Doppelmayr and its partners cut the ribbon Monday on a new U.S. headquarters in Salt Lake City, a 160,000-square-foot facility that nearly doubles the ropeway manufacturer's local footprint and, for the first time, will produce conical towers for its D-Line detachable lifts right here in Utah instead of Austria. The move brings production, sales, engineering, parts, service, training, back-office work and construction operations together under one roof, consolidating a company that has quietly built ski lifts in Utah since the early 2000s.
According to saminfo.com, the plant will manufacture fixed-grip terminals, control systems, operator houses and cylindrical towers alongside the newly domestic conical towers. The building is split into roughly 120,000 square feet of indoor production and warehouse space and 40,000 square feet of office and training space, according to Townlift. A new training center inside the facility can host up to 25 people at a time, part of a broader push to bring engineering, manufacturing, training, customer service and apprenticeship development onto a single campus near Salt Lake City's international airport and within reach of North American mountain destinations.
A Long-Planned Expansion Finally Opens Its Doors
Doppelmayr first announced the Salt Lake City expansion back in 2024, saying its existing facility had become too small as ski resorts kept investing in new lift infrastructure, the same report notes. The company's U.S. arm is the North American subsidiary of the Doppelmayr Group, which positions itself as a world leader in ropeway engineering and has served the North American ropeway market for decades, providing planning, engineering, manufacturing, installation, modernization and service for aerial ropeways and people-mover systems across the country.
Doppelmayr USA president Keith Johns said the facility reflects an investment in people, customers and the future of ropeway transportation in North America. “We are proud of our history in Utah and grateful to our employees, customers, suppliers, and community partners,” Johns said, according to the company's own framing of the project. The expansion is expected to create additional skilled manufacturing and technical training jobs in Utah, expanding the company's production, warehousing, engineering and training capabilities as it works to design, manufacture, train and support customers throughout the United States and Canada, according to Utah Business.
Jobs, Wages and a Growing Utah Workforce
The expansion was originally projected to add 130 high-paying jobs in Utah over 10 years, generating an estimated $82.4 million in wages, per Townlift's reporting. Doppelmayr currently employs about 300 people in the United States and expects that number to keep growing, according to Liftblog. The designers of the new buildings aimed to increase automation and reduce production time while better serving North American customers, the same outlet notes.
Doppelmayr isn't alone in betting on Utah's booming lift industry. Stadler US and Doppelmayr USA have both recently expanded their Salt Lake facilities, adding manufacturing space and hundreds of technical-trade opportunities, according to Salt Lake Community College. The two companies were also the first private partners in SLCC's TRAC apprenticeship program, a public-private model designed to feed skilled workers into the region's manufacturing base.
Ski Demand, Tariffs and a Global Expansion Push
The timing tracks with record interest in Utah skiing: the state logged 7.1 million skier visits during the 2022-23 season, per Liftblog's earlier coverage of the expansion announcement. Doppelmayr is also supplying lifts for Deer Valley Resort's expansion, a project that includes 11 new ropeway installations, Townlift reports. Not all of the company's business runs on snow, either — non-ski projects now make up one third of the Doppelmayr Group's worldwide sales, the Liftblog report notes.
Growth hasn't come without friction. Tariffs have affected demand for Doppelmayr's products, with some customers delaying investment decisions, according to the Straits Times. Salt Lake City isn't the only new address on Doppelmayr's map, either — the company simultaneously opened a 150,000-square-foot plant in Saint-Jérôme, Quebec, that will produce UNI-G detachable equipment, bullwheels, drive platforms and sheave assemblies, according to saminfo.com's reporting on both openings. Other North American lift manufacturers have made similar moves in recent years, including HTI's 130,000-square-foot facility built to support Skytrac and Leitner-Poma in Tooele, Utah.
