(Leah Hogsten | The Salt Lake Tribune) Peter R. Huntsman, Chairman and CEO of the Huntsman Cancer Foundation, gestures to his mother Karen Huntsman while sharing a story about her good humor and his father, the late Jon M. Huntsman, during the groundbreaking ceremony for the Kathryn F. Kirk Center for Comprehensive Cancer Care and Women’s Cancers at Huntsman Cancer Institute, September 5, 2019.
Patients, staff and dignitaries broke ground Thursday on the fifth phase of the Huntsman Cancer Institute campus, an expansion that will add an eight-story center with a floor dedicated to women’s cancers.
Construction of the Kathryn F. Kirk Center for Comprehensive Cancer Care and Women’s Cancers, which will be approximately 205,000 square feet, will begin in January 2020. It will include 48 inpatient rooms, an endoscopy center, space to provide services for blood and marrow transplant patients, and an expansion of the institute’s Wellness and Integrative Health Center.
The new building at the University of Utah is expected to increase the number of annual outpatient visits from 125,000 to 180,000, the institute said in a news release.
The estimated completion date for the $148 million building is August 2022, and more than 40 donors have committed a $104 million. The lead donors, Spencer and Kristen Kirk, named the building in honor of his mother.
Jon M. Huntsman and his family established Huntsman Cancer Foundation in 1995 with the longterm goal of eradicating cancer. The Jon M. Huntsman Research Center, the first phase of the institute, was dedicated in 1999. The cancer hospital opened in 2004 and was expanded in 2011, and the Primary Children’s and Families’ Cancer Research Center opened in 2017.
Karen Huntsman, nearly a year after losing her husband in February 2018, announced that her family would donate $30 million in his honor through the Huntsman Foundation to again expand the institute.
"Our family, together with a hugely supportive donor base and wonderful care providers, will not only build an exceptional center that will focus on women’s cancer treatment, research, and education, but will also support, long into the future, the finest researchers, care providers, and support staff in the world,” Peter Huntsman, CEO and chairman of the foundation, said in a statement.
The institute is the only comprehensive cancer center designated by the National Cancer Institute in the Mountain West.
Editor’s note: Paul Huntsman, a son of Jon M. Huntsman, is the owner and publisher of The Salt Lake Tribune.