Columbus, Ga., developer Mat Swift arrives this afternoon for a three-day visit to Greater Des Moines during which he will rally Greater Des Moines Partnership investors and others interested in developing a whitewater course along Des Moines’ two downtown rivers. 

Swift, whose company owned substantial tracts along the Chattahoochee River, was one of the masterminds of a 2.5-mile whitewater course in Columbus — a market about half the size of Greater Des Moines — that brought zip lines, platform yoga, national paddleboard and kayak competitions, and hundreds of millions of dollars in new development. 

The whitewater course starts upstream and ends downtown. It draws 40,000 a year, with a $30 million to $35 million economic impact. Another 20,000 a year come to zip line. 

“A lot of people think of this as recreation, but it’s every bit as much about economic development,” Swift said in a pre-trip interview with the Business Record. That includes drawing, and keeping, workers, especially activity-minded millennials, he added. 

From what Swift sees, Greater Des Moines is even better positioned to score big on the proposed development, with three dams along Des Moines and Raccoon rivers in play, versus the two in Columbus. Ours is a bigger market with more to offer upfront, Swift said. 

“Des Moines is incredibly blessed,” Swift said. “Y’all have been doing incredibly well on economic development, and you have the awards and statistics to back it up. This takes you over the top. This gives you an asset not many have. You have everything in place.”

Plans for the Lauridsen Skatepark along the Des Moines River and Principal Riverwalk just show how things can build, said Swift. He noted Des Moines also is discussing zip lines. Columbus put in two, over the river, plus tree-climbing and a riverwalk across the river in Alabama. “We are probably the only ones with a zip line that crosses into another state,” he added. People take rafts, kayaks and canoes down the Chattahoochee course, which can vary from Class 1 easy to Class 5 difficult depending on the time of day and river level. The wild stuff tends to be at night.

Swift, 71, took his 5-year-old  grandson on the Class 1 rapids one day. At first the boy considered it boring. By the end, he said, “That was the most fun I’ve had in my life.”

Brace for some real work, though. It took Columbus from 1998 to 2013 to complete its initial whitewater work. 

“It was frustrating and it was hard,” said Swift, who also served on the board of the local chamber of commerce. “There is nothing easy. But it is worth it in the end. Columbus, Ga., feels so much better about ourselves. It was huge in every way you can imagine.” 

The downtown whitewater in Des Moines would be part of a $100 million plan to make waterways across the area more accessible for swimming, paddling, birding and other activities. One of the chief forces behind the engineering study, McLaughlin Whitewater, pushed Columbus officials to scrap plans for two channels off the Chattahoochee River in favor of the whitewater plan in the river.

Fortunately — or unfortunately, depending on how adventurous you are — we are unlikely to see anything quite this wild here.