The University of Utah has said its final goodbye to Medical Towers and Plaza Townhouses after demolition on the structures began on Jan. 13, 2025.
The Medical Plaza on east campus opened in the fall of 1971 as a housing option for medical students and their families. It was a part of a housing division known today as Sunnyside Apartments, which has a large inventory of facilities built in the early ’60s to early ’70s. Jen Reed, associate vice president of Auxiliary Services at the U, said it quickly evolved to house graduate and professional students of all types.
“So up until the closure, we still housed many medical students and some house staff,” Reed said. “But it was primarily single graduate students in some field at the institution.”
However, over 50 years later, the dated utilities at the Medical Tower and Medical Plaza Townhouses were expensive and difficult to maintain. Reed said after regular plumbing leaks, floods and electrical problems in the buildings, it wasn’t a matter of whether they would close or not. It was a matter of when.
In October 2022, the Medical Plaza’s tenants received a notice that their building would be closing, and they had until August 2023 to find new housing. The response from students was mixed, according to Reed.
“There were many students that were living in the towers that were like, ‘Oh, it’s about time.'” she said. “People knew it was coming, right? So there were some residents that felt that way. There were other residents that had been there for four or five years with their masters and then doing their doctorate program who were rather upset that they were going to be displaced.”
The U didn’t want to close the Plaza until it had another option for single graduate students. And in August 2023, Sunnyside Apartments opened its Spruce Apartments in the West Village to fill the housing gap. Reed said Medical Plaza residents were given first right of refusal for the new buildings.
Of the 147 Plaza apartments, 57 residents moved into the Spruce Apartments. However, Reed said that number doesn’t perfectly reflect how many displaced students stayed with campus housing because a number of the dated building’s tenants completed school and moved out.
Wendi Carlson-Kenley, director of Family and Graduate Housing, said the transition into the Spruce Apartments went smoothly.
“We had a really good response from our residents who have moved in there and really enjoy being there,” she said. “It’s a beautiful, brand new building, and we’ve heard from a few Med Plaza students that they’re happy to have this great new facility to live in.”
But not all students were pleased with the move.
Many students saw the Medical Plaza as an affordable housing option, Reed said. And some expressed their concern about the higher rent in the new building.
During its final year, rent for a one-bedroom apartment at the Medical Plaza was $889. As for the first year at the Spruce Apartments, rent for a studio apartment cost $1,300, Reed added via email.
Construction crews started the abatement process in October 2023, and now that demolition has begun, the project is expected to be complete by early fall. In the meantime, Reed said she doesn’t foresee any significant impacts on the campus community other than a change in the skyline as the towers come down and construction cranes are hard at work.
As for the acreage where the Medical Plaza formerly stood, the future is undecided. The U is currently working on a Physical Development Plan which will inform future decisions for the campus space, according to Reed.
The demolition of the Medical Plaza is just phase one in replacing outdated housing in the U’s West Village. Phase two will replace more courts on Sunnyside Avenue, which is expected to be finished next year. All of the older housing on campus should be closed or demolished by 2030, Reed said.
