The First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has announced groundbreakings for the Deseret Peak Utah Temple and the Syracuse Utah Temple.
The groundbreaking ceremony for the Deseret Peak Utah Temple — located in Tooele, Utah — will be held in May 2021, with Elder Brook P. Hales, General Authority Seventy, to preside.
The groundbreaking ceremony for the Syracuse Utah Temple will be held in June 2021. Elder Kevin R. Duncan, a General Authority Seventy and executive director of the Church’s Temple Department, will preside at the event.
Similar to other groundbreakings announced during the COVID-19 pandemic, the two ceremonies are invitation-only events without a specific date and will adhere to local government social-distancing guidelines.
Exterior renderings were previously released for both temples, with interior renderings also made public already for the Deseret Peak temple.
Deseret Peak Utah Temple
Announced at April 2019 general conference by President Russell M. Nelson, the temple was given its current Deseret Peak name and location — west of the intersection at 2400 North and 400 West in Tooele — by the First Presidency on Jan. 19, 2021.
The exterior and interior designs remain the same as depicted in previously released renderings, with the primary exterior rendering first published on April 7, 2020.
The three-story temple will be approximately 70,000 square feet, with a central tower, cast-stone exterior and copper shingles. A new 20,000-square-foot meetinghouse will also be built at the new Tooele location.
Previously, the temple had been known as the Tooele Valley Utah Temple and was planned for the nearby community of Erda, Utah.
Syracuse Utah Temple
President Nelson announced a temple for Syracuse in the April 2020 general conference.
The three-story temple of approximately 89,000 square feet will sit on a 12-acre site located at the intersection of 2500 West and 1025 South in Syracuse, as identified by the First Presidency in August 2020.
An exterior rendering of the Syracuse Utah Temple was released on Feb. 16, 2021.
Once construction has started, the two temples will join five other under-construction temples in Utah — with city namesake temples in Saratoga Springs, Layton, Orem and Taylorsville and the Red Cliffs Utah Temple in St. George.
Utah is also home to 15 dedicated temples, with the most recent of the state’s 23 total temples in Lindon still in planning and design stages.
More than 2.1 million Latter-day Saints reside in Utah, accounting for about two-thirds of the state’s population of over 3.2 million residents.
