City West Valley City, Salt Lake County
Utah's second largest city, and the rooms that fill it
West Valley City, and the rooms the rest of the valley drives to
West Valley City is Utah's second largest city, out on the west side of the Salt Lake Valley, and it is the rare big city with no old main street to show for itself. Four farming towns merged into one city in 1980, and what fills the boundary instead is scale: an arena the city owns that staged Olympic hockey in 2002, an amphitheater seating 25,000, four free galleries with an eight ton stone head in them, the largest skate park in the state, and a river edge with a rail platform named for its trail. Here is the honest version, room by room.
By Scott Buehler, Moving Utah
Updated October 2026
The short answer
West Valley City is the second largest city in Utah, spread across about 36 square miles of the valley floor on the west side, and it is the one big Utah city most visitors cannot place on a map. There is no historic main street, no canyon mouth and no lake shore, because the place was four separate farming towns until they merged into a single city in 1980. What it has instead is scale, and two genuinely regional rooms: an arena the city owns that staged Olympic ice hockey in 2002 and is booked again for 2034, this time for figure skating and short track speed skating, and an amphitheater seating 25,000 that takes the national summer tours. Add a riverfront arts campus with four free galleries and an eight ton stone head from Veracruz, the largest skate park in the state, and 45 holes of city run golf, and the honest way to read West Valley City is room by room. This page is the map to the six deeper ones, with the range, the river and the season written once at the county level.
Buying or selling in West Valley City?
What is actually here
Six places and six different desks behind them
The single most useful thing to know before a trip here is that the venues are not run by one body. A city department, a private promoter, a management company, a transit authority and a state wildlife rule all apply on different parcels inside the same boundary, and a question asked at the wrong one costs you an afternoon.
| The place | Who runs it | What that means for you |
|---|---|---|
| The Maverik Center, 3200 South Decker Lake Drive | Owned by the City of West Valley City, operated by Centennial Management Group | A municipal building run on a commercial calendar. Parking is free with a ticket in lots A, B and C, with lot D at 3100 South and Decker Lake Drive |
| The Utah First Credit Union Amphitheatre, 5150 South 6055 West | Owned by United Concerts and operated by Live Nation | A private venue on a private season. Everything about entry, bags and upgrades is set by the operator rather than by the city |
| The Utah Cultural Celebration Center, 1355 West 3100 South | The City of West Valley City | Free galleries and free parking, on published civic hours rather than show times. The number is 801-965-5100 |
| The Ridge and Stonebridge, 45 holes between them | West Valley City Parks and Recreation | Two public courses the city owns outright, which is why both tee sheets run through the municipal site rather than a club |
| Decker Lake, 1936 Decker Lane | A city park, with the water under Utah community pond rules | Free to walk and to watch. Fishing follows the state community pond limit rather than a park rule, and the water is stocked |
| River Trail and the other three TRAX platforms | UTA | Four Green Line stations inside one city, on standard fares, with 100 free park and ride spaces at River Trail and none of them on Sundays |
One name change catches almost everybody who searches for the amphitheater. The outdoor venue on the south west side opened on 3 July 2003 as the USANA Amphitheatre, named for the supplements company based in this city, and it kept that name for twenty one years. A naming rights agreement with Utah First Credit Union was announced on 23 January 2024 and the venue has been the Utah First Credit Union Amphitheatre ever since. Ticketing sites, maps and older articles still carry the old name, and both point at the same 5150 South address.
The rhythm
A summer city with one big indoor room for the rest of it
The calendar here is lopsided, and it is worth planning around. From roughly May or June through October the amphitheater works through the national touring season, the city runs WestFest at Centennial Park over four days in the middle of June, the WorldStage concerts move outdoors at the Cultural Celebration Center, and the outdoor pool, the bike park and the river trail are all doing their best work. In 2026 WestFest ran from 17 to 20 June, with a morning fun run, a parade and evening fireworks on both the Friday and the Saturday. The amphitheater page covers the season, the rules and the puzzle of getting out of the parking lot.
