See something at the Mid-Valley Performing Arts Center
2525 Taylorsville Blvd · Ticketed · Year round
Salt Lake County built a proper theatre in a first ring suburb, and that is a rarer thing than it sounds. The Mid-Valley Performing Arts Center holds a 400 seat Main-Stage Theatre, a 200 seat black box called Studio 5400 and the Centennial Room, a rehearsal and event space, with county theatre staff attached to all three. It is the arts anchor for the middle and south west of the valley, and it is the single strongest reason anybody outside this boundary drives into it on a weeknight.
The detail most people miss is the lobby. It carries a gallery of pieces from the Salt Lake County Visual Art Collection and two commissioned works: Adagio, an interior sculpture built from 1,343 polished stainless steel spheres on a linear frame, developed by the New York artist Danielle Roney from digitally captured movement studies of a dancer, and One Hundred Items, an exterior sculpture by Tooza Design of Salt Lake City. You can walk in and look at both without a ticket in your hand.
It is also one of three box offices in the county
ArtTix runs ticketing for the county's venues, and it keeps exactly three staffed ticketing hubs: the Capitol Theatre, the Eccles Theater and this building. That means a resident of the west side of the valley can buy a ticket for a downtown show at a window ten minutes from home rather than driving into the centre or paying an online fee. It is a small piece of decentralisation and it is the kind of thing that never appears in a guide to the area.
Two rooms means two completely different evenings
The 400 seat main stage takes touring and larger local productions and behaves like a conventional theatre. Studio 5400 is a 200 seat black box, which means a flat floor, movable seating and a much closer relationship with whatever is happening in front of you. Check which room your ticket is for before you picture the evening, because the difference between the two is far larger than the difference in seat count suggests.
The details
Getting there
It sits on Taylorsville Blvd off the I-215 belt route, which is the reason the county chose the site: a central address that most of the valley can reach in one leg. Car parking is on site and the MVX line runs close enough to make a car optional from either end of the valley's rail network.
Before you go
- Check which of the two rooms your ticket is for; a black box and a proscenium are very different nights.
- General information runs on 385-468-1010 and event booking on 385-468-1030.
- Credit card is preferred at ArtTix windows; cash is taken and exact change is encouraged.
- The lobby gallery and both sculptures are free to see without a ticket.
- Programming is the county's rather than a resident company's, so the calendar changes shape season to season.
Spend a morning at Valley Regional Park
5100 S 2700 W · Free to enter · Year round
Ninety one acres on the city's table and 89.86 on the county's, published as Salt Lake County's Gary C. Swensen Valley Regional Park, and the single busiest piece of open ground in this boundary. It carries an 18 hole disc golf course, a fenced four field softball complex used for high school and league play, an outdoor basketball complex of six hoops, a regulation sand volleyball court, horseshoe courts, an exercise track, a playground with five slides and a reservable pavilion that seats 130 at twelve eight foot wooden tables.
What makes it more than a large lawn is that three separate operations stand on it. The Taylorsville Recreation Center, the Taylorsville Library and an outdoor pool all sit inside the same park, which means one car park serves a swim, a book and a game of disc golf. The park page takes the whole site in detail, including what the two published acreages are actually measuring.
The disc golf is the sleeper entry
Eighteen baskets on a flat, open, free county park, with equipment rentable from the office if you have not brought your own, is a genuinely low friction way to spend two hours. It also means the park has a constant background population of people walking slowly across it in odd directions, which is worth knowing before you set up a picnic in the middle of a fairway. There is no charge to play.
There is no tennis here, whatever a listing says
The county's own amenity list for this park records tennis courts as none. Tennis in this city is at Southridge Park in the south west, which has four lighted courts, and there are courts at Millrace Park on the river. Several third party listings for Valley Regional Park carry tennis anyway, which is the sort of small error that costs you a drive with a racquet in the boot.
The details
Getting there
It sits on 2700 West between 5100 South and the recreation centre at 4948 South, which is the corridor that also carries the state office complex further north. There is parking at several points around the site, and the library car park is the one to aim for if the basketball complex is the destination, because the hoops are immediately west of it.
Before you go
- Pool information runs year round on 385-468-1732 rather than through a city number.
- Disc golf equipment can be rented from the office if you turn up without any.
- The library keeps Salt Lake County Library hours, which are not the city's hours.
- This is the festival ground in late June, so the park is not itself in that week.
- The pavilion is reservable and seats 130, so an unbooked group of that size will not fit under it.
Walk the river at Millrace Park
5400 S 1150 W · Free · Year round
The city's own flagship on the water: 23.2 acres on the city parks table, with two pavilions, an informal baseball field, a soccer and football area, a playground, restrooms, a walking trail, a community fishing pond and a fenced off-leash dog park. It is also the most used access point to the river trail inside this boundary, which makes it the place to start if you want the water rather than the lawn.
