The spine Salt Lake City
Four blocks, a retractable roof, and an argument about who the street is for
City Creek and Main Street, at street level
A shopping district with a glass roof that opens in about six minutes and twelve hundred feet of creek running through it, an 1864 shop front two blocks south with a clock that once ran on water, a failed second downtown that survived precisely because it failed, and a live public argument about whether Main Street should carry cars at all.
By Scott Buehler, Moving Utah
Updated October 2026
The short answer
City Creek and Main Street are the shopping and civic core of downtown Salt Lake City, four walkable blocks running south from Temple Square between South Temple and 400 South. City Creek Center anchors the top two blocks, an outdoor shopping center with a glass roof that opens in about six minutes and a recreated creek running through it, anchored by Nordstrom and Macy's with a Harmons grocery at the east end. Below it, Main Street holds the oldest commercial buildings in the city, the light rail line running straight down the middle, and a live public argument about whether the street should carry cars at all. If you have an afternoon downtown, this is the stretch to walk. The one thing to know first is the width: the 1847 plat drew these streets 132 feet across, so crossing Main is a real decision, and almost everything proposed for the street lately is an attempt to win some of that width back for people on foot.
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The two blocks at the top
A creek, a roof that opens, and about two million pounds of steel
City Creek Center opened on March 22, 2012 across two downtown blocks directly south of Temple Square. What makes it worth more than a shrug is the engineering, most of it above your head. The roof was the first fully retractable glass roof built over a shopping center anywhere in the United States. It runs more than 500 feet, opens or closes in about six minutes at roughly eight feet a minute, and rides on 36 steel ribs shaped like whalebones, with around two million pounds of structural steel in the system. An industrial computer in a remote room runs it, so nobody standing underneath is deciding anything. On a February afternoon it is shut and the walkways are warm; on a June evening it is open and you are outside. Directions
The creek is the other piece. About 1,200 feet of recreated stream runs the length of the property through roughly six acres of green space, with two waterfalls of eighteen feet, on a recirculating system. It traces the historic course of City Creek, the water the 1847 survey was drawn around, which now spends most of its lower miles in a culvert. Whatever you make of a shopping center, running a creek back through the middle of one was a more interesting decision than it had to be.
Retail runs to about 890,000 square feet. Nordstrom and Macy's still anchor it, a Harmons grocery sits at the east end reached through a tunnel under State Street, and the pedestrian bridge over Main, with its own openable roof panels, connects the two halves upstairs. People live here too, which visitors miss: roughly 700 homes sit in and above the development, including a tower of thirty stories on South Temple. One planned tower, Cascade, was never finished past its foundation and three floors, which you would never guess from the street.
What survived
The buildings on Main worth stopping in front of
Main Street has lost a great deal and kept more than people assume, and the survivors are all within a few blocks of each other and all still in use, which is the difference between architecture and a museum. Four are worth slowing down for. Most came out of the same twenty year window when Utah mining money was looking for somewhere to go, and three of the four still carry the name of whoever paid for them.
The oldest is the Eagle Emporium at 102 South Main, built in 1864 for William Jennings, often called Utah's first millionaire, to a design by the Salt Lake architect William Paul. It is the oldest commercial building still standing downtown and the only one raised before the transcontinental railway arrived. Zions Co-operative Mercantile began trading in it on March 1, 1869, and Zions Bank occupies it today. The detail to look for is on the sidewalk outside: the clock in front was put up in 1873 and was originally driven by a water wheel, one of the last pieces of nineteenth century street furniture on the whole street, and most people walk straight past it. Directions
A block down, the Kearns Building rises ten stories in white terra cotta on a steel reinforced concrete frame, finished between 1909 and 1911. The Walker Center at 175 South Main opened in 1912 at eighteen floors and more than 200 feet, for a while the tallest building between Chicago and San Francisco, and the beacon on its tower still works. The code is worth memorizing, because on a winter evening it saves you looking at a phone: steady blue means clear, flashing blue means cloudy, steady red means rain, and flashing red means snow. The tower carried radio and television signals from the 1940s until the transmitters moved to the mountaintops in the 1950s, came down under a city ordinance in the 1980s, and was restored in 2008. Directions
Round the corner, the Judge Building at 8 East 300 South went up in 1907, seven stories built by a mining widow, and has been on the National Register since 1979.
