New Temples

Today was announced five new temples: Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo; Durban, South Africa; Barranquilla, Colombia Star Valley, Wyoming; and remodeling the Provo Tabernacle to a temple. A vague status update was given on the Paris Temple, which is in what I would call a quasi-announced state. (Announcement here.)

All of these locations are exciting, and I would like to talk for a minute about What To Expect. The immediate response is: nothing. During the next year or so the church will quietly hire an attorney or other local expert, find some property, make an offer on it, and prepare to do the zoning dance. In about a year the location will be announced and preparations will begin in earnest. The groundbreaking may take another year and the construction a couple years after that. Expect about five years before dedication. Things may go a little faster in the US, and I predict the slowest in Africa.

With no actual information I predict that the temples will be between 20 and 40 thousand square feet and either a flat square building with a center spire or a rectangle with two spires (like the new San Salvador temple or the in progress Kansas City temple). Most of these temples seem to be location temples rather than capacity temples, they are being built to provide access to a closer temple than to take huge crowds.

The second Provo temple might be done a little sooner, the land is already owned and plans must exist as a rendering was made available with the announcement. This type of construction is more tricky, so it could still take some time. Looking at the rendering (in above link) closely, I noticed something. The plan included the land to the south that was just purchased by the church and did not have any skyscrapers in it. There is next to the tabernacle a large tall building that houses Nu Skin. It should have been visible in the rendering, and I cannot imagine that it was left out by mistake. Does this mean that the church has acquired the building and is going to demolish it? I don't know. Nothing has been announced. I cannot imagine that the building would be cheap, probably many times as expensive as the property they bought across the street, which is currently a restaurant. You can be sure that the church will not try to buy any street, sidewalk or other public property, as the experience in Salt Lake was expensive and politically damaging. (The parties in Salt Lake acted in good faith, but third parties got involved and it turned into a big mess.)