Draper Utah Temple

© 2008, David C. Moore. All rights reserved.

The new Draper Utah Temple will be open for public tours from Thursday, January 15, through Saturday, March 14, 2009. All are welcome to attend including children. Tours are FREE, but a reservation is requested. Please review the information below:

The temple will be dedicated Friday–Sunday, March 20–22, 2009, in 12 sessions. Dedication tickets will be issued through local priesthood leaders.

Please call the temple at 801-576-4240 to schedule living ordinances. Appointments may be made beginning Thursday, January 22, 2009.

As of December 2008, final preparations are underway for the upcoming open house, which is scheduled to begin January 2009.

On July 8, 2008, a gold-leafed pedestal and statue of the angel Moroni were hoisted atop the single central spire of the Draper Utah Temple. The Moroni raising marks an important milestone in construction and coincided with completion of the exterior granite facing.

Church President, Gordon B. Hinckley, broke ground and dedicated the site for the temple on August 5, 2006. "It is a great tribute to our people," he said. "They are so faithful in temple attendance and it is for this reason that we construct this beautiful house of the Lord."¹

On May 18, 2006, Draper's planning commission approved plans for the temple, which was presented as a 57,000-square-foot facility reaching 166 feet high and capped by a gold-leafed statue of the angel Moroni on its single central spire. A large variety of trees were shown for the grounds in addition to a 492-space parking lot. The hillside site of the temple, located near 1,000 acres of dedicated open space, commands an inspiring view of the entire valley.²

On February 8, 2005, the Draper City Council unanimously approved a change to zoning ordinances, which removed the only obstacle to construction of the temple. The change allows for "houses of worship" to reach 90 feet high in the residential area of the temple site. The new ordinance, which applies only to occupied areas of a building, does not restrict the height of steeples or spires.³

Evan Nelson of the Church's Temples and Major Projects Division met with Draper officials in November 2004 to discuss the City's concerns from the get-go to get the project started on the right foot.⁴

On Sunday, November 21, 2004, a letter from the First Presidency was read to Church congregations in south Salt Lake Valley, announcing Draper as the location of the Salt-Lake-area temple announced in General Conference the previous month. The Draper edifice joins the Salt Lake Temple and the Jordan River Utah Temple in serving the rapidly growing number of Church members in the Salt Lake Valley. The lot is located in the foothills near Corner Canyon. Rumors of a Draper temple had been circulating for months, since, two years earlier, the Church told Corner Canyon's developer the reason for its purchase of additional acreage next to its site for a stake center was to build a temple. The Church owns 12 acres in all—the stake center occupying 2 of those acres, and the temple and a joint parking facility occupying the rest.⁵

President Hinckley announced that the Church would build another temple in the Salt Lake Valley during the Saturday morning session of General Conference held October 2, 2004, though he did not disclose the chosen location at that time.⁶

The Draper Utah Temple was the twelfth temple built in Utah and the third built in the Salt Lake Valley, following the Salt Lake Temple (1893) and the Jordan River Utah Temple (1981).