The developers of the planned walkable community known as Utah City have announced a $20 million land donation to the Huntsman Cancer Institute for a planned research facility.
Along with the land, the project has also received large donations from the Huntsmans, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and others totaling $300 million. They hope the final $75 million needed will come in the form of a grant from the Utah Legislature. That would allow them to break ground by the end of the year.
The institute’s CEO, Mary Beckerle, said they’re excited to be building a new facility to better accommodate patients from across the state.
“We have done some really powerful scientific analysis here at Huntsman Cancer Institute that has revealed that individuals in the state of Utah that come from rural ZIP codes have worse cancer outcomes than patients that live in metropolitan areas,” Beckerle said.
As a result, she said a focus of the new campus will be figuring out “how to deliver the highest quality specialty cancer care and services at a distance and reach those rural and frontier populations in our state.”
Beckerle said the Institute has also been paying close attention to just how quickly Utah County is growing, and they want to be able to accommodate that. The county’s population is expected to nearly double by 2065, placing its population levels almost even with Salt Lake County’s projections.
As part of Utah City, the new cancer research facility will be part of that growth. The project is being developed in Vineyard – a city that’s seen rapid growth over the past two decades. In 2010, the town had a population of 139 people. By the 2020 census, it jumped to 12,543 – a number the developers hope to expand even further, though the growth has made some locals uneasy.
“We're under construction on our first 450 units. We're breaking ground on an additional 400 units in about 60 to 90 days,” said developer Nate Hutchinson.
New residents should be able to move into the area by the beginning of 2025. While they’re starting with housing, Hutchinson said they ultimately plan a mixed-use community where people will be able to “live in the community, work in the community and shop in the community.”
