks as we are, we're looking to find those things too. And here's some that we found. These are correlations that we believe will be incredibly helpful to you just as they are to us. These are leading indicators with strong relationships to aggregates demand.
And two that jump off the page are single-family housing starts, as well as total square footage with respect to both residential and non-residential activity. In other words, if we're looking at housing across the United States and single-family housing is filling up about 80% of the overall housing market, what we found is the correlation to per capita aggregate consumption is almost perfect. It's almost at 99%. Similarly, if we look at total square footage of both residential and non-residential, that has a nearly 96% correlation. So again, it's not so much about dollars spent on that square footage. Rather, it's about size. But we're also focused on the drag-along effect that we see in non-res as it follows residential. What does that drag-along effect look like? Well, it looks like this. It looks like new retail. It looks like commercial.
It looks like warehouses, schools, curbs, gutters, new access to roads, etc. Because here's what we know. When we see single-family housing, not just infill, but new communities, what we see is a form of density that's two to three times more aggregates intensive than ordinary housing is. Again, these are the types of metrics that we look at in our business, and we would encourage you to look at as you look at our business. Now, one of the things that I would be curious about if I were you is if we're saying the drag-along effect is important, how long does that drag-along effect take? And what we found is it can vary anywhere from on the soon end of, say, six months to the long end of 18 months. And how have we calculated that?
Again, we've gone back over a period of time and we've looked at it. So if we go back to 2005, a year that we've referenced several times today because it marked the peak of the last cycle of aggregates tonnage, it also, not surprisingly, marked the peak of housing. But what's important is to see when housing peaked and then juxtapose that to when non-residential peaked, and what this slide shows you is housing peaked in 2005 and non-residential peaked in 2007. There's your 12 to 18-month lag, but here's what's important too. Most commentators are of the view that non-residential was awfully healthy in 2020. They probably don't remember that 2020 non-res was still 26 below peak back in 2007.
So again, even as we look at non-residential and we start to parse it more closely by sector, this slide gives you a sense of what we believe is going to be impacted either positively or in a more challenged way near-term versus longer-term. So what do we think is going to be good in the near term? We think data centers, warehousing, education, healthcare will all be quite good. We think office and hospitality will be a bit slower, and we think retail will be a bit slower still. But here's what we do know. When we're looking at the things that will be good, data centers, warehousing, etc., keep in mind what we talked about before. Square footage matters. Size matters. So when we're looking at size, these types of projects give you a sense of size and scope. These aren't projects we pulled off the shelf.
These are projects that are underway in Martin Marietta markets where we're supplying products, so whether it's an Amazon fulfillment center in Colorado or a Walmart distribution facility in Charleston or even Facebook in Des Moines or five Amazon warehouses in San Antonio, you can see the sizes of these projects vary from 3 million sq ft to over 5 million sq ft. What's important to remember too is heavy non-residential often takes aggregates to the tune of seven to nine times more than light non-residential. Size does matter, and what we're seeing is that these heavy non-res projects are more than offsetting often what we would have seen in light retail or otherwise, but here's what's important too. We look at our business not in quarters, not in years. We look at our business long-term. We look at our business strategically over a five-year period.
And it's not just Martin Marietta that's looking at non-residential and thinking that it looks pretty good. We think scope and scale and dollar value are important. We think it drives demand. And F.W. Dodge thinks that we're likely to see a very nice trend in this for multi-years over the next several years all the way through the entire SOAR period. Again, looking at these numbers, it gives you that very attractive 96% correlation. So what does it all mean? It means that we see emerging demand trends not seen in over a decade. With the economic cycle that ended with the arrival of COVID, it ended a 10-year period unlike anything we've ever seen in our history. And what do I mean by that?
We saw an economic period in the United States that was not building-led, but we think we're heading into a decade that in fact will be building-led. What do we think we see? We see infrastructure that's going to be better. We see residential that we feel very confident is going to be better. And we see a non-residential forecast, as does F.W. Dodge, that also looks incredibly better. We like where we're sitting. We like what the next 10 years look like. We like what the next five years of SOAR looks like. What'll happen now is I'm going to be joined on stage by a couple of my colleagues. Suzanne Osberg will come out, as will Jim Nickolas, and we'll begin taking the questions that you have of us.
