Salt Lake County opened the Mid-Valley Performing Arts Center on 1 June 2021, choosing Taylorsville for its thriving arts council and freeway access.  The county’s four other venues, Abravanel Hall, Capitol Theatre, Eccles Theatre, and Rose Wagner, are all located in downtown Salt Lake City.

“One of our greatest needs was found to be in the mid-part of the valley,” said Matt Castillo, director of the arts & culture division.  The county wanted “someplace that can serve as a regional hub for performing arts groups, that could serve cities like Murray, Taylorsville, Magna, Kearns — as well as on the east side, like Millcreek and Cottonwood Heights.”

The city provided the land, adjacent to Taylorsville City Hall, and will build an outdoor plaza in front of the performing arts center.  Salt Lake City architectural firm Method Studio designed the building, working with The Shalleck Collaborative, a performing-arts consulting firm.  Jacobsen Construction was the general contractor.

The Mid-Valley has three performance spaces, similar to the Rose Wagner.

The Main Stage Theatre is a 439-seat proscenium theater with a balcony and a stage deep enough for a 60-person orchestra.  The front seats can retract under the stage for an orchestra pit.  The sides of the proscenium can roll out to narrow the stage’s “fourth wall” and provide more space in the wings.

The Studio 5400 is a black box theater with 212 seats, when its 12 rows of seating are fully extended.  The rows can retract like bleachers to open up the space for different forms of performance.  Studio 5400′s configuration is wider than the black-box theaters at the Rose and the Eccles, allowing more room on the sides for production equipment.  Catwalks on the side walls allow for balcony scenes, such as from ‘Romeo & Juliet’.  A sophisticated lighting grid suspended from the ceiling, with a series of catwalks, enables a lighting designer to access every light fixture easily.

The Centennial Room can be a rehearsal space, a performance venue, or a reception room.  A back door allows the Taylorsville orchestra to move equipment from rehearsals to the Main Stage without passing through the lobby.

The lobby includes a gallery wall which can display the county’s public art collection or be used for juried exhibitions, community arts groups, or individual artists.  The ceiling has rigging for aerial artists.  An ArtTix box office enables patrons to purchase tickets for the symphony or Ballet West without making a separate trip downtown.

The county spent between $1 million and $2 million to insulate the three performance spaces acoustically, which corrects a mistake at the Rose Wagner where a loud performance in one can overpower something very quiet next door.  The Main Stage and Studio 5400 have separate dressing rooms and green rooms, and a wardrobe room with dedicated laundry machines.

The center has two loading docks, one with a downward ramp to accommodate semitrailer trucks, and another at ground level.^[1]

1. "Mid-Valley Performing Arts Center, a $45 million 'jewel' in Taylorsville, opens doors to arts groups big and small", Salt Lake Tribune, 26 May 2021