The pond is run as a community fishery by the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, stocked with rainbow trout, largemouth bass, bluegill, black bullhead and channel catfish, under community pond rules with a two fish daily limit and fishing allowed only while the park is open. It is also completely invisible from the car park, which catches out almost everybody on a first visit. Walk towards the north east corner of the park and it appears.
The name is the oldest thing here
Millrace Park takes its name from the pioneer millrace that brought water across this ground in the early 1850s, the ditch that produced the first successful crop on the west side of the river and was later extended north as the North Jordan Canal. The park sits on the modern end of that story: a city green with a stocked pond on it, on the same flat ground the first irrigation on this side of the water was cut across.
The dog park needs a permit and the trail needs a lead
The city publishes the fenced off-leash area as permit required, which is a step more than most valley dog parks ask for, and it publishes the rest of the trail system as lead only with a clean up obligation. Those two rules sit about a hundred yards apart, so the practical instruction is to sort the permit before you travel and to keep the lead on your arm for everything outside the fence.
The details
Getting there
Turn north off 5400 South at about 1150 West and the park opens out towards the river. The pond cannot be seen from the parking area, so walk towards the north east side of the site rather than looking for water from the car. The Jordan River trail runs along the eastern side of the park and is the reason most people come here more than once.
Before you go
- Get the off-leash permit sorted before you travel; the fenced area is published as permit required.
- Community pond rules apply at the pond, including a two fish daily limit.
- Fishing is only allowed while the park itself is open to the public.
- The pond is out of sight of the car park. Head north east on foot.
- Everything on the trail outside the dog park fence is lead only.
Go to Taylorsville Dayzz in late June
Valley Regional Park · Free admission · Three days in June
The city's one enormous weekend. Taylorsville Dayzz ran on 25, 26 and 27 June in 2026 at Valley Regional Park, with a parade, a petting zoo, carnival rides, food booths, concerts, a 5K and kids run, a car show and a fireworks finale, and it costs nothing to walk in. 2026 was billed by the committee as the festival's milestone thirtieth year and by the city as Taylorsville City's thirtieth birthday, which are the same anniversary told two ways.
It is run by a volunteer committee rather than by a city events department, which shows in how it is published: named organisers with mobile numbers for the parade, the booths, the 5K, the entertainment, the volunteers and the sponsorships. The festival page carries the mechanics, the applications, the parking problem and what to expect from a park that has a softball complex and a disc golf course underneath the carnival.
The 5K added a category that tells you something
In 2026 the Dayzz 5K introduced a Ruckers category, for runners carrying a thirty pound pack. That is not a normal suburban fun run addition and it is a fair signal of what this festival is: volunteer built, a bit idiosyncratic, and shaped by whoever turns up to organise it rather than by an events agency working from a template.
Two z's, and locals will correct you
The spelling is Dayzz. It is not a typographical error and it is not a stylisation somebody applied later; it is the name. Spell it with one z in front of anybody who has lived here a while and you will be told, politely and immediately, and there is no point pretending otherwise on a page that claims to be researched.
The details
Getting there
The whole festival sits in the county regional park on 2700 West, which means the roads that serve it are the same arterials that serve the state office corridor and the recreation centre. Parking around the park fills early on the parade morning and on the fireworks night in particular, so arriving on foot or by bicycle from the surrounding streets is the local answer.
Before you go
- Dates move each year. Take the current one from the committee, not from a listings site.
- Admission is free, so budget for rides, food and vendor stalls rather than a gate price.
- The city notes that Taylorsville City Police may use drones over the event.
- Applications for booths, the parade, performances and vending carry their own deadlines.
- Unauthorised vending is explicitly prohibited, and the notice is published in English and Spanish.
Catch a game at Bruin Arena on the college campus
2055 Bruin Blvd · Ticketed and free events · Autumn to spring
There is a 5,000 seat arena in this city and most of the valley has no idea. The Lifetime Activities Center, known as Bruin Arena, opened on the Salt Lake Community College Taylorsville Redwood Campus in 1996, the same year the city itself was created, and it has been home to the SLCC Bruins ever since. It also holds a fitness centre, a weight room and teaching space, so it works as a campus building on the days nothing is being played in it.
Its most reliable public draw is a late winter one. Utah's high school girls basketball state championships play their closing rounds here every February and March, and in 2026 the quarterfinals, semifinals and finals were all staged in this building. For a suburb with no professional team, hosting the end of a statewide championship is a genuinely unusual thing to have at the end of a bus route.
It has had professional tenants and does not now
The Utah Eagles of the CBA played here in 2006 and 2007, and the Salt Lake City Stars of the NBA G League used the building from 2016 to 2022. Neither is here today, and it is worth saying that plainly because a good deal of published material about this arena still describes it as a G League venue. What it is now is a college arena that hosts a state championship, which is a different and more useful thing to plan around.
