Dreams of a major life-changing source of health care on the Salt Lake Valley’s west side will turn real Friday afternoon as University of Utah officials and other dignitaries break ground on a new state-of-the-art hospital and medical campus in West Valley City.
New hospital in this west-side community is “a dream come true.”
Dreams of a major life-changing source of health care on the Salt Lake Valley’s west side will turn real Friday afternoon as University of Utah officials and other dignitaries break ground on a new state-of-the-art hospital and medical campus in West Valley City.
In what will be the U.’s first off-campus hospital in its 175-year history and its largest medical facility ever, initial phases of the 800,000-square-foot hospital and supporting medical offices at 3784 South 5600 West are to open around 2028.
(University of Utah Health) An aerial rendering looking southwest at the U. Health’s hospital and health campus now under construction in West Valley City.
The 22-acre health care campus will also be the west side’s first sizable and integrated medical institution of its kind, offering an emergency room, 130 inpatient rooms, 200 exam rooms and substantial support offices for nearly 50 specialties.
Ceremonies celebrating the Friday groundbreaking — with a bevy of U. officials, city leaders and community members who’ve helped guided the hospital’s planning — are slated to start at 3:30 p.m. at West Valley City’s Centennial Park, 5405 W. 3100 South, north of the construction site.
The hospital is seen as a potential turning point in the quality of life, economic prospects and health outcomes for tens of thousands of people living west of Interstate 15, where historic metrics reveal disadvantaged residents in particular as long underserved for hospital care.
Big lift for Utah’s ‘Second City’
The main hospital, medical office building, parking structures and tree-lined campus will cost an estimated $855 million when fully built — sometime in 2029 or beyond — with capacity to one day serve more than 426,000 patients a year.
(University of Utah Health) A rendering looking east at the entry to the medical office building at the U. Health’s hospital and health campus now under construction in West Valley City.
New renderings released by the U. on the eve of Friday’s launch show two sleekly designed earth-toned mid-rise structures with rectangular surfaces.
Both the primary hospital, with emergency department, and the medical office building feature prominent north-facing facades and are set well back from 5600 West. Around them are substantial low-rise supporting structures to the south and tree-covered grounds buffering the entire site from the street with intermittent green spaces.
Estimates are the hospital’s location — along 5600 West between 3700 South and 3800 South, immediately east of the Mountain View Corridor — could save up to 12 million miles of travel for west-siders, who for generations have otherwise trudged eastward for their major medical needs.
(University of Utah Health) A rendering looking the emergency entry at the U. Health’s hospital and health campus now under construction in West Valley City.
In the works at least since 2022, when the Utah Legislature first began boosting the U.’s ability to borrow in order to fund the project, Friday’s event now heralds an anticipated boon for West Valley City and surrounding communities.
Utah’s second largest city alone expects to see up to 2,000 new jobs created by the massive medical campus, along with a regional economic boost from related commerce.
The Eccles legacy
The new facility is expected to honor members of the well-known Eccles family, longtime philanthropic supporters of the U. and other humanitarian causes. That tribute follows a landmark gift announced in March toward the hospital from the George S. and Dolores Doré Eccles Foundation of $75 million, the largest ever given to Utah’s flagship university.
U. President Taylor Randall has said the West Valley City complex will have “remarkable societal impact” — often citing 10-year differences in the life expectancies of some nearby west-side neighborhoods, compared to counterparts elsewhere in the state.
Randall also said in a statement in May that the Eccles gift was instrumental to “ensuring more west-side communities have the high-quality health care they deserve” and continued the family’s “extraordinary legacy of expanding health care access and education across Utah.”
Now to unfold in phases
The University of Utah Hospital on the school’s east-bench campus remains the state’s largest, at about 613 inpatient beds. The U.’s venture westward is part of a broader spate of on-campus construction and notable expansion off campus, with multiple new satellite locations planned across Salt Lake County.
West Valley City’s new campus has been carefully designed with extensive outreach to residents, U. officials have said, to optimize its community focus and benefits. Efforts toward getting the hospital funded, planned and fully designed have run alongside the creation of new U. programs to attract more residents into health care professions.
Construction of this west-side site, however, had lagged due to rising costs.
With Okland Construction as its general contractor, the U. now intends to build the campus over several phases, with a multispecialty outpatient center coming first around 2028. That will offer an emergency department, exam rooms and some specialty care.
Inpatient hospital beds, labor and delivery rooms, and additional surgical facilities are to follow, along with what the U. says will be a retail and specialty pharmacy, gift shop, cafe and coffee shop, wellness spaces, a chapel, and community gathering areas.
Those are to open around 2029, with subsequent phases to follow.