With approvals from the city of Yuma, Arizona, preparatory utility and infrastructure work will soon begin on the Yuma Arizona Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The preliminary work includes land grading and installing underground utility infrastructure like water, sewer and electrical service connections to the city’s existing systems.
A groundbreaking date has not yet been announced, according to an Oct. 5 news release on ChurchofJesusChrist.org.
The Yuma temple was announced April 7, 2024, by then-Church President Russell M. Nelson. It was one of 15 locations he identified at the close of the April 2024 general conference.
It was announced the same year as another Arizona temple; one for Queen Creek was announced six months later.
According to previously released plans, the Yuma temple will be a single-story structure of approximately 18,500 square feet. An ancillary building will also be built on the grounds.
The sacred edifice will stand on a 7-acre site at the corner of East 36th Street and South 8 East Avenue of Yuma, Arizona. Planned for the southwest corner of the state, it will be built 7 miles from California and 17 miles from Mexico.
About the Church in Arizona
Arizona is home to six dedicated temples and three in planning stages, for a total of nine. Those operating are the Mesa (dedicated in 1927), Snowflake (2002), The Gila Valley (2010), Gilbert (2014), Phoenix (2014) and Tucson (2017) temples.
In addition to Yuma, temples are planned for Queen Creek and Flagstaff, announced in 2024 and 2025, respectively.
Members of the Church first preached the restored gospel in Arizona in the 1850s. During the 1860s and 1870s, Church parties explored the area for possible settlement sites. After these explorations, a large group of pioneers arrived in spring 1876 to establish four settlements.
Fort Utah — established in the Salt River Valley in 1877 — was later renamed Mesa, where the state’s first temple was dedicated in 1927.
Today, almost 450,000 Latter-day Saints reside in Arizona, in more than 900 wards and branches.