The address is a road name, not a grid coordinate
Bruin Blvd runs inside the campus, which is why satnav directions here sometimes behave oddly. The campus loop is a numbered state highway in its own right, and the arena sits off it rather than off Redwood Road. If a route sends you to the college's main Redwood Road frontage, you are at the right campus and the wrong end of it.
The details
Getting there
The campus sits on Redwood Road with its loop road running around it, and the arena is on that loop rather than on the highway frontage. MVX stops on the campus itself, which makes this one of the easier arenas in Utah to reach without driving, and campus parking is signed but fills for large events.
Before you go
- Check the fixture list with the college or the state association; this is not a venue with its own year round programme.
- The state high school girls championship rounds are the busiest dates in the building.
- It is a working campus, so term time parking and event parking are different problems.
- The G League tenancy ended in 2022, whatever an older listing says.
- The building also holds a fitness centre and classrooms, so not every open door leads to the arena.
Stand at the Little Confluence where the creek arrives
675 W 4800 S · Free · Open 24 hours
Nine acres of open space at the point where Little Cottonwood Creek finishes its run and joins the Jordan River. That creek starts near Cecret Lake at about 11,500 feet, comes down through Little Cottonwood Canyon and crosses Sandy, Midvale and Murray over roughly 27 miles, and it arrives here at about 4,490 feet, on the quietest piece of ground in this city. Standing at a confluence and knowing where the water started is a better ten minutes than the acreage suggests.
The Jordan River Commission lists the site with a nature trail, a boat ramp and small picnic pavilions, open around the clock, with fishing, paddling and birding as its published activities. Salt Lake County has planted hundreds of cottonwoods and willows here through its Million Trees Program with TreeUtah. The city files it more cautiously, as 9.06 acres of open space under development with potential pavilions, walking trails and a boat pull-out area.
It is genuinely unfinished, and that is the honest note
Two authorities publish this site two ways: one as a trailhead with facilities, the other as open space under development. Both are true at different moments in the same project. What you will find is a real access point with a real boat ramp and real planting, on ground that has not been landscaped into a park and is not going to feel like one. Go for the water and the trees rather than for facilities.
Two published addresses, one site
The Jordan River Foundation gives 675 West 4800 South and the city's parks table gives 4800 South 677 West. They are the same place and the difference is a rounding of a driveway. It is worth knowing before you drive, because searching one form and finding the other is exactly the sort of thing that makes a person think they have the wrong site.
The details
Getting there
It sits on the west bank of the Jordan River where 4800 South meets the water. Parking is at the trailhead itself. The nature trail runs north and south from there along the river, starting on a gravelled surface and turning into a genuine dirt path further along, which is a different proposition from the paved parkway trail a short distance away.
Before you go
- The county contact for the site is 385-468-1854 if you need to check anything before travelling.
- The boat ramp is a launch for craft you bring. Nothing is hired here.
- Read the parkway page's water trail rules before putting anything on the river.
- The nature trail turns from gravel to dirt, so it is not the paved parkway experience.
- It is open around the clock, which is not a reason to arrive in the dark on unlit ground.
Visit the 1906 farmhouse at the Heritage Center
1488 W 4800 S · Free · Three sessions a week
The Taylorsville-Bennion Heritage Center is a city owned local history museum inside the 1906 Jones family farmhouse, standing on the last two and a half acres of the old Jones Dairy Farm, which the city bought in February 2002 specifically so the house would survive. Its stated mission is the first hundred years of this ground, 1848 to 1948, which is the period when everything here was farms and canals rather than streets.
The grounds carry more than the house: a replica one room schoolhouse, a replica blacksmith shop, a farm implement barn, the old dairy store and a research room holding local biographies. For a city that was created in 1996, having a museum whose entire remit ends in 1948 is a useful corrective, and the research room is the only place inside this boundary where the pre suburban record is gathered up in one place.
The hours are the whole difficulty
Published opening is Tuesdays from nine in the morning until two, Wednesdays from six in the evening until nine, and Saturdays from two in the afternoon until six. That is three sessions across a week, in three different parts of the day, and it is the single place on this list where turning up on the wrong day rather than at the wrong hour is what will beat you. Confirm before you travel on 801-281-0631.
The hyphen in the name is the city's other half
Bennion was a separate settlement that grew up beside Taylorsville and became its own congregation in 1905, and the name still anchors the south west of the city, in the junior high, in the water and sewer district and in this museum's title. Reading the hyphen as decoration misses the point: this is a museum for two communities that were distinct for nearly a century and a half before they shared a city name.
