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.
Chico native and NFL quarterback Aaron Rodgers also pledged $3 million to the project in April 2024 through the Aaron Rodgers Foundation, with $1 million going toward building construction and $2 million designated to fund the Aaron Rodgers Foundation Supportive Therapies Suite, according to the Enloe Health Foundation. That suite offers integrative services including acupuncture, exercise therapy, and psychiatric support. Beyond that single gift, the broader Enloe Health Foundation capital campaign raised more than $21 million from community donors by mid-2026, surpassing its original $20 million goal, with hundreds of local donors and organizations contributing.
Filling a Gap the Camp Fire Widened
The project also answers a documented regional need. Enloe Health's 2025 Community Health Needs Assessment found that Butte County and surrounding North State counties, including Glenn, Tehama, and Shasta, report some of California's highest rates of cancer incidence and cancer-related deaths, with primary care shortages often leading to later-stage diagnoses. Design firm HGA has linked the facility to ongoing recovery from the 2018 Camp Fire, which destroyed roughly 30% of Butte County's healthcare infrastructure and created severe gaps in local specialty care.
The Gonzales Comprehensive Cancer Center is intended to serve a multi-county footprint stretching from Colusa County north to the Oregon border, offering patient navigation programs and clinical trial participation with California academic medical centers, according to the Gridley Herald's earlier reporting. Rural patients in that region have historically faced multi-hour drives for specialized cancer care.
A Bumpy Road to Completion
The path to this week's ribbon-cutting wasn't entirely smooth. In April 2025, the City of Chico issued a stop work order over safety and building code concerns, according to Action News Now, temporarily halting construction before Enloe Health and city officials agreed on a remediation plan and work resumed. That hurdle is now well behind the project, with the new center offering supportive therapies alongside its clinical services as it prepares to welcome patients in the coming weeks.
