PHOENIX — Construction of the first two-story casita at the Village at Mayo Clinic on the Phoenix campus of Mayo Clinic is well underway, signaling good news for out-of-town cancer patients who will need a home away from home during their treatment. The project represents collaboration among Mayo Clinic in Arizona, the American Cancer Society and the Arizona Transplant House.

The 10,000-square-foot casita will feature 12 bathrooms and bedrooms, kitchens, great rooms, dining areas, laundry, libraries and an elevator. The new casita will be a companion to the current Phoenix Hope Lodge facility at the Village at Mayo Clinic, and is operated by the American Cancer Society.

The addition of this second Hope Lodge casita will benefit cancer patients who travel to the Valley for cancer care, including those patients who will be treated by the new proton beam therapy at the facility under construction on the Phoenix campus of Mayo Clinic.

The new facility will bring the number of casitas at the Village to five. In addition to the two Hope Lodge casitas, the three other casitas are operated by the Arizona Transplant House to provide lodging for patients awaiting — or recuperating from — a solid organ or bone marrow transplant.

Funding for the new casita has been provided by generous Mayo Clinic benefactors who believe in the mission of the housing for patients at the Village, where patients bond and support each other in a serene setting. Operational funding for the new two-story casita will be provided by the American Cancer Society.

Completion of the new Hope Lodge casita is projected for early August 2013.

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