For the second time in eight days, a high-profile temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will be closing for renovations and renewal.
On Saturday, Feb. 24, the Provo Utah Temple closed at the end of the evening sessions as that house of the Lord is being redesigned, reconstructed and renamed the Provo Utah Rock Canyon Temple.
And on Saturday, March 2, also at the end of its evening sessions, the Manhattan New York Temple will close for extensive renovations, with the project to take approximately three years.
On Aug. 28, 2023, the First Presidency announced renovation plans for the Manhattan temple and released an exterior rendering of the updated house of the Lord. The announcement included a projected closure sometime in 2024.
Renovations will include upgrading the meetinghouse on the third floor of the building, with local congregations using that space to be relocated elsewhere during the renovations.
Noticeable and noteworthy
Because of their locations and histories, the two houses of the Lord are among the Church’s most noticeable and noteworthy.
For more than a half-century, the Provo Utah Temple — one of the Church’s busiest — has looked over the nearby campuses of the Provo Missionary Training Center and Brigham Young University as well as the entire Utah Valley.
The Manhattan temple was built from an existing building that included a stake center and local and area Church offices. The house of the Lord is a block west of New York City’s Central Park and diagonally across from the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts at the intersection of Columbia and 65th streets and Broadway.
The local and area offices are being relocated during the renovation period, with the chapel at the West End Collegiate Church becoming the home of displaced Latter-day Saint congregations, according to deseret.com.
On March 24, 2002, President Gordon B. Hinckley spoke at a special regional conference in New York City and told the congregation a temple would be built in Manhattan within the next two years. Five months later, on Aug. 7, 2002, official plans to construct the Manhattan temple were announced.
President Hinckley dedicated the Manhattan New York Temple on June 13, 2004, with it becoming the second dedicated house of the Lord in the state and the Church’s 119th worldwide.
Current, planned temple renovations
In addition to the Manhattan temple, temples currently under renovation or announced for renovation are:
- Salt Lake Temple — Closed since the end of 2019 for seismic upgrades and extensive renovations, the temple had its projected completion date amended to 2026.
- Stockholm Sweden Temple — Closed since late March 2023, the renovation and expansion project is expected to take at least three years.
- San Diego California Temple — Closed in late July 2023 for extensive renovations, with an estimated completion in 2025.
- Kona Hawaii Temple — Closed in October 2023 for renovations and expansion, projected to be completed by late 2025.
- Toronto Ontario Temple — Closed since late October 2023 for a projected nine-month renovation project.
- Anchorage Alaska Temple — Beginning later this year, a reconstruction project will enlarge and relocate Anchorage’s house of the Lord, while the current temple remains open. The stake center located where the new temple will be built was recently gutted, with furnishings and materials donated to local churches and organizations.
- Provo Utah Rock Canyon Temple — The reconstruction of the redesigned and renamed new house of the Lord will begin soon, following the Feb. 24, 2024, closure of the original edifice.
- Orlando Florida Temple — Renovation plans were announced in February, with the temple to close in July 2024.
