Company news information may be sent to brice.w@thecityjournals.com.
ARTS
• Real Shows Network, a national TV platform dedicated to real estate and lifestyle storytelling, has added “Peaks to Properties,” a new locally hosted series in Salt Lake City, to its lineup. The series is hosted by local real estate officials Wesley Zufelt, Collin Brinkerhoff and Joe Wilkins and produced by RSN’s team. The series blends real estate, local culture and community stories. “Peaks to Properties” is supported in part by Curated Home & Design Co., which creates interiors for homes and businesses across Utah and works with clients nationwide through virtual design services.
DIVIDENDS
• The board of directors of Extra Space Storage Inc., based in Salt Lake City, has declared a first-quarter dividend of $1.62 per share on the company’s common stock. The dividend is payable March 31 to stockholders of record March 16. Extra Space is a real estate investment trust that owns and/or operates 4,238 self-storage properties. It is the largest operator of self-storage properties in the United States.
ECONOMIC INDICATORS
• Utah residents need $150,357 to be considered upper-middle class, according to a study by MoneyLion and based on 2024 median household income data. That puts Utah No. 9 among states. Utah’s median income of $96,658 contributes to its ranking. Details are at https://www.moneylion.com/trending/money/how-much-you-need-to-earn-to-be-upper-middle-class-in-every-state.
• Homeowners in Salt Lake City pay the 15th-lowest property taxes in the nation, according to a study by Construction Coverage. It identified the U.S. cities, counties and states with the highest effective property tax rates in the U.S. Homeowners in Salt Lake City pay a median $2,847 in property taxes each year, with an effective property tax rate of 0.395 percent for owner-occupied homes. That compares with $3,211 and 0.888 percent nationally. The median owner-occupied home value in Salt Lake City is $620,100, compared with $360,000 nationally. The median owner-occupied household income in Salt Lake City is $134,657, compared with $100,721 nationally. Details are at https://constructioncoverage.com/research/average-property-tax-by-state-county-city.
• Interest in cruise travel has grown 9.1 percent since 2022 in Utah, ranking the state last among states and the District of Columbia, according to a study by online platform Dunhill Travel Deals using Google search data. Nationally, cruise interest grew 23.7 percent during that time. National demand grew to a record 34.6 million in 2024. American cruise demand represented 55.2 percent of global cruise passengers in 2024, up from 46 percent in 2018. The most searched cruise line among Utahns and nationally is Royal Caribbean. Details are at https://www.dunhilltraveldeals.com/blog/states-fastest-growing-cruise-travel-interest.
EDUCATION
• Utah Valley University has signed an agreement with Mountainland Technical College (MTECH) to accept one-for-one transfer credits from MTECH health care programs toward health care degrees within UVU’s College of Health and Public Service. The move is expected to help Utah students complete university degrees and enter the workforce more efficiently and affordably. The agreement allows MTECH graduates to transfer all program hours as health science elective credits and apply them toward select UVU degrees, facilitating a seamless transition for students pursuing careers in health care. According to UVU data, 84 percent of its health professions graduates remain in Utah.
EVENTS
• The 38th annual Employment Law Symposium will take place April 14, 7 a.m.-1:30 p.m., at the Grand America Hotel, 555 S. Main St., Salt Lake City. It is presented by Parsons Behle & Latimer and Salt Lake SHRM. The keynote presenter is Johnny C. Taylor Jr., president and CEO of SHRM. Among topics to be discussed at the symposium are social media, free speech and employer liability; paper trails; ICE raids, I-9 audits, E-Verify and business immigration; investigations; non-competes; tricky employment law traps; Accommodation Requirements under the ADA, Title VII and the PWFA; and the role of HR as a culture coach or compliance cop. Details are at https://parsonsbehle.com/emp-seminar.
HOSPITALITY
• Hyatt Hotels Corp., based in Chicago, has announced plans for Andaz Heber Valley, its first-ever mountain Andaz hotel. Developed by Angstrom Development Group, this project will be situated within The Slope, a mixed-use community masterplan. The hotel will feature 85 guest rooms, alongside private residences comprised of 62 condominiums and 140 villas. The Slope development includes hospitality, residences, dining, retail and outdoor programming. This project will be delivered in phases, with residences launching this spring and staged residential completions through 2029. Andaz Heber Valley is anticipated to officially open in January 2029. Hyatt Hotels Corp. has more than 1,450 hotels and properties in 82 countries across six continents.
INVESTMENT
• Jump, a Salt Lake City-based company offering an AI-powered platform for financial advisors and other financial services providers, has raised an $80 million Series B funding round led by Insight Partners, bringing the company’s total capital raised to $105 million. The Series B included participation from new investors F-Prime, Allianz Life Ventures (the venture capital arm of Allianz Life Insurance Company of North America), TIAA Ventures and Peterson Partners, with additional investment from existing investors Battery Ventures, Sorenson Capital and Citi Ventures, as well as angel investors Hans Tung, Ryan Anderson and Aaron Skonnard. The company says the new capital will speed expansion of Jump’s “intelligence and action layer,” moving beyond meeting notes into a broader AI operating system designed to reduce operational friction, support organic growth and improve the client experience.
