Gaylord Rockies Resort Brings ‘Economic Boom’ to Colorado
Customer
in Focus
26 November/December 2019 The Conveyor | www.martinmarietta.com
THE Customer Corner
So, you’re planning to visit Colorado, huh?
If you’re flying into Denver, you’ll have
no trouble finding a hotel; the largest
one in the state lies less than 10 miles from
Denver International Airport.
The Gaylord Rockies Resort & Convention
Center in Aurora, Colorado, boasts 1,500
rooms, including 114 suites. It has indoor and
outdoor pools, a lazy river, water slides, a spa,
four ballrooms, five restaurants, five outdoor
event spaces, and 486,000 square-feet of
meeting space, according to media reports.
It also happens to have been built with tons of
Martin Marietta materials.
Rocky Mountain Aggregates District Area
Sales Manager Lance Price says the massive
Colorado attraction contains more than 64,000
tons of Martin Marietta aggregates and 86,000
cubic yards of ready mixed concrete from
the Chambers and Piccadilly batch plants. To
put those figures in perspective, the Gaylord
Rockies utilized more Martin Marietta concrete
than Empower Field, the massive football
stadium where the Denver Broncos play before
a crowd of more than 76,000 people.
Eric Ashbrook, the senior sales representative
most familiar with the aggregates part of
the project, said much of the stone provided
for the Gaylord Rockies was used for the
resort’s infrastructure or as base material for
the property’s roads and parking lots.
“This was a substantial project,” he said. “In
terms of visibility in the area, it’s definitely one
of the better ones we’ve been involved with.”
The site is owned by affiliates of RIDA
Development Corp., a real estate company
based out of Houston, and Ryman Hospitality
Group, which is headquartered in Nashville,
Tennessee.
While the Gaylord Rockies may have been
a highly visible project for Martin Marietta,
Ira Mitzner, RIDA’s president and CEO, said
the resort’s impact goes far deeper.
“The Gaylord Rockies has transformed the
local community by providing a large economic
boom to the state,” he said. “More than
80 percent of the meetings it draws are from
groups that had never before met in the state
of Colorado.”
The Aurora Economic Development Council
has further detailed the resort’s impact, noting
that it brings more than 450,000 new visitors
to the state each year, a statistic that annually
translates into more than $273 million for the
local economy. Additionally, the resort has
created thousands of jobs, including more than
10,000 produced during its construction.
Senior Sales Representative Josh Joiner, who
handled the company’s ready mix part of the
project, said contributing even a small part to
such a worthwhile endeavor was truly
rewarding.
“This resort is going to be here for generations
to come. It’s a monument here in Denver
and the area around it is really starting to
explode with activity,” he said. “It’s really
great to have had a hand in that.”
To learn more about the Gaylord Rockies
Resort & Convention Center, visit www.
gaylordhotelsnews.com/welcometogaylordrockies.
▼
Gaylord Rockies
Resort &
Convention Center
■ Opened in
December 2018.
■ Construction on
the project lasted about
36 months.
■ Created 1,500
permanent jobs in the
local economy.
■ One of several
Gaylord properties.
Others exist near
such cities as Dallas,
Washington, D.C., and
Nashville, Tennessee.
The Gaylord Rockies Resort and Convention Center is Colorado’s largest hotel.
Photo-Denver/Shutterstock.com
Administrative Assistant Tamara Hohn contributed to this article.
/www.martinmarietta.com
/Shutterstock.com