Swamp Rider to invest $2.4 million in High Point plant

Swamp Rider plans to invest $2.4 million in a new manufacturing plant at 1908 Nugget Drive in High Point, a 27-acre site near Highway 29 and I-74. The Canadian manufacturer says the project will be its first U.S. manufacturing facility and will create 60 jobs over five years.

The jobs will pay an average annual wage of $55,583, and High Point approved a $40,000 performance-based grant tied to the project. That combination gives the city a relatively small public incentive in exchange for a new industrial employer and a pay scale that is meant to land above the area’s lower-wage warehouse and service jobs.

Swamp Rider builds amphibious all-terrain and utility task vehicles, and the company describes its machines as articulated off-road vehicles designed for extreme terrain and remote-access applications. The vehicles are built in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and are built to move through mud, snow, swamps, rivers, forests and rocky terrain, a product line that is a sharp fit for a region better known for furniture and traditional manufacturing than for specialized outdoor mobility equipment.

For High Point, the plant adds another piece to a broader effort to widen the city’s industrial base. The 1908 Nugget Drive site gives Swamp Rider room to grow on a corridor with direct access to major Triad highways, and the project brings a niche Canadian manufacturer into Guilford County at a time when local leaders are working to attract more advanced and diversified production jobs.