After shakeup at Midvale City Hall, new mayor plans to continue revitalization efforts on Main Street.
Small Lake City
By Zach Abend
Midvale's new mayor Dustin Gettel has been in his position for a little more than a month, but he says that the redevelopment of Midvale's Main Street will continue, largely unabated.
There was a slight slowdown for a month or so before a new mayor was chosen, but now it's full steam ahead. And while Gettel's predecessor, Marcus Stevenson, had a different approach than him (Gettel comes from the Midvale City Council, where he spent seven years, whereas Stevenson was elected directly to the mayor's office), the end results should largely be the same.
Gettel said that his priority is to get three mixed-use projects on Main Street completed. "One is ready, on the corner of Sixth and Main," he said. "We are looking to get tenants in there. This is a residential development—the bottom floor is retail and the top floor has very affordable apartment units."
But the challenges facing the Main Street project remain the same, Gettel said. "The biggest challenges are growing pains," he said. "Closing streets, ripping up infrastructure and replacing it. Main Street isn't a long stretch of road, so closing parts has an impact on traffic."
The redevelopment of Main Street began in 2020, when the City Council adopted a "form-based code" approach to the project, which refers to zoning that prioritizes the look and feel of a building, rather than what the building is used for. Gettel said that several key projects of the redevelopment will be completed in 2025, but that this is an ongoing, multi-year revitalization project. Funding for the project comes from the Midvale Redevelopment Agency via taxing entities like the school district or Unified Fire.
Once the mixed-use projects are completed, Gettel says the next push will be to have more people living and recreating on Main Street and filling the remaining commercial and residential vacancies. If everything goes as planned, he said the end result will look similar to what is seen in historic photos of Midvale.
"Midvale Main Street has the bones in place already," Gettel said. "We want that old-time, old-fashioned feel with exciting upgrades—a very modern example of what can be done in old-time neighborhoods. We had the foresight to restore rather than tear down."
Midvale has also received funding from Salt Lake County to build a new library. And while it will take a few years to complete it, Gettel said the city is excited to tie the new library into the broader redevelopment of Main Street. Gettel would like to see the revitalization of Main Street completed on his watch. He intends to finish the remainder of Stevenson's term and then run for his own four-year term in 2026.
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