The other downtown
A second city center that was built and then did not happen
Two blocks east and south of the Walker Center, off Main between 300 and 400 South, sits Exchange Place, the strangest few hundred feet of architecture in the city, because it was built to compete with the blocks you have just walked. Samuel Newhouse, a mining financier who came to Utah in 1896, began a building program in 1907 with the explicit aim of pulling the commercial center of Salt Lake City south, away from the concentration of business at the Temple Square end. Directions
The two buildings that anchor it are the Boston Building and the Newhouse Building, both eleven stories, both begun in 1907 and finished in 1909, both designed by the Chicago and New York architect Henry Ives Cobb. They were the city's first skyscrapers, and they face each other across the street as a matched pair, which is a statement rather than an accident.
The rest of the plan failed. A grand tower meant to top the district was never built, the center of gravity stayed where it was, and Newhouse's second downtown ended up a compact pocket rather than a rival. What that failure preserved is unusual: a small, largely intact block of 1900s commercial architecture that never got redeveloped because nothing much ever happened to it. It is a National Register historic district now, and it is three minutes off Main.
Two spaces off the street
A lane with a past, and the only outdoor ice in the city
Regent Street runs parallel to Main between 100 and 200 South, and until it was renamed it was Commercial Street. From the late 1800s into the early 1900s it was the center of the city's early Chinatown, with restaurants, groceries and a temple where the immigrant community worshipped. It carried a rougher reputation too, which is the reason the name changed rather than the reason anybody remembers it. It is a genuinely layered address, and almost nothing on it says so.
It was rebuilt for just over ten million dollars for the 2016 opening of the Eccles Theater, under a design theme the city called Street of Stories, and it is now a narrow pedestrian priority lane with restaurants, bars and public art running behind the theater's Main Street frontage. On a show night it is the best short walk downtown.
Three blocks south, the Gallivan Center fills three and two thirds acres between Main and State at 239 South Main. It is named for John W. Gallivan, the long serving publisher of the Salt Lake Tribune; construction started in August 1992 and it opened in July 1993. It programs festivals, concerts, food truck gatherings and the city's New Year event, and it is owned by the city's own reinvestment agency rather than a landlord. Directions
The piece worth planning around is the ice. The Valda E. Tarbet rink at the Gallivan is the only outdoor ice rink in Salt Lake City. It was rebuilt in 2012 to a LEED Gold standard and runs into the end of February when the weather allows, turning into racquetball and basketball courts in the warm months. The annual Lights On evening puts thousands of bulbs and a fifty four foot tree on the plaza.
Plan your walk
How to get there, park, and time it
The train runs down the middle of Main, which is unusual and very convenient: the City Center and Gallivan Plaza TRAX stops both sit on the street itself. The free-fare zone is still in effect, so boarding and getting off inside the downtown boundary costs nothing, though a pass holder still taps on and off. Parking underneath is enormous, over 5,000 spaces below City Creek alone, which is worth knowing before you circle a block looking for a meter.
Temple Square sits directly north of City Creek. Much of it has reopened after a renovation that began in 2019, though the blocks nearest the temple stay fenced, so if a visit there is on your list, check what is open before you go. The shopping and the street below run as usual.
The details
The argument in progress
Whether Main Street should keep its cars at all
This is a live question, not a settled one, and a lot of coverage reads as though it has been decided. It has not. Here is where it actually stands.
The Main Street Promenade study, branded Together on Main, came out in May 2024 after a nine month process. It covers the four blocks of Main from South Temple to 400 South, plus a block of 100 South, and proposes a pedestrian first street with a much larger tree canopy, new lighting and paving, and the light rail kept rather than removed. The estimated cost is around 125 million dollars, roughly 25 million a block, and the city frames it as a multi generational investment rather than a project with an opening date.
The public appetite is not really in doubt. Surveying around the summer street closures found nearly three quarters of respondents preferred keeping Main closed to cars for good. What is missing is a binding decision: as of 2026 the promenade is still a conceptual study, with no construction timeline and no council vote to build.
A new complication arrived in 2026. On the final day of the legislative session the state passed SB242, by 55 to 14 in the House after 20 to 7 in the Senate, giving the Utah Department of Transportation approval power over many changes to city streets, with Main Street specifically named. Whatever you think of the promenade, that law reshapes who gets to decide it.
