Enloe Health celebrated the completion of its new Gonzales Comprehensive Cancer Center this week, welcoming community members for a ribbon-cutting ceremony and self-guided tours of the roughly $150-million facility on East 20th Street in Chico. The three-story building is designed so cancer patients can receive every step of their treatment, from surgical consults to radiation oncology to chemotherapy and infusion services, in the same building.
Community members who toured the new site got a demonstration of some of the new equipment during the open house, as reported by Action News Now. Enloe Health broke ground on the project in May 2024, and the station reports the center is now the largest cancer facility between Sacramento and Eugene, Oregon. The new building is roughly three times larger than Enloe’s former Regional Cancer Center on Cohasset Road, which occupied approximately 34,000 square feet, according to the same station’s earlier coverage.
A Dream Years in the Making
Dr. Sam Mazj, medical director of the Gonzales Comprehensive Cancer Center, told the station the facility was intended to care for patients holistically from the beginning until the end of treatment. He called the completed center a dream come true, according to the same account. Staff are now preparing to transfer from the Cohasset Road location to the new campus, which the report notes is expected to open to patients in late September.
The scale of the new facility reflects years of planning that predates this week’s celebration. Architectural design came from HGA and general contracting from Swinerton, according to the Gridley Herald, which reported total construction costs reaching approximately $154 million. The nearly 100,000-square-foot building includes 51 infusion treatment spaces, 18 physician offices, 14 consult rooms, three linear accelerators, an on-site laboratory, and a specialty pharmacy, per Enloe Health, giving the health system capacity to treat up to 2,000 new patients each year.
Where the Land and Funding Came From
The site itself began as a gift. Local developers Dan and Dawn Gonzales donated 13 acres in Chico’s Meriam Park development at East 20th Street and Bruce Road, transferring the land at no cost to support the project, Enloe Health says. That donation gave the cancer center its name and its physical foundation before a single wall went up…