Been out of the church for 25 years. My wife and I are outsiders with most things Mormons and it's a great feeling. Having said that the church is building a new temple in the Southeast of the US.

Background: I now live in the area where I once served a church mission years ago. It's a really weird thing to admit, but I have my non church life established with a good job. It is strange to be able to see my old areas and places where I once resided in a business suit peddling church propaganda.

So here's a question for the RFM church construction experts: How common is it for the church to build a new stake center on the same parcel as the new temple?

This is new to me although I understand that the church used to build a living quarters in foreign countries for temple/missionary staff.

Having said that, the wife and I figured that church would likely sell one of its older chapels from the 1960s vintage. That seems to be the trend.

Wife shared this with an acquaintance on fb and it hit the fan! What!!! The church will never sell its first church in the area. You're wrong and why would it mean anything to you anyways since you gladly left the church!!!

Are we wrong to think that a new church building on the same lot will cause the church to sell the older chapel and property? The new stake center and temple is 3 miles from the 60 year old building.

Any thoughts?

What a weird thing to get upset over. I looked on line and found a Mormon chapel for sale in Napa. I didn't keep Googling but I doubt that is the only on.

My thought is that Acquaintance is ready to turn anything at all into an offense against her one true church and is ready to defend vigorously. You could say the sky is blue and she would say 'you're just saying that because you left the church (to sin, obviously).

It's hard defending the indefensible.

here in Cache Valley. We had one on main street in Hyrum and it was torn down several years ago. There are houses built on the lot now. I assume it must have had asbestos. They tore down the chapel in Paradise, Utah, and rebuilt one on the same spot.

There is one on 1st East behind JoAnn Fabrics that just got torn down. It was up for sale. It looks like they are building more apartments or townhouses/condos there as they tore down some houses next to the church.

There is an old mormon church on main street that other religions have used over the years. When the first other church cut off the steeple and put in a bell tower, the mormons here went nuts.

I saw that too, those holes they're digging, I guess central logan isn't crowded enough, did they get rid of central park? Maybe I'm confused.

The church building I attended as a youth/young adult was built in 1909 and was sold to the SDA church in 1985.

A new building was being constructed to be the new Stake Center two blocks from the old building and it was finished in 1983 but the Stake Center portion was nixed as the leadership in the existing Stake Center didn't want to drive 3.1 miles to the new building :-D

Things may have changed since the 80's regarding the sale of older buildings but I attended a ward at a Stake Center that was built in the early 70's with cinderblock that was to be torn down and a new building was to be built replacing the Stake Center in the early 2000's.

They built the new chapel in a well-to-do area and decided to remodel i.e. new carpet on the floors AND the walls at the Stake Center, replaced the gym flooring, revamped the heating and A/C and did nothing with the disgusting bathrooms.

It is pretty common to have a temple and chapel/stake center share a lot these days. I know that was done in Winnipeg MB and Bismarck ND. I also think one of the existing chapels (on Academy Ave) in Winnipeg was sold when the new one was built.

There is a former LDS chapel that was a carpet store in Driggs, ID, last time I was there. I have also seen LDS buildings that were bought by other denominations. Selling of chapels is not common, but it is hardly unheard of either.

I remember there being a ward building that the members had not only financed, but built themselves. When the church no longer had a use for it, it was sold without a second thought.

The ward we used to attend in rural Heber, Utah, had been built by the old timers in that ward. The LD$.inc built a new stake center a couple of miles away, where the ward was to attend. It was up for sale, & a woman in the ward bought it for herself plus her 4 kids. They worked to remodel it, but many of the old members still had keys. They would let themselves in - uninvited - to check things out. She had the locks changed.

Flash forward. This woman was killed in a car accident in Spanish Fork Canyon. Her kids were grown. They sold the building back to the church. The rural area had grown & land was at a premium. Since LD$.inc wanted to build a new ward there, the old property was perfect. The old building was torn down, to make room for the new one.

In Longview, Washington, the old Mormon chapel is now part of the St. John Peace-Health hospital. It is now surrounded by hospital parking, but with one look at it, you can easily recognize is as a Mormon chapel. Initially, when the church sold it, it was a home for the Catholic sisters who worked at the hospital. It was one of those buildings from the early 60's for which local members had to scrape up funds just to build it. Then a few short years afterwards,the church had grown so quickly that they had to expand it. But the fact that it was surrounded too closely by other properties to build onto it, so the ward had to sell it (to Catholics!!) and move into the old Montgomery Wards storefront. This caused a huge rift, and several families left the church.

