Owners of a warehouse in west Salt Lake City at the heart of recent rumors about a new migrant detention center said they have no plans to sell their building to the federal government.
The Ritchie Group, a Utah real estate developer, released a short statement Saturday regarding a building located at 1197 North 6880 West in Salt Lake City, which has been rumored to be of interest to the Department of Homeland Security. The agency is looking to expand its detention capacity as ICE activity persists across the U.S.
“The Ritchie Group is proud to be a family-owned Utah business that has been building our communities since 1973,” the statement read. “The Ritchie Group and its investors have no plans to sell or lease the property in question to the federal government.”
The group added that it “remains committed to investing in a safe, prosperous, and thriving Utah.”
“We call on and encourage all Utahns and our elected leaders to engage in civil and respectful dialogue,” the statement concluded.
The Saturday statement is the first from The Ritchie Group after more than a week of rumors and protests in Salt Lake City. Representatives for DHS and ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Last Friday, a group of more than two dozen protesters gathered outside a Ritchie Group warehouse on the west side after a Facebook post alleged to have leaked information about the Department of Homeland Security coming to tour the space for a potential 7,500-bed detention center. Representatives from the federal government, however, did not arrive when protesters or reporters were present.
This week, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox told The Salt Lake Tribune that he had not been contacted about such a facility.
The governor did say, however, he would support Immigration and Customs Enforcement establishing a detention center in Utah.
“What I can tell you is that in the past, we’ve supported a facility going back to the Biden administration,” Cox said during an interview Tuesday. “It’s something that we need here. The transport to the Vegas area has been very difficult for our people — not just for ICE, but for our local sheriffs and others.”
The state has gone so far as to offer buildings to ICE to use as a processing center, Cox said, though the agency was not interested in what the state offered.
Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall, meanwhile, wrote a letter to The Ritchie Group last week saying the warehouse was not up to code to host a detention facility and that the municipality’s sewage and water pipes in the area would not be able to handle the rumored detention facility. Mendenhall noted at the time, however, that she did not have “solid information” regarding the rumored detention center.
The statement from The Ritchie Group comes after the first week of the 2026 legislative session, and the rumored sale has been a topic of significant discussion on Capitol Hill in recent days.
Sen. Nate Blouin, D-Salt Lake City, at least briefly attempted to push a bill that included language that would prevent DHS from establishing a detention center in the state without the approval of the governor, county and city in which it would be located.
Before presenting the bill, however, Blouin said he had heard concerns from some Democratic colleagues about the inclusion of the ban on a detention center.
“We have members of our caucus that feel like they can mitigate some of the damage, and I don’t want to get in the way of them having that opportunity,” he said of why he pulled the provision. “So I respect that, but I think … the Republicans, [President Donald] Trump, the White House, the folks here in Utah, they’re going to do what they want to do.”
Instead, Blouin focused his measure on preventing law enforcement officers, including ICE, from wearing face masks and banning local law enforcement from assisting ICE with immigration enforcement efforts in “sensitive” areas, including churches.
Senate Republicans killed the bill.
Representatives for Legislative leadership and Cox did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In a statement following The Ritchie Group’s announcement, Democratic Salt Lake County Mayor Jenny Wilson noted the shooting death of 37-year-old Alex Jeffrey Pretti by an ICE officer in Minneapolis on Saturday.
“ICE overreach has created unrest and compromised security and safety in many US communities, including an additional death today in Minnesota,” her statement read. “I am deeply relieved to hear that the Ritchie Group will not sell or lease a warehouse in Salt Lake City that was a designated site for an ICE detention facility.”
Wilson said that a 7,500 bed detention center “has no place in an urban area.”
“I strongly support a more guarded and humane ICE operation,” she concluded.
For nearly a year, national outlets have been reporting the federal government is interested in putting a detention center in Utah, though such a facility has never manifested and officials, on the state or federal level, have not confirmed the reporting.
Last month, The Washington Post reported that Salt Lake City was being considered as a potential processing site as ICE looks for large logistics centers for migrant detainment around the country, and in October, CNN reported that DHS planned to build a 10,000-bed migrant detention center in Utah.
Additionally, last February, The New York Times reported that the Trump administration was considering using Hill Air Force Base as a detention center.
Correction: This story has been updated to accurately reflect which day protesters gathered outside the warehouse in west Salt Lake City.