Posted by:
Brother Of Jerry
(
)
Date: December 31, 2023 05:03PM
Th SLTrib ran a major article today about a proposal to expand the LDS Temple Square complex - about 30 acres presently, to 80 acres. The planning document was drawn up in 2020, and was recently leaked to the Trib. I think it was more of a serious spitballing proposal, rather than firm plans to do anything, but it was pretty breathtaking in scope.
The article was "subscribers only", and I'll respect that, but I can recite the major points. I fully expect that the local television stations will soon be covering this story, and I will post a link when that becomes available.
Right now Temple Square is west of Main street, and the COB, Church Administration Building (the granite neoclassical building built in the early 20th century), RS building, JS Memorial Building, and Beehive house are in the block east of Main Street.
West of W Temple St is the Family History Museum. North of North Temple is the Conference Center and the Church History Museum.
So those are the main properties now. There are some other minor parks and buildings.
THe proposal is to expand the two blocks between N and S Temple from a two block strip into a 6 block strip, one block to the east of State Street, and 3 blocks west of W Temple, extending clear to Gateway complex.
Also expand the two blocks north of N Temple to cover the entire blocks. Each SLC block is ten acres, so the entire complex would be 80 acres. That is a lot of land in the heart of a city.
The proposal called for tearing down the COB, Church Administration Building, and JS Memorial Building (aka old Hotel Utah), but leave the Beehive House complex.
It also calls for tearing down the Plaza Hotel, which is on church-owned land. The Church already owns almost all the land in the proposal. The three blocks west of Temple Square have been underutilized for decades, and the city administration has wanted the LDS Church to do something with them for a long time. The third block, down by the Delta Center, is basically a ten acre surface parking lot.
the church offices would be moved down to the west end, near the Delta Center, which is also close to TRAX and the interstate exits. The Assembly Hall on Temple Square would be disassembled and moved to the west end near Gateway Complex.
A fully functional "mini-temple" is proposed east of the SL Temple. It would be in permanent "open-house" status, so tourists could enter the mini temple and see the baptistry, sealing rooms, endowment theater. The mini-temple would be used for special church temple events. at which point it would be "dedicated", the event held, and then it would revert to "open house" status.
All in all, it is a spectacularly ambitious plan. There are plans for some sort of transportation system. Eighty acres is a lot of land to cover on foot. Several major cross streets would be impacted, notably State, W Temple and 300 W. An underground tunnel is proposed for State, a roundabout at 300W, and I'm not sure what at W Temple.
My first impression when I saw the drawing of the plan was that it looked like a theme park.
One of the city planners who commented said the same thing, or that it looked like to would be an island in the middle of the city, not particularly well connected to the rest of the city. Neither a theme park feel, or separate island feel would be good for the city in the planner's opinion.
The Church did authenticate the plans, but said they had never been formally proposed to or approved by the Q15, and that considerable input from the city and city residents would be needed yada yada yada.
But the scope is kind of breathtaking. It would cost billions of dollars. It would be 2/3rds the size of Vatican City. It really couldn't get started before the Temple Square overhaul were mostly complete which is scheduled for 2026. As envisioned, there is no way IMHO it could be started in 2026 and finished in time for the Winter Olympics in 2034.
Stay tuned. I am sure there will be more developments about this leaked document (100+ pages)