The Hong Kong China Temple will close for extensive renovations effective July 8, the First Presidency has announced.
The announcement — the second in less than a week regarding a temple closure for renovations — was made in a Newsroom release posted Tuesday, Jan. 29.
The temple serves members in China, Singapore and Mongolia.
Announced in 1992 and dedicated on May 26, 1996, by President Gordon B. Hinckley, the temple — located in the Kowloon Tong suburb on the Kowloon Peninsula — was opened a little more than a year before Hong Kong’s sovereignty transfer from British rule to China in 1997.
The Hong Kong China Temple was the first multi-level, multi-purpose temple building constructed by the Church. The top three levels are given for temple use, with the temple baptistery below ground along with underground parking. Other floors include a chapel and apartments for the temple president and the Hong Kong Mission president.
The design came to President Hinckley, then a counselor in the First Presidency, during a 1991 visit to Hong Kong. He had made visits to several small, costly parcels to be considered as potential temple sites, accompanied by Elders Monte J. Brough and John K. Carmack, both General Authority Seventies and members of the Asia Area presidency.
Exhausted by the day’s visits, President Hinckley retired early for the night, then requesting the two Seventies to join him early the next morning as he shared a drawing of an eight-story, multi-use building that would be built on the site where stood a local chapel, the mission office and mission home.
The Temple Department drew on that inspired, detailed concept for the Hong Kong Temple, and Elders Brough and Carmack penned an account of the experience for the December 2006 Ensign magazine.
Announced earlier this month was the planned closure and renovation of the St. George Utah Temple. It will close Nov. 4, with a projected reopening in 2022.
In the October 2018 general conference, President Russell M. Nelson announced plans to renovate the iconic Salt Lake Temple and other pioneer-era temples along with plans to build 12 new temples.
Besides the two future closings and renovations announced this month, 10 temples are closed for renovations, with three scheduled for rededications and reopenings later this year — the Memphis Tennessee Temple with a May 5 rededication, the Oklahoma City Oklahoma Temple for rededication on May 19, and the Oakland California Temple and a June 16 rededication date.
Others that are closed while being refurbished include temples in Raleigh, North Carolina; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Frankfurt, Germany; Asunción, Paraguay; Tokyo, Japan; Washington, D.C.; Mesa, Arizona; and Hamilton, New Zealand.