Welcome back. We're now going to kick off our question and answer session with Ward and Jim. We've had a lot of great questions that have come through the course of the day, and we're going to do our best to answer as many as we can in the time allotted. Our first question comes from one of our analysts. Ward, when you think about M&A and if you had to rank by attractiveness and availability, do you see more opportunities in our existing markets, or are they going to be more platform markets that we're not currently in, such as California or the Pacific Northwest?
Yeah, I think the answer is really both for today because several things are obvious. One, there are about 3,600 closely held family businesses in the United States that are still available for purchase at some point in the near or long-term future. So 3,600 businesses is a lot. If we go through our leading states and think about states like Texas, there's still plenty of room to grow in Texas through acquisition. There's still room to do that in Colorado. And even in North Carolina, which is where we are today in our home state, there's still more to be done even in North Carolina. So when we think about bolt-on acquisitions, we think the opportunities ahead of us are pretty significant. Equally to your point, there are potential platforms in the United States that we would be interested in.
Again, if we go back to the slide that we looked at earlier today that are outlining different megaregions across the United States, you get a pretty good sense of where we would like to be. Now, part of what's important though as you think about our strategy is we don't want to be in megaregions simply for the sake of being in megaregions. We want to be in megaregions where we can have a leading position. So again, we're going to be looking at transactions that are, one, aggregates-led, two, where we can have a leading position. And in those instances, we'll be looking more in a platform position. If we're looking at bolt-ons, it'll obviously be in the markets that we exist.
From an availability perspective though, we think there will likely be a good mix of both, at least over the next period in SOAR, so thank you for the question.
Great. And this next question is actually a great follow-up to that first one. So looking at your targeted expansion markets, I noticed California had been circled. So several years ago, Martin Marietta was in California with the Oro Grande Cement Plant, part of the TXI acquisition. We subsequently divested those assets and exited the California market. So what has changed our view now for California? And what types of assets would you be interested in there?
That's a really good question because you're right. When we acquired TXI, it was important to remember that they actually had three cement facilities. They had one in Dallas at Midlothian, one in San Antonio at Hunter, and as the questioner pointed out, one in Southern California at Oro Grande. Here was the difference. When we did the transaction with TXI, we went into Texas and stayed as an aggregates leader. The only asset that we had in California at the time was that single cement asset. So remember, part of what we've said is, number one, we're aggregates led. So if we think about what's different today, we're looking at aggregates transactions in places that we can have new platform acquisitions. Number two, looking back at that single cement plant in California, we didn't have any aggregates there whatsoever.
We didn't have any downstream businesses there whatsoever in what is naturally a vertically integrated marketplace. So what that meant to us is we were the last ones to be effectively sold out and the first ones that people left when they had to self-supply. So from our perspective, looking at California today or looking at parts of the West Coast today, if there are opportunities to grow it in an aggregates-led footprint, that is something we're interested in. What I would ask you to remember really is the way that we grew our business in Colorado. Because keep in mind, when we went into Colorado in 2011, we didn't have any footprint whatsoever in that marketplace.
As you've seen from the conversation that I had with Abbott Lawrence just a little while ago, now we have a leading position up and down the I-25 Corridor, but it happened not just due to the asset swap in which we went into that market, but in some of the subsequent transactions we've done since then. So again, I think that's the fundamental difference between California as we looked at it before and the West Coast as we're looking at it today.
Great. Thanks, Ward. This next question comes from one of our investors. As we look at M&A opportunities to pursue, particularly in those new markets where we don't have any current operations, how will Martin Marietta create value without any synergies?