In the meantime the street still closes in summer. The city's Open Streets program has turned Main over to people on June weekends for several years running, with seating, stalls and performance filling the blocks, and in 2026 it expanded to other parts of downtown, including the Granary District on the west side. Dates and locations shift year to year, so check the city's current schedule before you plan a weekend around a car-free street.
Downtown Salt Lake City is under heavy construction right now. There is roadwork and fencing around the arena district a few blocks west of Main and at Pioneer Park, and the closures move around, so give yourself extra time and watch for detours before you drive in.
Quick answers
Main Street, answered
It opened on March 22, 2012 across two downtown blocks directly south of Temple Square, about twenty acres in all. Retail runs to roughly 890,000 square feet, anchored by Nordstrom and Macy's, with a Harmons grocery at the east end reached through a tunnel under State Street. Around 700 homes sit in and above it, and there are more than 5,000 underground parking spaces.
It was the first fully retractable glass roof built over a shopping center in the United States. It runs more than 500 feet, opens or closes in about six minutes at roughly eight feet a minute, and rides on 36 steel ribs shaped like whalebones, with around two million pounds of structural steel in the system. An industrial computer in a remote control room runs it, so nobody standing underneath is deciding anything.
The Eagle Emporium at 102 South Main, built in 1864 for William Jennings to a design by the Salt Lake architect William Paul. It is the oldest commercial building still standing downtown and the only one raised before the transcontinental railway arrived. Zions Co-operative Mercantile began trading in it on March 1, 1869, and Zions Bank occupies it today. The clock outside was put up in 1873 and was originally driven by a water wheel.
They are a weather beacon, and the code is simple enough to memorize. Steady blue means clear, flashing blue means cloudy, steady red means rain, and flashing red means snow. The tower went up in the 1940s to carry radio and television signals, became a weather beacon in the 1950s when the transmitters moved to the mountaintops, came down in the 1980s under a city ordinance, and was restored in 2008.
A compact National Register historic district off Main between 300 and 400 South, built from 1907 to 1910 by the mining financier Samuel Newhouse as a deliberate second commercial center meant to pull business south. The Boston Building and the Newhouse Building, both eleven stories, both begun in 1907 and finished in 1909 to designs by Henry Ives Cobb, were the city's first skyscrapers and face each other across the street. The wider plan failed, which is why the district survives largely intact.
Not yet, and no decision has been made. The Main Street Promenade study came out in May 2024, covering four blocks from South Temple to 400 South plus a block of 100 South, at an estimated 125 million dollars, with the light rail kept. As of 2026 it is still a conceptual study, with no construction timeline and no council vote to build. In 2026 the state also passed SB242, which gives the Utah Department of Transportation approval power over many changes to city streets, Main Street among them.
A summer program that closes several blocks of Main to cars and fills them with seating, stalls and performance. It has run on June weekends for several years, and in 2026 it expanded to other parts of downtown, including the Granary District on the west side. Surveying around it found nearly three quarters of respondents preferred a permanent closure. Dates and locations shift each year, so check the city's current schedule before you plan around it.
The Valda E. Tarbet rink at the Gallivan Center, 239 South Main, the only outdoor ice rink in Salt Lake City. It was rebuilt in 2012 to a LEED Gold standard and runs into the end of February when the weather allows, becoming racquetball and basketball courts in the warm months. The plaza around it covers three and two thirds acres and hosts festivals, concerts and the annual Lights On evening with its fifty four foot tree.
Because of the 1847 plat, which set streets 132 feet across for two practical reasons: they carried irrigation water down both sides, and they had to let a full team of oxen turn around without unhitching. Nearly two centuries later that leaves a downtown where six lanes is ordinary and crossing the road is a decision. Almost every current proposal for Main Street, from the promenade study to the summer closures, is an attempt to take some of that width back.
The street is walkable. The question is which street you live on
Four blocks of Main tell you what downtown Salt Lake City is for. They do not tell you what an address near it costs to hold, how the winter air behaves at that elevation, or which of the eighteen cities in this county actually fits the way you live. Tell me what you are weighing and I will put you with a Salt Lake County partner agent who knows the specific blocks.
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