The west Salt Lake County community is set to start work re-creating its downtown to include an improved street design, new curbs, sidewalks and street lights along 2700 South from 8800 West to 9200 West.

Some of the handful of business owners along the street support the project.

"[Rebuilding Main Street] provides a little more security for us," said Danny Colosimo, owner of Colosimo's, a Magna tradition since 1923. "But more important, it brings us neighbors."

Danny Colosimo's father and uncle built the store after immigrating from Italy, and for decades it has been a familiar part of Magna's Main Street. But today Colosimo's homemade sausage is one of the lone survivors on a nearly abandoned street.

Colosimo said if the plan works out and business picks up downtown, the store could stay open later each day, carry more products and offer cafe seating outside. But regardless of the project's success, he said Colosimo's would stay on Main to "make sure [the street remains] occupied."

Resident Pete Rainalei said Magna has seen better days.

"I remember when I was a little kid and I would come down to Main Street to play and there were so many businesses," Rainalei said. "Once they started to close, the whole town dried up."

Plowing up Main Street to bring in new development is just what Magna Chamber of Commerce President Laura McDermaid said she envisioned

"This will be Magna's front door," she said.

"This whole street used to be vibrant and filled with business. We want to see Magna come back alive."

With federal dollars, money from the Redevelopment District Authority and Salt Lake County Public Works, McDermaid said the project ultimately would include restoring facades of older buildings and creating a large residential development west of downtown. It also would include a new mining museum, a new library and extending Main Street's new look east of 8800 West.

The first signs of new business coming to Magna are already being felt next door to Colosimo's.

Sophia Mangeum opened her Sophia's Salon nearly two years ago.

"I like the old-town feel of the street," Mangeum said of Main Street. "The rent's better here. I couldn't afford the rent [across town]."

But more than a sausage factory and hair salon is needed in the historic mining community.

"There's not even places to get lunch around here anymore," Rainalei said. "If we had something like that up here, people would start coming up here again."

mburckhalter@sltrib.com