That's a great question too. And here's what I would ask you to think about. We've talked a good bit today about a value over volume strategy. We've talked a good bit today about how we're going to manage logistics. We've also talked about our partners relative to our supply chain. And what we've seen, even if we go back and look at Bluegrass, which again we did in 2017 and 2018, and we look at the way that we have really created value in a market like Maryland, where we had two operations in the far western part of the state and then did a much larger transaction that gave us a leading position in Baltimore.
If you go back and think about one of the slides that we showed you, we were able to demonstrate, number one, what we had done relative to pricing in that marketplace because we do have a value over volume strategy. And by pursuing appropriate value, we've created great value in that business. But equally, as we look at what we've done from a cost perspective, the costs have gotten much better. The other thing that's worth noting is the safety numbers have also gotten considerably better. They're better by the tune of about 74%. So what we feel like we're doing is we're bringing, number one, operational excellence to these businesses. And number two, we're bringing great commercial excellence to these businesses as well. And then you're back to the notion that Ron Kopplin spoke about a little while ago as well, and that as you inevitably find synergies.
These found synergies that we saw in TXI and Bluegrass are the types of synergies that we'll bring to future investments as well.
Great. You mentioned, Ward, the value over volume strategy. One of our analysts wants to know what have been the barriers in lower-priced aggregates markets historically, and what specific strategies do we have in place to drive pricing in these markets, both to narrow the gap between the corporate average price as well as to that $18.50 aspirational goal?
I guess several things when we think about that. Probably the best two markets that I can think of that addresses that question very specifically are what we've seen both in Texas and what we've seen in Colorado. So if we go and look at pricing in Texas, which is the marketplace that on a relative basis, at least compared to Colorado, doesn't have the same heightened barriers to entry, we've seen pricing actually go up very nice in that market to the tune of almost 45% since we acquired TXI. So again, I think bringing the strategies that we have in that marketplace and also in that marketplace being vertically integrated has been important for us. Now, when we transition and look equally at what's happened in Colorado, pricing has actually gone up in that market at an even faster rate.
Keep in mind, both of those markets were pricing stone below our corporate average pretty considerably. Number one, when we went into Texas, it was about 60% of a corporate average. And in Colorado, it was well below a corporate average. Both of those have moved at rates well in advance of the corporate average, at least with respect to the annual price increases since we've done those transactions. The other thing that's clear is as we continue to see, number one, depletion scenarios and number two, continued consolidation, both of those end up giving pricing nice upward trajectory as well. The other thing that I'm sensitive to is even when we're looking at $14.77 a ton, as I indicated earlier, there are not a lot of things that you can buy for that.
But back to that notion that there are parts of the United States that were selling aggregates for $25 and $30 a ton, and that does not have a chilling effect on what's happening relative to construction in those markets. So we continue to believe that barriers to entry, getting critical mass, and seeing depletion plays will be important in those western markets and the markets where we're continuing to consolidate our business.
That's great. Let's switch gears a little bit and talk now a little bit more about demand. One of our shareholders would like to know a little bit more about the aggregates correlation to various different macro sets that we've been looking at. Ward, Jim, can you talk through a little bit more about that and what the relative aggregates correlation is?
Sure. We can certainly try to do that. As you can imagine, we, like you, have spent a lot of time over the last several years trying to sort out exactly what we can look at that will be most accurate in determining what future aggregate consumption is going to look like. We've looked at employment trends, and those tend to matter. We've looked at population trends, and those tend to matter. So again, if we're looking at megaregions, there's a reason that we're looking at megaregions. There's a reason that states like Texas, where we're adding thousands of people oftentimes a day in places like North Carolina that will quickly become the eighth most populous state in the country, matters to us.
But the statistics that we pointed out to you early in the presentation that you've seen today, relative to housing and relative to the size of some of these non-residential projects, tend to really have pretty striking correlations. Now, one thing that's worth noting, if you go back and look at the slide where we were talking about a 99% correlation and almost a 96% correlation, you'll see that both of those had built into it a one-year lag effect. In other words, if we're watching single-family housing move up to percentages that we would have historically expected, we think that's going to be helpful to our business. So what do I mean by that?
