Huntsman Cancer Institute breaks ground on new $400M Utah County cancer center

VINEYARD, Utah (ABC4) — University of Utah’s Huntsman Cancer Institute broke ground on its second campus on Tuesday, celebrating how the $400 million project will improve access to care for Utah County cancer patients.

Several hundreds of people attended the groundbreaking ceremony, with politicians, students, clinicians, scientists, and community members present. The event was held near the cancer center’s new 19-acre site, situated in the Utah City community in Vineyard near Utah Lake.

The new Utah County location will be approximately 272,000 square feet and is expected to be completed by the fall of 2028, according to the press release.

The Huntsman Cancer Institute serves patients from Utah, Idaho, Nevada, Wyoming, and Montana, as officials say it’s “the only National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center in the Mountain West.”

Patients from the Utah County area visited the cancer center in Salt Lake County more than 40,000 times last year. Officials are anticipating more than 55,000 visits to the new facility annually, saying it will likely save patients over two hours of travel time per visit.

“By expanding access to cutting-edge cancer care and research, especially for patients in Utah’s rural and frontier communities, we’re delivering on our promise to improve lives across the state and beyond,” U of U President Taylor Randall said.

Gov. Spencer Cox said this new campus is in response to Utah’s growing communities and “will enhance lifesaving insights and innovations that will transform health here at home and around the world.”

The new center will not only improve access for patients, but will also increase collaboration with students and professionals at the University of Utah, Utah Valley University, and Brigham Young University.

The institute currently has 250 research teams studying cancer and touts discovering more genes for inherited cancers than any other cancer center. The new center will make room for additional research and clinical trials while providing a range of cancer services to patients.

“At the University of Utah, the research isn’t just part of our mission—it’s the engine that drives transformative change,” Randall said. “The new Huntsman Cancer Institute in Vineyard represents a bold step toward realizing a future where cancer will be a thing of the past.”

The total cost of the project is budgeted for $400 million, but only about 75% of the funding has been secured so far.

Contributors from the Huntsman Family Foundation, the State of Utah, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Flagship Companies, Woodbury Corporation, and several other companies, foundations, and families have donated to the new cancer center.

Officials with the Huntsman Cancer Foundation said they are “confident that their passionate community of donors will help complete the needed funding.”

“Huntsman Cancer Institute’s vision in the new fields of research, such as DNA and immunotherapies, will help change cancer outcomes for a generation. Today, we make the investment that will shape the next generation of care and research and hopefully bring an end to cancer,” said Peter Huntsman, CEO of the Huntsman Cancer Foundation.