ARUP Celebrates Opening of a New State-of-the-Art Laboratory Facility in Salt Lake City

June 18, 2021

Founded in 1984, ARUP Laboratories, one of the nation’s largest reference laboratories, on Tuesday held a ribbon cutting ceremony to officially open its new four-story, 220,000-square-foot laboratory facility located in University of Utah Research Park. The newly constructed facility is the crown jewel of eight properties ARUP now owns and operates as Research Park’s largest resident.

It features total lab automation to further increase testing capacity and accommodate future growth at ARUP, which has hospital and health system clients in all 50 states and processes an average of more than 70,000 specimens a day.

Approximately 1.4 miles of automated track in the new facility transport specimens at speeds of 90 feet per minute. Spanning two buildings and four floors, the first-of-its-kind track increases efficiency and hastens test turnaround times, said President Andy Theurer, who will become ARUP’s CEO on July 1, 2021.

“This new building is a culmination of the extraordinary vision ARUP’s founders had when they spun ARUP off from the University of Utah Department of Pathology nearly 40 years ago, believing they could meet the testing needs of patients nationwide with the right medical oversight, leadership, and dedicated workforce,” Theurer said. “It is more than brick and mortar; it is a symbol of what can be achieved through discipline and hard work.”

“BIoUtah congratulates ARUP on this welcome expansion,” said Kelvyn Cullimore, president & CEO of BioUtah. “The new building reflects ARUP’s decades of patient-centered, unparalleled quality laboratory services.”

“From the beginning, ARUP has been committed to delivering the best care possible to patients at University of Utah Hospital and to our clients nationwide,” said CEO Sherrie L. Perkins, MD, PhD, who will retire effective June 30, 2021, after more than 30 years at ARUP. “This new facility enables the practice of laboratory medicine at its highest level.”

The new facility also embodies ARUP’s commitment to environmental stewardship. Designed by Architectural Nexus and built by Okland Construction, it optimizes the efficient use of energy and was specially designed to reduce waste.

“Every aspect of this building’s design and construction occurred with environmental stewardship in mind,” Theurer said.