The details
Getting there
It sits on 4800 South, the same street that carries the confluence open space down at the river, which makes the two an easy pairing on one trip. Parking is on site. The house is the visible landmark; the schoolhouse, blacksmith shop, implement barn and dairy store are on the grounds behind and around it.
Before you go
- Ring 801-281-0631 before travelling. Three sessions a week leaves little room for error.
- Private tours can be arranged with the heritage committee outside the published sessions.
- The research room holds local biographies and is the reason to come if you are tracing a family.
- The remit stops at 1948, so do not expect the suburban or incorporation era here.
- Pair it with the confluence open space; both sit on 4800 South.
Two halves of one flat city
What sits on the river side, and what sits on the corridor side.
For a visitor this city divides along its own north to south arterials. East of Redwood Road, towards the water, is the quiet half: the confluence, the trail, the fishing pond and the open space. West of it, along 2700 West, is the institutional half: the county park, the recreation centre, the library, the theatre and the festival ground. Both are worth half a day and they ask different things of you.
| The river side | The corridor side | |
|---|---|---|
| What is there | The confluence open space, the parkway trail, Millrace Park and its pond, the 1906 farmhouse | Valley Regional Park, the recreation centre, the county library, the outdoor pool, the theatre and the festival ground |
| Who runs it | A mix of city, county, state and utility ground, with four separate landlords inside a mile | Mostly Salt Lake County, with the college campus and its arena on Redwood Road between the two halves |
| What it costs | Free almost throughout, apart from a fishing licence and a dog park permit | Free to enter, with charges attached to the pool, the pavilion, equipment hire and theatre tickets |
| Best hours | Early morning, before the trail fills and while the water is still | Late morning through the evening, which is when the programmed buildings are actually open |
| Turn up or plan | Turn up. The trail runs 5am to 11pm and the confluence is open around the clock | Plan. The theatre, the pool and the library all run to published timetables |
| How to arrive | By car or on foot from the surrounding streets; the trailheads have their own parking | By car, or on the MVX line, which serves the 2700 West corridor and the college campus |
Neither half is the better one. The river side is what people are surprised to find here and it costs nothing. The corridor side is what fills a Saturday in bad weather and it is where almost all the programming lives. Anyone weighing an address should walk both, because the difference between them is the loudest thing about this city.
Before you go
Three phone calls will save most of the wasted journeys on this list.
The failure modes here are specific and small: arriving at the museum on one of the four days it is shut, arriving at the dog park without the permit it requires, and arriving at a park expecting a facility that a third party listing invented. All three take about two minutes to rule out.
Sort before you drive
- Museum opening, on 801-281-0631, because three sessions a week is a narrow target
- The off-leash permit for the fenced dog area, which the city publishes as required
- A theatre ticket through ArtTix if the county venue is the reason for the trip
- Whether anything is being played at the campus arena, because it has no standing programme
- Pool hours on 385-468-1732 if a swim is part of the plan at the regional park
Check on the day
- Salt Lake County Library hours for the branch inside the regional park
- Current festival dates from the Dayzz committee if you are aiming at late June
- Roadworks on the Redwood Road corridor, where UDOT has a live project south of I-215
- Whether the softball complex has league play on, which changes the whole feel of the park
- Trail conditions on the river, which is published as open 5am to 11pm in most sections
Turn up and it is fine
- The confluence open space, which is published as open around the clock and costs nothing
- The disc golf course, which is free to play on a free county park
- Millrace Park and its walking trail, on any day the park is open
- The theatre lobby and both of its commissioned sculptures, which need no ticket
Four of these seven are not the city's, and that changes who answers your question. The theatre and the regional park with everything on it belong to Salt Lake County. The arena belongs to Salt Lake Community College. The confluence open space is county ground the city files as under development. The festival is run by a volunteer committee with named organisers. What the city itself answers for on this list is Millrace Park, its pond and its dog park, and the heritage museum. Working out the operator before you pick up the telephone is worth about an hour of anybody's day.
What this list leaves out, and why
- The Olympic ice west of here, which is a different city's doorstep asset and has its own companion. Twenty minutes away is a good argument for an address and it is not a thing this boundary owns.
- The big arena and the amphitheatre north of here, both of which are in West Valley City. They are close, they are excellent, and putting them on a Taylorsville list would be borrowing a neighbour's marquee.
- The shopping corridor across the river, which is in Murray. The river is the boundary, and everything on the far bank belongs to the city on that side.
- Southridge Park in the south west, 39.8 county acres with five baseball fields and a multipurpose field used for soccer, rugby and cricket. It is a genuinely good place to play and it is not a place to visit.
- Autumn Meadow Park, which at 77 acres is the single largest entry on the city's parks table and is published as a grassed retention basin with no amenities. Naming it as an attraction would be padding a list with a drainage feature.
