Draper, Utah - Mormon Temple
More Mormon temples are needed even in Utah.
Mormons do believe that a temple is a house of learning wherein the principles of the Gospel of Jesus Christ are reviewed and profound truths of the kingdom of God are unfolded. In the Temple, the cares and worries of the world are put aside.
The First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced in October 2004 that the Church’s 12th temple in Utah would be built in the Corner Canyon area of Draper, a community located in the southeast Salt Lake Valley.
Mormon President Gordon Hinckley said the new building was needed to relieve overcrowding at the Jordan River Temple, located at 10200 South and 1300 West.
The new temple will share a large site with a stake center already under construction, and the two buildings will utilize a common parking facility. The new temple in Draper will be the Church’s third temple in the Salt Lake Valley.
A year and a half after the LDS Church announced plans to build a temple in Draper’s Corner Canyon, site plans have been approved for the edifice
The medium-sized facility will sit on 12 acres at 2000 East and 1400 South. The lot already includes the Corner Canyon meetinghouse for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that was completed last year.
The 57,000-square-foot temple will be 166 feet high from the main level to the top of the structure’s only spire, which will include the symbolic Angel Moroni statue that sits atop many LDS temples.
This Mormon temple will have white walls that rise in a stair-step fashion. The plan calls for numerous varieties of trees to surround the temple and line the 492 parking spots.
The Draper Temple will also tower over 1,000 acres of open space in Corner Canyon that the city approved last fall. The canyon, which consists of mostly mountain grasses, sagebrush and oak, also serves as a habitat to for deer, elk and other wildlife.
Groundbreaking, an opening date and timetable for construction have not yet been announced, said Dale Bills, LDS Church spokesman.
Adapted from Deseret Morning News, By Amelia Nielson-Stowell