Main Street

Welcome from the Mayor

Salt Lake City’s historic Main Street is one of the most storied and beautiful avenues in the nation. The striking architecture of Main Street’s buildings gives the street a unique character. As the cultural epicenter of the state, the Main Street area hosts hundreds of special events, concerts, and artistic performances year round. Anchored by Temple Square, the Gallivan Center, thousands of offices, and dozens of unique restaurants and stores, Main Street will always be an essential gathering place for Utahns.

Over the last few years, our Main Street area has undergone a remarkable transformation, with many new businesses opening, including restaurants, art galleries, offices, clubs, and retail stores. Many of these businesses can be found only in the Main Street area. With the addition of TRAX and hundreds of new parking spaces, Main Street may be more accessible than the downtown area of any city our size in the country. Several unique districts are emerging near Main Street, including the 300 South Antique District, with its convenient center-of-street parking. Even the sidewalks along Main Street have been revitalized with more outdoor dining and artists events, like our Friday and Saturday Mainly Art events. Families, singles, and people of all ages, incomes and tastes will find something to enjoy in the Main Street area. In fact, many people are discovering the Main Street Downtown area as a great place to live, where one is within walking distance of everything Downtown has to offer.

Salt Lake City government has invested, and will continue to invest, substantial resources to make Main Street an inviting, interesting, and unique place to do business, visit, shop, and call home. We envision Main Street being a charming, identifiable place that visitors talk about when they return home – a place that complements, but is different from, the Gateway a few blocks west.

As The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints progresses with its plans for the ZCMI and Crossroads Mall blocks, Main Street’s positive revitalization will continue. We encourage anyone interested in learning more about doing business on Main Street to contact us at City Hall to find out about great opportunities on Main Street. We also encourage visitors to learn more about Downtown events by visiting the LiveItUpDowntown.com website.

The Downtown Alliance

In 1991, the Downtown Alliance was created as a not-for-profit organization to provide management services and to oversee funds from Salt Lake City’s CBID (Central Business Improvement District), a 40-block area, which is bounded by North Temple, 500 West, 400 South, and 200 East. The Downtown Alliance provides creative, imaginative, and successful downtown marketing and branding, economic development services, event organization, and advocacy for downtown Salt Lake City.

The Downtown Alliance is governed by a board, which is comprised of property owners and businesses in the downtown area. In 2003, the Downtown Alliance merged with the Salt Lake Chamber. The merger has created a more unified voice on behalf of downtown businesses and property owners. The Chamber brings additional strength to the efforts of the Alliance, particularly in the area of government relations and legislative lobbying. The Alliance operates as an affiliate of the Chamber.

One of the Downtown Alliance’s signature events is the Downtown Farmers’ Market which runs Saturdays, June 12 - October 16, 2004, 8 a.m. to 1 p.m., at Historic Pioneer Park, 300 West 300 South. The Farmers’ Market is a natural gathering place where more than 100 vendors provide the fresh seasonal produce, flowers, baked goods, farm-style preserves, and garden-related crafts. Concurrent at the market is the Art and Craft Market, featuring household goods, soaps, handmade furniture, visual arts, decorations, ornaments, lawn and garden décor, jewelry, hand-woven household goods, handmade clothes, and more. Each week a different special event brings a new twist to the Market.

For more information about the Downtown Alliance and its other events and programs, go to www.downtownslc.org. For general events in Salt Lake City, go to www.liveitupdowntown.com.