From November the city moves indoors, and the shape of that changed in 2026. The Maverik Center had carried minor league hockey since it opened in 1997, and the club played its last game here on 12 April 2026 before moving east to become the Trenton Ironhawks. The building has no hockey tenant now. What fills the winter instead is a full concert and family show calendar, the Salt Lake City Stars of the NBA G League, the Utah Great 8's indoor football team from 2026, and, in January 2027, the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, back in Utah for the first time since 1999. The arena page takes the building, its tenants and the 2034 Olympic booking in full.
What runs all year, free, is the quiet half of the list. The four galleries at the Cultural Celebration Center cost nothing and keep civic hours six days a week. The skate park, the pump tracks and the small rock crawler course at Centennial Park are open whenever the park is. The loop around Decker Lake is a mile and a third of flat paved path with 184 recorded bird species on it. And the river trail on the eastern boundary is level, paved and lit in stretches, which makes February a walking month here in a way it is not on the bench. The ranked list sorts the eight things that justify a journey from the rest.
This is a city with two seasons rather than four: the touring season, and the months when everything worth doing costs nothing.
The wider valley
The range, the river and the season belong to the county, not to this city
West Valley City sits with the Oquirrhs behind it and the Jordan River along its eastern edge, and neither of those is a thing one city owns. Four county pages carry the shared subjects at the right altitude, so here is where each of them lives.
The west range
The Oquirrh side
The drier range behind the sunset, the excavation cut into its face, and the towns the copper built.
Read the guide
The long line
The Jordan River Parkway
The whole corridor read end to end, with the segments that connect and the ones that do not.
Read the guide
Days out
Weekends in the valley
Outings across all eighteen cities, sorted so the price is visible before the drive is.
Read the guide
The cold half
The valley in winter
What the season does on the valley floor, how residents read the forecast, and what closes.
Read the guideThe arena's Olympic role for 2034 is settled, and a lot of older coverage still gets it wrong. The Maverik Center staged Olympic ice hockey in 2002, but for the 2034 Winter Games it is booked for figure skating and short track speed skating, with Olympic hockey assigned to the Delta Center downtown. That was settled in late 2025, so anything that puts 2034 hockey in West Valley City predates the decision.
If you only have one day
One version of a good day in West Valley City
Early
Start on the eastern boundary
A light rail platform named for a trail, a park with boat docks beside it, and the west bank where Joseph Harker crossed the Jordan in 1848, the first settler on this side of the river.
The river page
Late morning
Four galleries and a stone head
Free admission, free parking, and a basalt replica sent from Veracruz that is one of three in the country.
The center
Afternoon
Cross to the Centennial campus
The largest skate park in Utah, two pump tracks, a pool, and a free course for radio controlled crawlers.
The ranked list
Evening
Take whichever big room is open
An arena with free parking and a platform at the door, or the state's largest outdoor stage if it is summer.
The arenaThe West Valley City companion
Seven pages, and four of them are about rooms rather than streets
Everything The Local has written about West Valley City: the ranked list of what genuinely earns a journey inside 36 square miles, the city owned arena and what changed in it this year, the state's largest outdoor stage and the name it lost, the free galleries and the eight ton head on the riverfront campus, the reach of the Jordan River this city started at, and what a second largest city address asks of a household in practice.
Quick answers
West Valley City, answered
On the west side of the Salt Lake Valley, immediately south west of the capital, covering roughly 35.88 square miles at about 4,304 feet. The Jordan River runs along its eastern edge and the Oquirrh Mountains stand behind it to the west. Interstate 215 wraps the north and east of the city and SR-201 crosses the north, and the TRAX Green Line runs four stations inside the boundary before ending here.
