Local News
Huntsman Cancer Institute breaks ground on first Utah County facility
In a step toward expanding cancer care in Utah County, the Huntsman Cancer Institute celebrated the groundbreaking of its first facility outside of Salt Lake City on Tuesday, April 8, in Vineyard. A large crowd of dignitaries, donors, staff, and students gathered to mark the occasion and witness the beginning of a project expected to transform health care in Utah County and the Intermountain West.
Scheduled to open in late 2028, the new center will be built within Vineyard’s “Utah City” development. The 272,000-square-foot facility will feature a five-story clinical care building and a three-story research building.
During her speech, Mary Beckerle, CEO of the Huntsman Cancer Institute, emphasized the importance of bringing care closer to home for Utah County residents. In 2024 alone, patients from Utah County made more than 40,000 trips, totaling approximately 3.5 million miles to the Institute’s Salt Lake City location.
“We are getting closer to cures, closer to communities and closer to your families, and we’re really thrilled for that,” Beckerle said during the ceremony.
Utah Senate President Stuart Adams also spoke during the presentation and echoed the personal impact of the project, noting how deeply cancer touches the lives of nearly everyone. “Cancer is personal to everyone,” Adams said.
The Vineyard facility represents the single largest investment in Huntsman Cancer Institute’s history, estimated at $400 million. A $75 million matching donation from the Huntsman Foundation launched the fundraising campaign in June 2023. Since then, support has poured in from a wide range of donors, including the State of Utah ($75 million), The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Flagship Companies Group and Woodbury Corporation. At the date of the groundbreaking, the Institute has secured 75% of the funding needed to complete the project.
“The plan is to work alongside the University of Utah, Utah Valley University and Brigham Young University to put the cancer center at the forefront of research and innovation, offering access to clinical trials, computational science and data analysis programs that utilize artificial intelligence,” said Peter Huntsman, CEO of the Huntsman Foundation.
The facility will serve as a regional hub for both treatment and research, ensuring that residents of Utah County and the surrounding areas will have more immediate access to advanced cancer care without long commutes.
