Standing in the massive plaza dominated by one of Europe’s most famous cathedrals, the gothic Duomo di Milano, Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall was thinking about what Utah’s capital will look like during the 2034 Winter Games.
“This piazza is the epitome of an Italian gathering place,” said Mendenhall, dressed in a Team USA navy blue wool toggle coat just like the one worn by America’s flag bearer in Milan’s 2026 Winter Games Opening Ceremonies, Utah speedskater Erin Jackson.
The cathedral’s “intricate white spires remind a lot of Salt Lakers of home, and the building at the center of Salt Lake City that we’re known globally for,” the Salt Lake Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints undergoing a multiyear renovation, the mayor said.
The more than four acres of cobblestones outside the Duomo is “a place where people are proselytizing and kissing and posing for pictures with their kids. All of humanity can be seen out here,” she told the Deseret News, adding, “there’s this buzz of global enthusiasm.”
What the Olympics looks like in Milan
Fans from all over the world “are here to celebrate their teams but also celebrate the fact that we’re together here for the Olympics right now,” Mendenhall said. “This is the Winter Games and there’s only one more before we’re hosting back home. It really makes it real in a good way.”
Scores of fans lined up to get into a temporary Milan-Cortina Games megastore, while others dodged flocks of pigeons for a selfie in front of the imposing Duomo. The seemingly always well-dressed Milanese serenely strolled through the crowds, many walking dogs.
“The Italian people are so loving and open. They’re curious and welcoming,” the mayor said as the distinctive sounds of European sirens blared nearby. She noted there was no major security presence visible, aside from a few national Carabinieri and Polizia, some on horseback.
“You really just have people coming to be around people,” Mendenhall said. “It is the best people watching.”
Everyone, she said, “has been positive” about their experience welcoming the world. And while there’s plenty of support for Team USA as well and the other more than 90 countries competing in Italy, the mayor said there have been questions about U.S. politics.
One driver told her he wished there were even “more people here to see their beautiful city. But they feel proud of their home. And that feels a lot like home to me. I think Salt Lakers are so proud to show our unique, beautiful city and the landscape we sit in,” Mendenhall said.
That same pride in place is evident among the large numbers of 2026 volunteers stationed at the Olympic venues in blue, teal and green uniforms.
“They have a lot of volunteers here,” Mendenhall said, similar to the highly praised volunteer workforce at Utah’s first Olympics and Paralympic that follow for athletes with disabilities, in 2002.
“I haven’t been to any location or event yet where it was understaffed. If anything, there are volunteers at every turn. I didn’t expect to see so many people helping out,” she said, especially representing a wide ranges of ages and backgrounds.
“College-aged students to mid-career adults and people who’ve just retired, they’re all working here together,” Mendenhall said. “They want to strike up conversations.... They see my USA gear and congratulate us on whatever the latest win was. They’re really engaged. That’s fun.”
Looking for an Olympic ‘fan zone’
The mayor’s goal for a midday walk in Milan was to see the “fan zone” set up by Italian Games organizers as a no-cost place for locals and visitors alike to bring their families and feel a part of the festivities.
The 2024 Summer Games in Paris set up “live sites” throughout the city with big screens to follow competitions as well as food, entertainment and sport-related programming. Mendenhall said she appreciated the creative use of wooden pallets at one site she saw on outskirts of Paris.
But the fan zone in Milan wasn’t the easiest to find.
A giant installation that looked like a snow globe a few blocks from the Duomo turned out to be an exhibit for an Olympic sponsor, the Chinese technology giant, Alibaba, that’s providing cloud and e-commerce assistance to Games through 2028.
Near Milan’s Sforza Castle, a medieval fortification complete with now-grassy moats and piles of cannon balls, a frustrated visitor was repeatedly stopping passersby to ask unsuccessfully for directions to the fan zone’s big screen TV.