It's fascinating to look at the overall housing market in the United States over a period of time and then look at the housing market in the United States leading up to the economic expansion that ended with the arrival of COVID. So for example, if we look at housing over a longer period of time, what you'll see is single-family housing tended to make up almost 80% of the housing market. Now, by contrast, in the period that was expanding up until COVID arrived, it was in the high 60s going into the 70s as opposed to that 80% number. Now, what's important about that is we see housing now today trending back to about 80% of single-family. Therein lies the 99% correlation factor with the 1% lag.
Now, the primary driver on that is not so much the stone that's going into the lot where the house is being built. The correlative factor is what's going on in the subdivisions as they're built. So this isn't infill in communities. This tends to be new housing subdivisions where you're seeing roads being cut, where you're seeing sidewalks go in, utilities are being put in, and you're also seeing the house construction. So in our world, for example, until those roads are accepted for public maintenance, all of that counts as housing stone. Now, keep in mind too, we were talking about the drag-along effect, and therein lies what we feel like is more of the lag. And by when you throw that one-year lag in, you suddenly see that very high correlative effect at about 99%.
So when you're building new subdivisions north of Atlanta or new subdivisions north of Plano or Frisco in Dallas, you're also seeing what follows that. You're seeing the shopping center, you're seeing the healthcare, you're seeing the schools, and you're seeing everything else that's part of life. But the other piece of it that's important to us, and we've seen it in this time period in particular, is people in varying degrees are shopping differently, but the fact that they're shopping differently has actually inured to our benefit because e-commerce has taken up more of what's going on in the economy today, but so has building out these large distribution facilities.
So when we're looking at the drag-along effect of these distribution facilities, how that ties into housing and how overall square footage is married up to that, we find that, again, that has a very high correlative effect because what you see is a fulfillment center is likely seven, eight, nine times, for example, more aggregates intensive than is big box construction. So again, if we're looking at housing and sorting out single-family housing within a housing market, we're looking at the drag-along effect and how that ties in. And then we're also looking at non-residential and the nature of the construction. We're seeing, at least from a percentage perspective, those tying back into aggregates in ways that we probably would not have 15 or even 20 years ago.
Exciting times indeed. Our next question comes from one of our investors, and they say, "We appreciate the fact that you manage the business for the long term. However, recent winter weather has definitely been top of mind for most investors. So how is Martin Marietta faring so far in February, specifically in Texas? And are there any distinctions that we should draw between any potential disruptions for aggregates versus cement?
It was cold in Texas in February, and we should have talked to Kirk about that while we had him on the line. You know, Texas was basically shut down in many respects, not just for our business. The Texas economy was largely closed for modestly over a week because they were experiencing weather in Texas that, frankly, they're not accustomed to. I was very proud of the way that our teams approached that. We went through the process, as you would imagine, in a very orderly way. They were very good about winterizing facilities, and what we've seen is something that you would probably expect. Number one, construction was shut down for the better part of a week. Aggregates has returned very, very quickly. It's one of the reasons that we're an aggregates-led business. You can take down an aggregates plant very quickly.
You can also bring it back up very quickly, and it can respond on a dime. Cement has done fine there. I do think we winterized our two plants extraordinarily well. Cement takes a little bit more time to come back up. It's a 24/7 operation. So when a cement kiln goes down, it takes a little bit more time to equally bring that up. Will we feel some of that in the first quarter? I'd be naive to assume that you can take your single largest revenue state and see it experience that type of event for about a week. But I think it actually portends potentially well for the rest of the year. I think that could be particularly so relative to cement.
It's been our view that portions of cement in Texas before the year is over may be relatively tight, and I think this may actually enhance the tightness of that market. And we'll have to see what the concurrent effect will be with respect to the commercial aspects of cement. So that gives you at least, I think, a near-term February view of it. Let's face it, if we're going to have bad weather, bring it on in February. That's the time of year that we'd like to see that.
