Pure Cycle Corporation (NASDAQ:PCYO) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

John Rosenberg: In other words, everybody wants to be first to be second.

Mark Harding: That’s exactly — that’s a great way to phrase it.

John Rosenberg: Okay. And just lastly, just a comment, Glad to see you guys started on the share repurchase, and I think that’s a great validation of your model and cash flow capabilities.

Mark Harding: Thank you.

John Rosenberg: I’ll pass it on. Thanks. Good to hear from you.

Operator: Thank you very much. Your next question is coming from [Bill Cunningham] (ph), he’s a private investor. Bill, your line is live.

Unidentified Analyst: Hi, Mark. Thank you as usual for taking my call. I greatly appreciate it. And I had — actually, my first question was going to be about commercial, which you just mostly answered — but I do remember during your Investor Day, I think you made some general comments about the southern section of that commercial being possibly some sort of apartment development which I think was a fairly significant number possibly. I wondered if you might be able to say anything about that.

Mark Harding: Yeah. We do have a placeholder for that and can go somewhere between 400 and 600 multifamily units there. And it’s a good spot for it because not only does it add density — and that helps us in terms of assess value and mill levies and taxes that help us with the reimbursables, but it’s also a great spot for us on the transitioning between commercial and detached residential. So it will be right along that southern border of that. And you’re right. I get lots of interest from folks on that. And really, we want to be a little bit more mature before we put that product up because we want to be we’re looking at kind of that being another one of the affordability factors in there. We want to make sure that that’s an opportunity for folks that can transition from.

And as we look at it, transition from a multifamily to a single family, multifamily rental to a single-family rental to a single-family house and really doing that all within the same community and the same opportunity. And so good that you continue to highlight that, and I apologize for not being more specific about that in some of my commercial detail.

Unidentified Analyst: No, that’s fine. I just thought I know you’re still working out details. So that’s why I would kind of ask the question the way I did because I know sometimes your plans constantly — you have to shift things as markets change and what your current thought is and what kind of feedback you’re getting. So that’s why I kind of asked the open-ended question than I did. So this was very helpful. And also the school — I mean the apartment location would be directly adjacent to the school site also, right?

Mark Harding: It would. It’s not going to — maybe some of the units may be directly across the street, but some of them are going to be on kind of the eastern portion of that area, really south part of the commercial north part of the residential.

Unidentified Analyst: Okay, which is what like a five-minute walk to school from there?

Mark Harding: Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Unidentified Analyst: Yeah. So I think — I guess my point is just it’s a very good close location for a dense population to where the school is. So that looks interesting. You’d also — go ahead.

Mark Harding: I was just going to highlight the location of the school is a five-minute walk for everybody. But it’s got to be — it’s a five-minute walk uphill for everybody.

Unidentified Analyst: Okay. But going home, it’s not though, right?

Mark Harding: No, no, it is. It’s uphill both ways.

Unidentified Analyst: I’m going to walk in both directions, uphill in both directions?

Mark Harding: It’s echelon.

Unidentified Analyst: Okay. So the other item that you had pointed out right next to your offices at the Investor Day was that large pad site that you thought, I think work would start there in November was your estimate in July? And I think it was something like maybe 16 wells or something would be drilled there. I’m wondering what things might look like with that at the moment.

Mark Harding: It is currently fracking.

Unidentified Analyst: Good. Great.

Mark Harding: And we are delivering water to that one. And then we’ve got — I mean, we’ve had literally our water system on for the entire since really fiscal year-end, all of September. We had a bit of a just because of the technology on that three-mile lateral. They were on a pad site that was in the city of Aurora that we don’t provide because that’s a city of Aurora issue. But then they had another — and then they were rolling off that one to one that was in our service area, and that was the gap because they were having some technical difficulties on it. But you’re going to see some healthy revenues on the Q1 call in January on the frac.

Unidentified Analyst: Good. That’s great. Okay. Which is always your slow period on the home sales and things that — so good. And then let’s see, there was — I think that’s it, Mark. So thank you very much.