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From the outside, it looks like a new stake center, but as you go inside this brand new church building on 900 East in Provo, you'll find it has a very unique floor plan.
You won't find a basketball floor in the cultural hall, and there are no classrooms-instead 48 offices for bishops serving BYU wards, so they don't have to share an office with a professor on campus.
The chapel is designed specifically for stake conferences, with two stakes scheduled to hold conferences almost every Sunday of the year.
"This building is designed for almost 1900 either in view of the pulpit or closed circuit TV so we can handle virtually every stake conference with all the membership coming to one location," said Jared Doxey, director of the Meetinghouse Facilities Department.
During the week, Young Single Adult wards will hold activities, including institute classes.
Even though the building is 54,000 square feet, it was built to be nearly maintenance free.
The paint, the wall coverings, the floor - everything is designed to be easier to clean. And, the building was designed to be energy efficient.
The building is also a model of future LDS chapels, as far as technology. For example, cameras are mounted in the chapel, to webcast meetings to chapels within the stake.
"That's a strategy we are doing on most of our meetinghouses now is webcasting to reduce the travel time for members and the cost impact on members to have to travel to one central location," Doxey said. "Here in Utah it's not that big of a deal but if you live outside of Utah and travel to a stake conference in some stakes it could be a four to six hour drive."
When the Provo Tabernacle was destroyed by fire, it left stakes throughout Provo and Orem without a large meetinghouse for stake conferences, something this new building which was already in the works before the fire, will provide.
