Main Street Midvale
The old commercial core of Midvale, in brick and paint
Historic Midvale Main Street, murals, an old theater and a street worth the walk
Midvale Main Street is the old commercial core of the city, a short brick street near 7505 South with around fifty murals, locally owned shops and eateries, and a 1918 theater that still puts on shows. It is free to walk any day of the year, and the murals change, because a stretch of them gets repainted every June. Here is the street, the buildings on it, and the quiet work keeping it going.
By Scott Buehler, Moving Utah
Updated October 2026
The short answer
Midvale Main Street is the old commercial core of Midvale, run today as the city's Main Arts and Culture District. Along a few short blocks near 7505 South you get around fifty murals, locally owned shops and eateries, a 1918 theater that still stages shows as The Pearl on Main, and a summer food truck plaza. It is free, open at all hours, and best on foot: about an hour lets you see the pieces on side walls and back frontages that you would miss from a car. The murals change year to year, because a stretch of walls is repainted each June during the Los Muros on Main festival, so a photo older than a year is a record, not a guide.
What the street is
A street the freeway emptied, brought back with paint
Midvale Main is a short brick commercial street, laid out to serve a smelter town in a city that incorporated in 1909. Today it runs as the Midvale Main Arts and Culture District, centered near 7505 South, and it carries around fifty murals along with locally owned shops, eateries and a summer food truck plaza. If you have twenty minutes and a pair of shoes, it is the most interesting stretch of Midvale to stand in.
The interesting part is not the paint, it is why the paint was needed. The freeway is the short answer. Once the interstate went in, Main Street stopped being the through route north and south, traffic drained off to the new strip malls, and the growing east side of the city lost its easy way onto the street. Three separate blows from one piece of road, and every one of them is still readable on the ground.
What has been done about it since is a mix of art, money and patience. A mural festival that repaints part of the street every June. An art house in a made over civic building. A food truck plaza through the summer. A city loan aimed at the old storefronts. And, since 2026, a spot in a statewide historic preservation program that treats the street as heritage worth keeping rather than a block to be tidied up. The rest of this page walks through each of those.
The murals
Around fifty murals, and a lineup that keeps changing
The murals are why people from across the valley make the trip, and they are the one free thing here that looks the same in January as in July. They are also the part most likely to be out of date in whatever you read, because the walls get repainted.
The engine is a mural festival, Los Muros on Main, held for a week each June and finished off with a free street party on the Saturday. It is not a one and done program: each year a stretch of older murals comes down and new work goes up in its place, so the count sits near fifty rather than climbing forever, and the mix is different summer to summer. The 2026 edition, its fifth, brought the total to about fifty. If a specific piece is the reason for the trip, look it up before you set off, because it may already have been painted over.
Walk it rather than drive it, and give it the full length in both directions. A good share of the larger pieces sit on side walls, loading docks and the backs of buildings that face away from the street, so a slow drive shows you a fraction of what is there. Twenty minutes at walking pace covers the ground; an hour covers it properly. If all you want is an afternoon looking at big paint on old brick, that part holds up in any year.
This is a working street, not an exhibition, and that changes how you use it. No gate, no ticket, no opening time, no marked route. The murals sit on the walls of businesses that are trading and buildings being fixed up, which makes them free and always there, but it also means a Tuesday morning with the shutters down is a different visit from a Friday evening with the food truck plaza running. Pick the version you want before you pick the day.
The theater and the arts buildings
One theater since 1918, and it is still open
The theater at 7711 South Main Street is the best single argument for saving this street, because the building has simply refused to stop being a venue. It opened in 1918 as the Iris, seating about 250. It ran films for decades as the Burk under the Burkinshaw family, from the 1940s into the mid 1970s, then traded as the Gazebo and the Main Street Cinema. A comedy club took the space around 1990. In the 2010s it became a children's theater. Today it is The Pearl on Main, a live venue for concerts, plays, comedy and screenings. That is a cinema three times over, a comedy club, a children's theater and a music room in one shell across more than a century.
A block off Main is the other stage. The Midvale Performing Arts Center at 695 West Center Street is the old 1930s City Hall and police station, remodeled in 2004 into a 110 seat theater with a raised floor at the back for overflow and for sound and lighting. The Midvale Arts Council runs it, and it hosts part of the city's festival week each summer.
On Main itself there is also the art house, the former city museum building, redone in 2024 for artists, classes and events. It is the district's whole idea in one address: an old civic building handed a second job rather than knocked down. The museum did not vanish with it. It sits on the corner of the city park, and the park page covers that and the rest of festival week.
Directions to The Pearl on Main Directions to the Midvale Performing Arts Center
A building that has been a cinema three times, a comedy club and a children's theater is not heritage under glass. It is a room that keeps finding work.
How the street is held together
Behind the paint is a city loan and a preservation program
This is the part nobody photographs, and it is the part that decides whether the street is still standing in twenty years. Two things do the quiet work.
The first is money for the buildings. The city's redevelopment agency runs a loan for property owners on the street, worth up to 250,000 dollars, for buying, building, renovating and bringing an old shell up to current code, with separate storefront and business programs alongside it. Projects are scored on a published sheet, stronger public benefit earns better terms, and qualifying public projects can carry no interest. Aiming the money at code work matters, because getting a century old building up to standard is the expensive part of any old street, not the paint.