Absolutely. So our next question as well comes from an investor. In the presentation, we talked a lot about growing average selling price by 4% CAGR annually, plus also maintaining our cost either at or below an inflationary rate. And the combination of the two are going to really drive best-in-class unit profitability. So some of our closest peers have actually put out targets relative to their unit margins when shipments really reach some type of normalized level. What are we targeting for 2025 specifically relative to unit profitability?
You know what? We're not going to put out specific targets on unit profitability. What we are going to talk about is how we're going to control costs, and I think we're very good at that, and equally, what our philosophy is going to be with respect to pricing. Because keep in mind, there's one component to this that in the final analysis we can't control, and that is what's happening with volume, so if we go back over the last 10 years and people looked at what they thought a volume profile was going to be, I think people would have been surprised, number one, that volumes have been as muted as they have been, which tells us we've been really underinvested in the public side, so I think that does give us great confidence going forward, but again, we're going to control what we can control.
We're going to react, I think, very, very well to whatever the market brings to us. And I think that's likely to be volume. What I will do is I want to switch over to Jim and give him a moment to talk a little bit about inflation and how that works in our business as well. Because we've talked a lot about value over volume, but we've also done a really good job on managing our costs. And Jim can talk for a minute about our employees and really the way we're buying products as well. So, Jim?
Okay. Absolutely, so our costs have been very well-behaved for the last several years. We're looking at maybe some headwinds from diesel, but that's part and parcel of our business, so we know how to deal with that volatility, so by and large, our cost structure is very constant, growing in a very measured way, and we're able to stay ahead of it and then some with our steady growth in prices to stay ahead of it, so it's something that we use to our advantage when costs increase. It helps us with our explanation for commercial improvement with our customers. It's legitimate, and we use it to our advantage, and we expect that to continue. Looking back over time in periods where inflation was accelerated or heightened, our ASP growth has outpaced inflation as well, so we're quite comfortable under a low inflation environment or a high- inflation environment.
We think these margins will continue to grow.
Great. Thanks, Jim. And then our last question comes from one of our sell-side analysts. And they want to know, what is the overarching aim for SOAR 2025 that we expect to achieve between now and the next five years?
In fairness, you're stealing our thunder just a little bit, but that's okay. As you'll see in some closing slides that we have here in just a moment. But candidly, you've already seen it in the slides that we presented to you. If you take a look at what's happened to our market cap as we went from 2010 to 2015 and then 2015 to 2020, we've effectively been able to double our market cap during each of the SOAR periods so far. And again, our aim would be to make sure that we can do that again. Now, of course, the challenge is every time you double your market cap, doubling it one more time is even more difficult. But the fact is we feel like we've looked very carefully at this plan. We think we have a plan to be able to do that.
And it's something that we feel strongly that we're going to be able to do. So again, if we're looking at an overarching theme and the way that we think we're going to build value, continuing to drive our business, so future growth looks like past growth is important to us, and I think it's something that we'll be able to do.
Ward, Jim, thank you. We know we weren't able to get to everybody's questions today. So if your question was not asked, we are more than happy to follow up with you post-event. And with that, I am going to turn the presentation back over to Ward for some concluding remarks. Thank you.
Thank you, Jim. And thank you, Suzanne. And thanks to all of you. We're so grateful that you've given us as much time as you have today. And I recognize that we need to conclude this relatively quickly. So we want to talk about several things. One, we talked about the fact that we have something that we feel like is going to take us to a very sustainable and exciting future. We're going to Soar to a Sustainable Future. But we can't soar to that sustainable future unless we also have a sustainable foundation. And here's what you see on this slide. An aggregates-led platform growth. So remember what we discussed today. We're aggregates-led with strategic cement. And we have a Magnesia Specialties business that's different than anybody else's in this space. That's what we offer you that no one else does.
But we equally think and know that we're going to continue to grow in attractive geographies. That's what you've seen us do over the last 10 years. Again, that's what you should expect from us for the next five. But equally, we're going to come to you with the right strategic priorities. And what do I mean by that? We're going to continue to build best-in-class teams. We're going to be focused on ethical behavior. We're going to be focused on employee safety. We're going to be focused on sustainable practices. And we're going to make sure we continue to build a business today that can outperform, but most importantly, can outperform as we go into the future. Now, past this prologue, what you'll see is that we're going to continue to have a very disciplined execution of a proven strategy.
