Wake Stone Corp. is sold. What that means for its quarry plans on RDU airport land

Wake Stone Corp., a family-owned business based in Wake County, has agreed to be acquired by Vulcan Materials Co. , the nation’s largest producer of construction stone.

The Bratton family, whose patriarch John Jr. founded the company in Knightdale in 1970, will continue to manage Wake Stone’s operations and its five quarries . The company will also press to develop another pit on land owned by Raleigh-Durham International Airport .

“Wake Stone will be a wholly-owned subsidiary of Vulcan and will move forward with all planned projects,” said Sam Bratton, John’s son and Wake Stone’s president and CEO.

Bratton said the decision to sell was difficult. The company had received many inquiries over the years, he said, but the timing and fit weren’t right until now.

“Vulcan Materials is a business that Wake Stone has aspired to be like in many ways, and we have the utmost respect for its management team,” Bratton said in a written statement. “They take good care of their people, and their values align closely with Wake Stone.”

The value of the deal, expected to close later this year, was not disclosed.

The sale gives Vulcan a larger presence in the fast-growing Triangle region, with its appetite for crushed stone, sand and gravel. The company, based in Birmingham, Alabama, has few quarries in Eastern North Carolina; the closest one is near Henderson, an hour north of downtown Raleigh.

The sale also creates more direct competition between Vulcan and the nation’s second-largest producer of construction stone, Raleigh-based Martin Marietta , which has more than a half-dozen quarries in and around Wake County.

Wake Stone has four quarries in the region, plus a fifth near Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. It employs about 225 people, and none will lose their jobs or see their pay cut as a result of the sale, Bratton said.

The sale does not include Wake Stone’s real estate business, which manages more than 500,000 square feet of industrial, office and retail space in the Triangle.

RDU quarry still in the works

Wake Stone signed a lease with the RDU Airport Authority five years ago to allow it to develop a quarry on 105 acres of forested land the airport acquired for a runway that was never built. The land is across Crabtree Creek from Wake Stone’s Triangle Quarry, and the company plans to connect the two with a bridge and process stone with its existing equipment.

But the RDU property is also adjacent to William B. Umstead State Park and a section of the East Coast Greenway , in a relatively undisturbed area that’s popular with cyclists, hikers and joggers. Opponents of the quarry, led by the Umstead Coalition , have held the project in court.

The Umstead Coalition failed to persuade the courts that the airport’s mineral lease with the company was illegal or to stop the state from modifying the mining permit to allow Wake Stone to expand onto the airport property.

But the group is still pursuing various appeals and is fighting a change in the mining permit that extended the life of the Triangle Quarry and makes the RDU project possible . An administrative law judge held a hearing in June on whether the quarry’s original permit included a “sunset clause” that would force it to close by 2031 , but has yet to release a decision.

While Wake Stone has posted no-trespassing signs around the RDU property, it has not begun felling trees or moving dirt.

Wake Stone estimates that it would operate what’s become known as the RDU quarry for 25 to 35 years. The company has offered to build parking, trails and overlooks around the open pit after mining is complete, potentially making it available for public use if the airport agrees.

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