At the Toronto Temple, the Stake Centre is right next door. They're almost in the same parking lot.

They thought of closing my old chapel, but there was such an uproar that they renovated it instead.

Take a look at this location:

https://goo.gl/maps/S2nYqPMwxstKb6Qa9

You might say, "But Tyson, that's the Unification Church. It even says so." Except you can look at the architecture and it speaks for itself. This was the LDS church in Washington, DC. To quote that church's current website for the building:

"The history of the Family Federation for World Peace National Cathedral Family Church began on April 9, 1924 when Mrs. John B. Henderson sold a vacant lot at 16th St. and Columbia Road NW to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, also known as the Mormons, for $54,000. This acquisition was the birth of the to-be-constructed Mormon temple in the District of Columbia, something that had been planned by the followers of the late Joseph Smith.

"The deed was dated April 9, 1924, transferring the property from Mrs. Henderson to Heber Grant as trustee for the Church. Seven years later, on June 1, 1931, the building permit was issued to the Mormons and construction began. The church was constructed by a local builder, William P. Lipscomb Company at an estimated cost of $275,000.00.

"The architects were Mormon: Don Carlos Young, a grandson of Brigham Young, and Ramm Hansen, a Norwegian immigrant. They designed a steel structure covered in concrete and enveloped in 'Birdseye marble' quarried in Utah from the summit of a mountain 9000 feet high, in what is now the Manti-La Sal National Forest in the mountains more than 60 miles south of Salt Lake City. The blocks of stone were hauled on mountain roads four miles to the base of a canyon 3000 feet below, this being done in the early 1930’s utilizing the technology and transportation of that era, namely, 20 railcars cross country. The quarried stone produced 16,404 blocks for the exterior of the building.

"The cornerstone for the chapel was laid in April, 1932 with Senator Reed Smoot, the first U.S. Senator from Utah of the Mormon faith, as one of the speakers. A year and a half later, on November 5, 1933, the chapel was dedicated following Mormon custom of completely paying for the building before it was dedicated.

"An article in The Boston Evening Transcript about the church building described the chapel at the time of dedication, 'The marble has a satin hone finish and at different times of the day reflects various hues. After a heavy rain the effect is that of highly polished marble which changes, as it dries, into hazy purple.' Sadly, the stone no longer matches this description. From a distance, it remains a handsome tan/grey appearance. Up close, the surface is deeply lined and cracked with fissures. The wear and erosion have, however, highlighted the rounded shapes of millions of years old uncoils.

"The severe surface wear has been attributed to acid rain and the persistent presence of automobile exhaust from the commuter artery of 16th St. Interestingly, the geologic tour of Salt Lake City posted on the website of the Utah Geological Survey describes two buildings as using 'Birdseye marble' – both for interior walls.

"There were unique characteristics designed into this building. Over the main entrance is a mosaic depicting Christ on the Mount of Olives. It was the work of Mahonri Young, another grandson of Brigham Young. The nine large round arched windows in the sanctuary contain stained glass of unusual design. At the top of each one is a circular panel of colored glass devoted to geographical and Mormon church history subjects. Below, the windows are divided into rectangular sections of clear stippled glass, interspersed with colored glass panels depicting state flowers.

"The church building was in use for 42 years until August 31, 1975, when the last Mormon service was held in the Washington chapel. Changes in the neighborhood, the growing needs of the Mormon community, and the prospect of costly repairs to the walls, led to the end of services in 1975 and the sale of the chapel, which was purchased by the Unification Church in 1977. The Mormons constructed a new, larger chapel in suburban Bethesda – a structure that also provides a visible reference to the temple in Salt Lake City. The church building stood vacant for two years, and then sold to Columbia Road Recording Studios, Inc. on September 8, 1977, for $300,000. The next day, on September 9, the building was sold to HSA-UWC for $475,000. Before the building was turned over to its new owner, the statue of the angel Moroni was taken down and moved to the new temple along the Beltway, and the contents of the cornerstone were removed."

http://washingtondcfamilyfed.org/building-restoration/


The oldest church in the area and the intended temple - and yes, sold by the LDS Church. This isn't surprising. This is normal, and FB acquaintance is an imbecile.

Tyson

There was an uproar in the East Coast city I grew up in when word got out the brethern were planning on shutting down one of the first chapels in the area. The place didn't even have air conditioning until the 60s, there was only a tiny parking lot, and most of the members lived farther away in the suburbs, in other wards. But wealthy -- and therefore influential -- members talked the brethren into keeping it and doing more modernization. I think there's just one small ward of older folks attending there.