What this slide shows you is, number one, something that I think is unique to Martin Marietta, but number two, something that I think our industry can benefit from. What's relative to Martin Marietta? Unrivaled growth potential. So if you're looking at what we believe we can do relative to organic growth and inorganic growth, we think we're in a special place. As I indicated earlier this morning, we're not going to give you one or the other. We believe we're going to give you both. We're looking for commercial excellence, and we've given you that over the last 10 years and beyond. We're looking for continued operational excellence, and what do we think that that's going to give you? We think that's going to continue to deliver best-in-class unit profitability and growth, but we also know we're going to grow our business. We're good at this.
You've seen what we've been able to do, whether it's with TXI, River for the Rockies, or Bluegrass. We've told you what we thought we would do relative to synergies, and we've outperformed. But importantly, as we sit here today, we have balance sheet flexibility almost unrivaled in our industry, but we also have the regulatory expertise and capability to continue to grow our business. That's what's unique to Martin Marietta. What will the industry see? We think we're going to see very nice cyclical demand. As we indicated earlier, we think we're likely to see a new highway build this year that will affect volumes next year. But we think that's coming to the tune of some degree of an increase that's unlike anything that we've seen, at least over the last 15 years.
But importantly, too, we're seeing cyclical demand relative to private do exactly what we believe it should do and what it needs to do. And what do we mean by that? Single-family housing activity is likely to lead much of this recovery. And again, we've seen the correlative effect between single-family housing and what happens with aggregate tonnage. And keep in mind, the other thing that we've seen that we believe will continue to be the case is a nice drag-along effect in non-residential as housing continues to grow. What does the last 10 years look like, and why do we think that portends well for the next 10? Well, here are your numbers. Looking back in 2010 and where we just finished in 2020, whether it's with respect to aggregate tons, total revenues, adjusted EBITDA, or leverage, we're in a very attractive place today.
But importantly, look at what we've done as we've grown our business in different markets because we believe this is what you're likely to see again. So if we look at where we were a decade ago, we didn't have a business in Colorado. Today, we have a leading business in Colorado. If we look a decade ago, we had a nice business in Texas, but we weren't the leader in Texas that we are today. And again, we had a nice business in the Southeastern United States, but we weren't the single largest producer of stone in Georgia and we are today. And we didn't have the leading business that we have in Maryland today. But what's different? We went into that cycle after 2010 with a leverage ratio of about 2.7x . Today, we're sitting at about 1.9 times.
Martin Marietta is extraordinarily well-positioned to repeat our prior cycle success. And this is going back to one of the questions that we just fielded that I jokingly said you stole some of our thunder. Here's what SOAR has looked like. It has truly given us a wonderful foundation. We believe we have an incredibly bright future. And you can see what our market cap looked like in 2010, what it looked like again in 2015, and what it looked like when we finished 2020. A doubling each period of SOAR. And again, that's our aim as we go forward. It's lofty, but we also think it's achievable. And we look forward to being with you as we go through the ride. As we conclude this day, there's several thanks that I need to offer to people.
I need to offer first our thanks to division presidents who are with us today. My thanks to Jim and Suzanne. My thanks too to Dan Grant. You haven't seen him on camera today, but he and his team have been busy behind camera making much of this happen. But I also need to thank our partners at Haystack Needle from New York, who made the journey to North Carolina to make this possible. So thanks to all of them. But most importantly, thank you to you. Thank you to our owners. Thank you to our investors. Thank you to our analysts for all that you do. As Suzanne indicated, we know we weren't able to get to all of your questions. We're anxious to do that. And you know how to reach us. We'll also put out some frequently asked questions and make sure we respond accordingly.
Again, thank you so much for your time. Stay well, stay safe. We look forward to seeing you in person at some point in 2021.