Set in a remote wetland area in west Salt Lake City, the new Utah State Correctional Facility is nearly complete. Five years ago, birds and mosquitos and acres of grazing land held sway in this once undeveloped area in the city’s northwest quadrant.
Now six miles of new roads provide access to the 230-acre construction site for what will be the largest detention facility in Utah. Designed to house up to 3,600 inmates, the 32-building, 1.3-million-sq-ft complex cost nearly $1 billion to build. The project broke ground in 2017 and is set to be completed May 20. At its peak, the project maintained 1,500 workers on the site, with 10,000 workers involved in total.