Its big rooms, in rough order of how far people travel for them. The Utah First Credit Union Amphitheatre at 5150 South 6055 West seats 25,000 and is the largest outdoor concert venue in the state. The Maverik Center at 3200 South Decker Lake Drive staged Olympic ice hockey in 2002 and is on the 2034 Winter Olympic plan for figure skating and short track speed skating. And the Utah Cultural Celebration Center on the riverfront holds four free galleries and an eight ton Olmec head sent from Veracruz.
No. The venue opened on 3 July 2003 as the USANA Amphitheatre, named for USANA Health Sciences, which is headquartered in this city, and carried that name until a naming rights agreement with Utah First Credit Union was announced on 23 January 2024. It has been the Utah First Credit Union Amphitheatre since. The address, 5150 South 6055 West, has not changed, and a great deal of published material still uses the old name.
Not since April 2026. The ECHL club that had played in the building since it opened in 1997 finished its 31st and final Utah season on 12 April 2026 and moved to Trenton, New Jersey, to become the Ironhawks. The arena has no hockey tenant now. It still carries the Salt Lake City Stars of the NBA G League, who have played here since 2022, the Utah Great 8's indoor football team from 2026, a full concert and family show calendar, and the U.S. Figure Skating Championships from 5 to 10 January 2027.
More than most people expect. All four galleries at the Utah Cultural Celebration Center are free, so is the parking there, and the eight ton Olmec head on the grounds costs nothing to stand in front of. Every city park is free, including the 31,000 square foot skate park, the pump tracks and the small radio controlled crawler course at Centennial Park. The loop around Decker Lake, the river trail and the Crosstowne Trail are all free, and parking at both big venues is included with a ticket.
Free at both of the big ones, which surprises people. General parking at the Utah First Credit Union Amphitheatre is included with your ticket, with reserved, premier and ultra premier upgrades sold separately and the south east lots held back for those buyers. Parking at the Maverik Center is included with a ticket in lots A, B and C on the grounds, with lot D at 3100 South and Decker Lake Drive, on a first come basis. Parking at the Cultural Celebration Center is free.
Yes, and unusually well for a west side city. The Green Line runs from Salt Lake City International Airport through downtown to its southern end here, and its four stations inside the boundary, West Valley Central, Decker Lake, Redwood Junction and River Trail, opened on 7 August 2011. Decker Lake station sits next to the Maverik Center, which makes an arena night a rail trip. River Trail station has 100 free park and ride spaces, and none of the platforms allow Sunday parking.
For specific things rather than for a wander, and that is the honest framing. There is no walkable historic core to stroll through, so a visit here is built around a booking or an address: a show at one of the two big venues, a free gallery hour and the Olmec head, a morning on the skate park or the pump tracks, a loop of the lake, or nine or eighteen holes at a course the city runs itself. Pick the thing first and the day arranges itself around it.
About 35.88 square miles, with 140,230 residents at the 2020 census, which keeps it second in Utah behind Salt Lake City. The city's own count has since passed 145,000. It is also a young city: the four unincorporated farming communities of Granger, Hunter, Chesterfield and Redwood, first settled west of the Jordan River from the late 1840s, voted to merge into one city in 1980.
Thinking about West Valley City? Start with which of the four old towns your street sat in
This is one boundary containing four separate settlements that never had a shared center, and the housing eras, the street grids and the freeway frontages still follow those old lines rather than the city's. Add an arena, an amphitheater, a rail spine and a working industrial west side and the difference between two streets a mile apart is larger here than almost anywhere in the valley. Tell me what you are weighing and I will put you with a Salt Lake County partner agent who works this side, and stay on the file for the homework and the financing side.
Or call Scott: (435) 357-4345or send Scott a message
Keep going
Continue your West Valley City research
Eight more doors into West Valley City, chosen for what this page covers.
Questions about West Valley City?
Call Scott, send a message, or find out what your West Valley City home is worth. No pressure, no obligation.
Referral Disclosure: For moves outside Southern Utah, I can connect you with trusted local agents. If you choose to work with one, their brokerage pays my brokerage (Real Broker, LLC) a referral fee from their commission. This costs you nothing extra, and you are never obligated to use my referral.