The second is standing. In 2026 Midvale Main joined the state's Main Street network as a Tier 1 Promising Community, one of seven towns admitted that year alongside Park City, Bountiful and Midway. That ties the street to a statewide historic preservation program rather than to a one time beautification budget, and a program outlasts a mood better than a single event does.
None of that is a reason for a visitor to care, and all of it is a reason for a household to. A street held up by a festival alone is charming and fragile. A street held up by a festival, a loan with published rules and a preservation program is a policy. The honest limit is that a loan is an offer, not an outcome: money on the table does not fill a storefront, and a street that lost its traffic to a freeway is competing with retail parks that never did. What the record supports is that the work is steady and out in the open. What it does not support is a promise about what will be trading here in five years.
The redevelopment tools, in brief
Terms, ceilings and eligibility change over time, so confirm the current position with the Midvale City Redevelopment Agency before you rely on it.
Walking the street
How to do it well, on a street with no opening time
Park once and walk the whole length one way, then come back on the other side. The district is small enough that this takes under half an hour at a normal pace, and it is the only way to catch the pieces that face into side yards, service lanes and the gaps between buildings. A slow drive misses most of them.
Pick your day for the version you want. A summer Friday with the food truck plaza running is a street with people on it and food in the open air. A weekday morning out of season is a quiet architectural walk with the paint to yourself. Neither is wrong, but they are genuinely different afternoons, and the difference does not show up on a map. Check hours for any shop, eatery or show first, because those are private businesses and set their own times.
Treat the street as part of a short day rather than the whole of it. The city park, its disc golf course and the museum are close enough to walk to in the same afternoon, and the ranked list of things to do in Midvale sets out the order I would take them in.
The visit, in brief
Scott Buehler
Moving Utah About Scott
Keep reading
More of Midvale on The Local
Things to do
The top 7, ranked
A mural street, a disc golf course, a museum open three afternoons, and a driving range.
Read the guideThe park
Midvale City Park and the museum
An amphitheater, a disc golf course, a splash pad and a museum on the northeast corner.
Read the guideBingham Junction
Bingham Junction, on cleaned ground
A large tract taken off the federal cleanup list, and the housing and offices that stand there now.
Read the guideThe river
The Jordan River through Midvale
Two riverside parks, a trail on the west edge, and the ground it was built out of.
Read the guideMoving here
A small city in the middle
Five point eight square miles, three rail platforms, and what a small footprint actually buys.
Read the guideThe companion
Midvale, the whole picture
Main Street, the park, the reclaimed ground, the river edge and the address, in one place.
Read the pageQuick answers
The street, answered
It is the old commercial core of Midvale, a short brick street at 7505 South that the city runs as its Main Arts and Culture District. Along a few blocks you get around fifty murals, locally owned shops and eateries, a 1918 theater that still stages shows, and a summer food truck plaza. It is free to walk, open at all hours, and best on foot.
Around fifty, by local, national and international artists. The count holds near fifty rather than climbing forever, because the lineup is refreshed as well as added to: a stretch of walls is repainted with new work each June. A photo more than a year old is a record of what was there, not a guide to what you will see today.
Los Muros on Main, the mural festival, runs for a week each June and finishes with a free street party on the Saturday. New murals go up during the week, so the days right after the festival have the freshest paint on the walls. Dates shift from year to year, so take the current one before you plan around it.
The freeway. Once the interstate went in, Main Street stopped being the through route north and south, traffic moved to the new strip malls, and the growing east side of the city lost its easy way onto the street. Three separate blows from one piece of road, and the street has spent the years since being brought back.
The theater on Main Street, at 7711 South, now a live venue for concerts, plays, comedy and screenings. The building has been a theater since 1918: it opened as the Iris, ran films for decades as the Burk under the Burkinshaw family, then traded as the Gazebo, the Main Street Cinema, a comedy club and a children's theater before its current owners reopened it as The Pearl.
Yes, a block off Main. The Midvale Performing Arts Center at 695 West Center Street is the old 1930s City Hall and police station, remodeled in 2004 into a 110 seat theater run by the Midvale Arts Council. On Main itself there is also the art house, the former city museum building, redone in 2024 for artists, classes and events.
In practice, yes. In 2026 Midvale Main joined the state's Main Street network as a Tier 1 Promising Community, one of seven towns admitted that year alongside Park City, Bountiful and Midway. That ties the street to a statewide historic preservation program rather than to a one time beautification budget, which is part of why the work on it has kept going.
Yes. The city's redevelopment agency offers a loan of up to 250,000 dollars to property owners on the street, for buying, building, renovating and bringing an old shell up to code, with separate storefront and business programs beside it. Projects are scored on a published sheet, stronger public benefit earns better terms, and qualifying public projects can carry no interest. Take the current terms from the agency.
About an hour on foot. Twenty minutes gets you the length of it, but a good share of the murals sit on side walls, loading docks and the backs of buildings you cannot see from a car, so walk one side and come back on the other. Add a meal, a show or the summer food truck plaza and it becomes a half day.
A street being brought back one building and one wall at a time
A street held up by a festival, a preservation program and a city loan with published rules is a policy, not a mood, and that is worth knowing if you are weighing an address within walking distance of it. Tell me the streets you are circling and I will connect you with a Salt Lake County partner agent who works this part of the valley, while I take the research and the financing side, at no cost to you.
Or call Scott: (435) 357-4345or send Scott a message
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