Getting to the castle, another major tourist attraction, was a long enough walk for a coffee and pastry break. After passing through the ancient walls, a Coca-Cola exhibit with a long line appeared, apparently marked the start of the “fun zone.”
The narrow corridor of additional sponsored exhibits, a big-screen TV and inflatable mascots had only a few tables for the families jamming the area, and lots of children waiting to try heaving a weighty curling stone or participate virtually in a cross-country ski race.
Off in the distance was the Olympic cauldron suspended within another famous Milan landmark, the Arco della Pace. Getting to the huge neoclassical arch built in the 1800s required navigating the meandering wooded trails through Milan’s largest park.
Mendenhall said she’s looking to “capture the ingenuity” of Italian organizers.
“It’s not so much we’re going to pick up the same idea and plop it down halfway across the world,” she said, adding that she’d expected to see Olympic-related activities aimed at adults, such as bar pop-ups. “It’s fun to see what they decided.”
Where will Utah’s ‘piazzas’ be in 2034?
Her trek emphasized the difference in scale between the Milan-Cortina Games and those to come in Utah. Many key attractions in 2034 will be concentrated in downtown Salt Lake City, close to the athlete housing at the University of Utah and the main media center at the Salt Palace.
And just like in 2002, every Olympic venue at Utah’s next Games is set to be within an hour of the university’s single athletes village. In contrast, the 2026 Games are the first hosted by a pair of cities and also the most widespread, with venues across much of northern Italy.
The International Olympic Committee stressed to Utah’s Olympic organizers during their first formal presentation as a Winter Games host that their focus should be on “elevating” the 2034 experience, not on preparing detail operational plans.
Making it easy for Games-goers to come together in 2034 is a priority for the mayor, one of more than 100 Utahns, including Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, who are spending time in Italy to observe what it takes to put on a Winter Games.
Mendenhall celebrated the start of the 2026 Olympics not in Milan’s iconic San Siro Stadium, but at the first of several weeks of watch parties during the Winter Games that are being held in what she wants to be known again as Salt Lake City’s Civic Center.
“This desire to come together is part of our legacy in Utah,” Mendenhall said. “We’ve always loved the Games. It’s stuck with us so much that it’s part of our permanent culture. And I think a lot of us don’t want to wait eight years.”
A portion of the mayor’s plans to surround downtown Salt Lake City with a Green Loop of park space, the Civic Center includes both Washington Square, where city hall is located, and Library Square. Mendenhall recently announced a $2.2 million project to expand the library’s grounds.
Other changes coming to Salt Lake City’s downtown are also expected to provide more gathering places during the 2034 Games, including the multi-billion dollar makeover sparked by the arrival of a National Hockey League team, the Utah Mammoths.
And the renovation of the Salt Lake Temple and surrounding grounds, set to be completed for an April-October 2027 open house, will give Utah’s top tourist attraction “more similarity to the piazza experience,” the mayor said, “with the site lines opened up and more permeability.”
‘The spirit is alive’ in Milan — and will be in Utah
She has no doubt Utah will experience the same deluge of visitors from around the world as Milan and the other locations spread across northern Italy holding Olympic and Paralympic competitions, including the mountain resort town of Cortina, some five hours away.
“So many of the spectator events in life now are digitally experienced. There’s, I think, a legitimate worry for host communities of any type of major event,” Mendenhall said. “Who will come? Will they come?”
She noted that the 2024 Paris Games, the first to be held after the COVID-19 pandemic, marked a resurgence for the Olympics. Not only were the French Games hugely popular worldwide on TV and online, spectators also turned out in droves.
Milan appears to have the same momentum the mayor said, and when people find out where she’s from in the U.S., they say, “‘Oh, you’re hosting the Games, when is it happening?’ They want to come.”
After several hours alongside the thousands of tourists and locals converging on the streets of Milan, the mayor had no doubts the spectacle will be repeated in Utah’s capital city in eight years.
“I can tell Salt Lakers from Milan the Olympics are alive and well,” she said. “The world is here. The spirit is alive.”