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SALT LAKE CITY — From the inside, a new meetinghouse for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in downtown Salt Lake City looks very similar to many other meetinghouses the church builds.
But not on the outside.
It has the same chapel organization, room signs, classroom tables, small primary chairs, cabinets and classroom dividers. But this meetinghouse is inside the city's third-largest skyscraper.
The building is 395 feet tall and 25 stories. The 39,000-square-foot meetinghouse is located on the lower four floors and has two chapels.
Elder Kevin W. Pearson, who is the general authority seventy of the church assigned to oversee the Utah area, said the church is excited about the beautiful facility and setting and hopes the unique meetinghouse will become a gathering place for church members in the area.
"As an area president, I'm very excited about this facility because we are always anxious and interested in continuing to build and strengthen The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City," Elder Pearson said.
He said getting the building built over the last few years has been a miracle.
The church will house six downtown wards, or congregations, two of which are young single adult wards. One of the chapels can hold up to 510 people and the other can hold up to 600 people. It has enough classrooms to accommodate two wards meeting at the same time.
One chapel has stained glass windows on two sides, designed to let light from the city in throughout the day and to let light out into the city from the church at night. The windows were made from over 100,000 pieces of glass that were fused together and then laminated. The Relief Society room, where women in the church meet, and multiple other rooms have floor-to-ceiling windows showing city views.
The meetinghouse is located in the 95 State Officer Tower at 95 S. State Street, which is finishing construction. It is across from City Creek Center and just a few blocks from Temple Square. It has been named the Social Hall Avenue Meetinghouse because its entrance is on Social Hall Avenue and it sits at the former location of Social Hall, a building that served as a gathering place for church members from 1853 to 1921.
"This downtown block has always really been a place of gathering, a place of community," said Emily Utt, curator of the Church History Department, in a news release. "It's kind of exciting that there's now a new building almost on the exact same site that is a place of gathering."
Elder Pearson said Salt Lake City has been transforming as residential housing has been built and businesses have brought more young professionals to the area. The commercial and residential aspects of the city are changing and there are more apartments and condominiums. A church within the downtown area will help the city be more walkable for some people.
"We're looking forward to that growth and people that will come. ... This will be a wonderful gathering place for them," he said.
In an urban area like Salt Lake City, Elder Pearson said it is hard to predict how many people moving into a new building are likely to be Latter-day Saints, and how much growth will be seen. But the church anticipates that there are many members who want to live downtown and having a gathering place in the downtown area will help the church grow.
He added that the church has consistently shown an interest in ensuring that Salt Lake City is vibrant and attractive for those who live there and for those who visit.
In addition to providing space for weekly worship services, Elder Pearson said he anticipates that the meetinghouses will host many other cultural, learning and musical events and other activities. The church building has a half-size basketball court at the back of one chapel, a court area in the back of the second chapel without a hoop because of stained glass windows, and a terrace that could be used for social activities.
"This would be just a great place for a social event, the purpose of which is to bring people together, a sense of belonging and getting to know each other and just being part of the community of the church or a ward," Elder Pearson said.
He said the focus of the meetinghouse, which is reflected in the beautiful artwork throughout the building, is on Jesus Christ.
Although it is the first of its kind in Utah, the church has built other urban meetinghouses that are part of larger buildings in places in dense-urban areas where land is more expensive, according to Ashley Powell, president and CEO of Property Reserve Inc., a church-owned real estate company.
"This just seemed like a much more economical way ... to provide a meetinghouse downtown and utilize more effectively the land and the cost of land," Powell said.
Alexandria, Virginia, has an urban meetinghouse that is connected to a 12-story apartment building, London and Brussels both have church meetinghouses connected with commercial buildings, and New York City has similarly-built meetinghouses.
Powell said that there was strong interest in leasing office space in the building until the COVID-19 pandemic hit and demand fell, but they are still on track to have the commercial space leased out within 24 months, which was their goal. Currently, 25% of the office space in the building is leased out, 50% of the space is being discussed, and 25% is still not leased.
He said that putting meetinghouses in other buildings is an efficient use of resources, and it works well for a church to share parking with businesses since most church activities happen outside of business hours.
Some of the wards who will be meeting in the building have been meeting in a chapel that is northwest of the Conference Center. The stake, which was established a few months after the pioneers arrived in Salt Lake City, has used that building since it was built in the 1950s under President David O. McKay. That church building is going to be leased to American Heritage School.
Doug Wilks, president of the Salt Lake Stake which will have multiple wards meeting in the new building, showed a painting of President McKay created by a member of the stake and two quilts made by members of the stake that were moved from the old chapel into the new one to preserve some of the history of the stake.
"The legacy is a huge part of the Salt Lake Stake ... (in) everything we do. We recognize that," President Wilks said.
He said this weekend will be emotional for stake members, as they have a Saturday evening session of stake conference at their new building and the Sunday meeting of the conference at the Assembly Hall on Temple Square, the stake's original stake center.
"We see the connection. To say this is heritage is not just a tagline, it really is what's going on downtown," he said.
President Wilks said there will be four stakes represented in the building, since it houses a Spanish language ward and young single adult wards, so the building will be heavily used.
There will be a public open house for the new meetinghouse on Saturday between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. Elder Pearson will oversee the dedication for the meetinghouse portion of the building on Sunday afternoon.
