Today Doppelmayr announced a major expansion of its longtime facility in Salt Lake City, Utah. The project will nearly double the size of the US headquarters to include 120,000 square feet of indoor production and warehouse space, 68,000 square feet of covered outdoor space and 40,000 square feet of office and training space. The expansion will be constructed directly east of an existing building, which originally served as CTEC’s headquarters near the Salt Lake City International Airport. “As ski resorts across the USA continue to invest in state-of-the-art infrastructure to enhance guest experience, including new ropeways, the facility expansion positions Doppelmayr USA to better meet the growing demands of the thriving North American ropeway market,” the company said in a release.
Doppelmayr currently produces tower components, control systems, electrical cabinets, operator houses and fixed grip terminals for projects across North America in Salt Lake. “The current facility has served us well for over 20 years, but we are bursting at the seams,” said Doppelmayr USA President Katharina Schmitz. “The new facility will be a state-of-the art manufacturing facility where we will continue to design and produce the highest quality ropeway systems in North America. We are excited to expand our production capabilities and our workforce and continue Doppelmayr’s legacy of building ropeways in Salt Lake City,” she noted. The Doppelmayr Group operates one other North American production site in Saint-Jérôme, Quebec and also produces components for the North American market in Wolfurt, Austria.
This news comes less than two weeks after Doppelmayr’s main competitor HTI opened a new 130,000 square foot facility to support both Skytrac and Leitner-Poma in Tooele, Utah. The Utah ski industry is booming with new lift projects underway or planned at Deer Valley Resort, Park City Mountain, Powder Mountain, Snowbird, Sundance Resort and Wasatch Peaks Ranch. The state reported a record 7.1 million skier visits in 2022-23 and expects to host the Olympic Winter Games for the second time in 2034.
Architecture and engineering designs for Doppelmayr’s new Salt Lake facility are currently being developed. Construction is anticipated to start in early 2025, with the target to be producing out of the new facility by mid-2026.
Lift Blog 
what new lifts are coming to snowbird?
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New Wilbere is under construction and they have approval to replace Gadzoom and Mineral Basin with six packs.
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when are they gonna replace gadzoom and MBX?
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Maybe in a year or two or three or four. No rush. Both lifts are not even 30 years old yet. Probably just some wise planning ahead stuff, eh?
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There is no set timeline for those replacements, they just received approval, Peter mentioned it here https://liftblog.com/2024/01/05/news-roundup-364/
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After working there the prospect of a six pack unloading where MBX unloads scares me
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Happy to see Doppie expanding. And the stuff going on with HTI out in Tooele. Makes for great competition and good prices for the mountains.
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It appears the manufactures believe that the current pace of new lift construction will continue and the money for big expensive lifts will never dry up??
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It’s also modernization in general to better match newer lifts, and a long term reduction in shipping costs from Europe.
As for demand, looking at the field the next 20-30 years will be spent replacing the aging first few eras of detachables. There might be some down years or even a few in a row, but there are simply too many first generation highspeed lifts coming due for replacement that it will average out.
Plus the continued aging out of the mid and small sized ski area’s extensive numbers of 50+ year old riblets, halls, borvigs, yans, etc. many will continue to buy used replacements, but that almost always means a new lift is being installed somewhere else by one of the 2 big companies.
And finally the rise of the luxury private resort. Combined YC, Powder Mountain, and Wasatch Peaks have purchased a very large number of modern new lifts. With many being large and detachable. Their customers expect fast comfortable rides on optimal layouts, so a new terrain pod that might have been 1 used lift or a simple hsq at a traditional resort can quickly be 2-3 lifts. One or two more new luxury mountains, or another big expansion from any of them, can mean enough expensive lifts sold in a short time to offer a decent chunk of return on the investment into a new factory.
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Besides the conical lift towers, will this expansion allow Doppelmayr to produce more D-Line equipment here, especially as North America is already embracing it? Or will the D-Line still be imported from Austria?
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What are the advantages and drawbacks of conical towers? Why have they never caught on in the US after being produced for a long time in Europe?
Easier to ship (since one section can fit inside the next)? More stable for less steel or concrete? I would think they’d be harder to manufacture
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