OUTDOOR RECREATION
• Deer Valley Resort has named most of its 100 new ski runs to commemorate Park City’s mining history. It is part of Deer Valley’s Expanded Excellence initiative, which doubled the resort’s skiable terrain and introduced 10 new lifts and 100 new ski runs this season. They include Lone Tree, Pay Rock, Glencoe, Keetley Express, Lady of the Lake, Green Monster, Yaup, Crown Prince, Age of Reason, Revelator Express, Deep Enuf, Papa Joe, To the Max, Hill Yeah, Dream, June Bug, Humbug, Straddlebug and Northern Light. Up to 202 runs are planned to be open this season as part of the Expanded Excellence initiative.
PARTNERSHIPS
• Canary Speech, a Provo-based company focused on vocal biomarker technology, has announced a partnership with Intermountain Ventures, the venture capital and innovation arm of Intermountain Health, to launch the first IRB-approved study of its kind, aimed at identifying multiple sclerosis using vocal biomarkers. The research seeks to explore how subtle vocal patterns, analyzed using Canary Speech’s AI technology, may reveal early indicators of MS, a potentially transformative advancement in disease detection and monitoring. The study, led by Dr. Timothy West, a neurologist at Intermountain Health’s Salt Lake Clinic, will collect and analyze voice samples from patients in the area to determine if Canary Speech’s AI-driven algorithms can accurately identify individuals with MS through vocal features.
• Sago, a global research and data company connecting human answers to business questions, and Data Quality Co-op, a Salt Lake City-based independent clearinghouse for data quality measurement, have announced a partnership to strengthen respondent trust and advance shared data quality standards. The partnership brings DQC’s shared quality infrastructure, including the Data Trust Score, into Sago’s research operations. Together, the organizations will support earlier identification of data quality risks through an integrated evaluation of respondent quality, combining technical signals, in-survey behavior and participation history to surface issues before they impact results.
POLITICS
• The Utah Women & Leadership Project at Utah State University has published a research brief, “The Status of Women in Utah Politics: A 2026 Update,”that explores national and state trends in women’s political representation. It provides updated data across seven areas of leadership: Congress, statewide executive offices, state legislatures, counties, mayors, city councils, and boards of education. Key findings include women holding 31.3 percent of statewide executive offices and 33.6 percent of state legislative seats, with Utah having only one woman holding a congressional seat; women comprising 32.7 percent of legislators and five of 11 House leadership roles and all four Senate minority leadership positions; women holding 20.5 percent of county commission seats and one-third of county council seats, while nearly two-thirds of clerks, auditors, treasurers, recorders and assessors are women; women accounting for 23.9 percent of mayors; women holding 31.8 percent of city and town council seats; and women holding 10 of 15 seats on the State Board of Education and 52.8 percent of district board seats. Although two women – Deidre Henderson and Tina Cannon (the state’s first female auditor) – currently serve in statewide executive office, Utah has never elected a woman governor, with only Olene Walker (appointed after serving as lieutenant governor) and Jan Graham previously holding statewide executive roles.
PHILANTHROPY
• The Goode Foundation, a charitable organization in Burley, Idaho, is joining with teens, parents and Gabb, a Lehi-based company focused on safer phones for youngsters, to educate and inspire teens to use technology positively at the beginning of 2026. The foundation, sponsored by the Goode Motor Auto Group in Burley, offers a Digital Detox Challenge that invites and challenges teens starting in seventh grade to commit to staying off social media until their senior year of high school in exchange for a financial reward of up to $1,600. Gabb has participated by offering a brand-new Gabb Phone 4 free of charge to any participant. The foundation launched the challenge two years ago for ninth-graders, and has since expanded to seventh- and eighth-graders. The Digital Detox relies on peer accountability and direct reporting to the outside organization. Since its inception, the program has been successful, with more than 30 participants in its first year and many more who joined in 2025.
RECOGNITIONS
• Sarah Rosenblum Ptach has been named a finalist for the Young Professional Athena Award. Ptach is president and CEO of Canyon Labs, a Bluffdale-based company focused on analytical and packaging lab testing and consulting for medical devices and pharmaceuticals. The Athena Award recognizes outstanding leadership and a commitment to advancing women in the workplace.
• University of Utah Population Health Sciences has recognized Adam Bress as 2025 Researcher of the Year. Bress is a professor of population health sciences at the UofU School of Medicine, director of the IMPACT Health Services Research Program and an investigator at the VA Salt Lake City Health Care System. A cardiovascular clinical pharmacist and population health scientist, Bress has researched pharmacoepidemiology, health economics, causal inference and predictive modeling to improve the use, safety and effectiveness of medications for preventing cardiovascular and neurodegenerative diseases. Most recently, he was awarded a $21.6 million, five-year NIH grant to investigate the links between hypertension, Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.
RETAIL
• Just Ingredients, based in Orem, will offer its health and wellness products at Target stores nationwide and Target.com. Target will carry 15 of the company’s products, including its popular Protein Powders, Electrolytes, Pre-Workout and a selection of nutritional supplements.
SERVICES
• Verisave, a Salt Lake City-based merchant account cost-reduction and consulting firm specializing in credit card processing fee optimization, has launched a new Partner Network, aimed at giving business advisors, CPAs and private equity firms a way to deliver cost savings to their clients. The network connects professional services firms with Verisave’s credit card processing fee reduction service, which eliminates common junk fees and interchange overcharges without the need for time-consuming and expensive payments processor changes. The Verisave Partner Advantage Program is designed for professionals with relationships to CFOs, controllers and finance leaders at businesses processing more than $150,000 monthly in card transactions. The service works across all industries.