Doppelmayr brings more lift-making power to North America

Doppelmayr is expanding its North American industrial footprint with new facilities in Salt Lake City, Utah, and Saint-Jérôme, Québec, bringing more manufacturing, engineering and technical support closer to the resorts that depend on its equipment. The openings strengthen the Austrian ropeway group’s regional operations, combining additional factory space with facilities for servicing lifts and training the people who maintain them.

The investment is about more than bigger buildings. In Utah, Doppelmayr is adding domestic production of large steel components previously shipped from Austria. In Québec, it is modernising a manufacturing base established in 1978 and retaining a workforce whose expertise remains closely connected to projects south of the border. Together, the developments illustrate a strategy of localisation — although the company’s cross-border supply chain means that producing closer to customers does not eliminate trade friction.

A bigger American home — and a shorter journey for heavy steel

Doppelmayr formally opened its new US headquarters on 19 October. The approximately 160,000-square-foot facility, beside its previous Salt Lake City premises, nearly doubles the company’s local footprint and brings production, engineering, sales, spare parts, servicing, construction support and training together. Utah Governor Spencer Cox joined company leaders at the opening, where 27 employees with more than 20 years’ service helped cut the ribbon.

The most consequential changes, however, are on the factory floor.

Salt Lake City will continue making lift towers, bullwheels, fixed-grip terminals, electrical control systems and operator cabins. It is also adding conical steel towers used on Doppelmayr’s D-Line and UNI-G installations — components previously manufactured in Wolfurt, Austria, and shipped across the Atlantic. The new operation will use US steel, concentrating on large items that are expensive to transport overseas.

That shift gives a practical meaning to the expansion: more of a lift’s substantial steelwork can be produced on the continent where it will operate, rather than occupying shipping containers before beginning its final journey to a mountain.

Automation is part of the change. According to specialist publication Lift Blog’s reporting from the opening, a new robotic welding system reduces welding time by 40–60%, although some welds still require manual work. The expanded machine shop includes four CNC machines, three mills and two lathes, while a new loading area allows trucks to drive through and collect components by crane. Galvanising will remain off-site.

The investment therefore expands local capability without making the plant entirely self-contained. Its significance lies in moving more production steps in-house and reducing dependence on transatlantic transport for selected components, rather than replacing every external supplier.

Québec’s expansion secures an established manufacturing base

In Saint-Jérôme, the story is as much about industrial continuity as additional capacity.

Doppelmayr announced the Canadian project in May 2025, describing plans to almost double its existing premises. The design included approximately 120,000 square feet of indoor production, service and warehouse space, 31,000 square feet of covered outdoor space, and a 34,000-square-foot office and training facility. Production in the new premises was targeted for the final quarter of 2026.

Reporting on the opening, Le Journal de Montréal put the investment at C$60 million. Canadian chief executive Luc Guy told the newspaper that the previous factory had reached the end of its useful life after repeated expansions, and that alternatives considered with group headquarters included relocating operations. Building on the existing site enabled the company to retain its Canadian base and, according to Guy, preserve 140 jobs in Québec and Canada.

Public financing helped underpin the project. Québec announced a C$10 million loan through its ESSOR programme, administered by Investissement Québec, while Canada Economic Development for Quebec Regions provided a separate C$3 million repayable contribution. These are financing commitments, not simply grants covering part of the construction bill.

At the time of Québec’s announcement, the provincial government projected that the project would create 29 jobs and consolidate another 52. Those project-specific forecasts should be distinguished from the broader employment total cited by Guy at the opening.

Two complementary factories, one cross-border challenge

The facilities are intended to complement one another rather than operate as separate national production systems. Saint-Jérôme has specialised in UNI-G detachable equipment for Canadian and US customers, while Salt Lake City manufactures a different mix of structural, electrical and operating components.

Guy described that interdependence plainly in his interview with Le Journal de Montréal: Doppelmayr USA is a major customer for the Canadian operation, and projects typically contain work from both factories. The newspaper reported that tariffs on Canadian steel were complicating those exchanges, with the American business absorbing the tariff costs.

That makes the expansion more nuanced than a straightforward reshoring story. Additional US manufacturing can reduce reliance on components arriving from Europe, but the North American operation still depends on specialist work moving between Canada and the United States.

For customers, the intended advantages are stronger regional manufacturing and support. Whether those changes translate into lower installed lift prices or measurably shorter delivery times remains unproven: the opening reports do not establish either outcome.

Training and maintenance move alongside production

Some of the new capacity is designed not to build lifts, but to keep existing ones running.

Salt Lake City’s new training centre can accommodate 25 people at a time. Alongside classroom teaching, it offers hands-on instruction using a Doppelmayr Connect control system, hydraulic equipment and detachable grips — the mechanisms that allow chairs or cabins to disconnect from the moving rope in a station. Classes can also be delivered virtually.

The service operation already handles roughly 30 projects annually, including about 600 detachable-grip rebuilds, according to Lift Blog. During its visit, components from Bromley Mountain in Vermont were being rebuilt at the Utah facility, illustrating the geographical reach of that work.

Bringing training, engineering, spare parts and repair functions together places the new headquarters at the centre of the equipment’s operating life, not just its manufacture. The Canadian development similarly incorporates service space and training facilities into its expanded complex.

A long-term commitment, not a guarantee of uninterrupted growth

Doppelmayr justified the Canadian expansion in 2025 by pointing to strong ropeway demand and continued resort investment. Yet the market has not moved uniformly upwards: Lift Blog reported in September 2026 that the number of US and Canadian lift projects that calendar year was about 20% below the previous year. That is a project-count comparison, not a measure of contract values, revenues or factory utilisation.

The openings are therefore better understood as long-term investments in industrial capability than as proof of an uninterrupted construction boom.

There is also an important distinction in the reported investment figures. Lift Blog corrected its opening report to clarify that a US$150 million total covered new facilities in Salt Lake City, Québec and China — not Salt Lake City alone. It should not be presented as the cost of the US headquarters or of the two North American projects combined.

For resorts, the immediate change is tangible: a larger regional manufacturing network, more domestic production of selected heavy components, and expanded access to servicing and technical instruction. The longer-term test will be whether those capabilities improve delivery and support while Doppelmayr manages the trade barriers within the very market it is bringing production closer to.