Kansas City Missouri Temple

On October 22, 2009, the Kansas City Council (watch video) approved the final plat of The Meadows at Searcy Creek First Plat—the subdivision where the Kansas City Missouri Temple will be located. The plat subdivides approximately 26 acres, generally located south of NE Shoal Creek Drive, east of Searcy Creek Parkway, west of Interstate 435 and north of NE Pleasant Valley Road, into one church lot, 22 single family lots, and numerous tracts. A day earlier, on October 21, the Planning and Zoning Committee (watch video) gave its recommendation of approval to the Council.¹

On August 18, 2009, the Kansas City Plan Commission recommended approval of The Meadows at Searcy Creek—then described as a 25-lot subdivision on 28.8 acres generally located at the northwest corner of NE Pleasant Valley Road and I-435 in District R-5 and R-1a.² District R-5, a district for high apartments, was recently established at that location to allow for the height of the temple and an adjoining meetinghouse. District R-1a is a district for one-family dwellings. The Kansas City Plats Review Committee reviewed the plat on August 5, 2009.

On July 30, 2009, the Kansas City Council unanimously adopted a resolution to amend the Shoal Creek Valley Area Plan and unanimously passed a rezoning ordinance and preliminary Community Unit Project for the 56-acre parcel where the Kansas City temple site is located. The preliminary Community Unit Project was approved subject to a list of 28 conditions. The conditions include the granting of various easements to the City, the acquisition of various permits, and the submission of various documents including the following: a plat map; storm drainage study; a street name signage plan; a grading, siltation, and erosion control plan; a final stream buffer plan; covenants, conditions, and restrictions; a tree planting plan; and a final site plan for approval.³

On July 29, 2009, the Kansas City Planning and Zoning Committee (watch video) unanimously recommended to the City Council the proposed Shoal Creek Valley Area Plan amendment, rezoning ordinance, and Community Unit Project that would allow construction of the temple and meetinghouse (9.33 acres) and 140 single family residential units (46.72 acres) on a 56-acre tract of land southwest of the intersection of I-435 and NE Shoal Creek Parkway. The project will be built in four phases, likely beginning with the proposed 27.25-acre Central phase, which features the temple, meetinghouse, 41 single family residential units, and about 5 acres of private open space. The primary access to the temple will be from newly constructed Searcy Creek Parkway. The temple, meetinghouse, and parking complex will be bordered by proposed public streets: NE 70th Terrace, NE 70th Street, and N Ewing Avenue.⁴

On June 2, 2009, the City Plan Commission of Kansas City unanimously approved with conditions a set of three proposals by Continental Consulting Engineers, Inc., for a 56-acre tract of land—generally located south of NE Shoal Creek Drive, east of Searcy Creek Parkway, west of Interstate 435 and north of NE Pleasant Valley Road—to (1) amend the Shoal Creek Valley Area Plan by changing the recommended land use designation from retail and residential to residential uses (2) rezone from Districts CP-2 (local planned business center district) and RA (agricultural district) to R-5 (high apartment district) and District R-1a (one-family dwelling district – medium density) and (3) approve a Community Unit Project plan for 140 single family residential units (R1-a zone), and a temple and a chapel (R5 zone).⁵

On May 21, 2009, project representatives held a neighborhood meeting at the new patrol station located south of the temple property. About 20 neighbors accepted the invitation to attend where an explanation of the project was presented and questions were entertained.

On May 20, 2009, the Kansas City Plats Review Committee considered the site plan, filed April 17, 2009, for the Community Unit Project that features the temple, adjoining meetinghouse, and 140 single family residential units. The plan was moved on for review by the City Plan Commission.⁶

In February 2009, it was announced that the Church had selected JE Dunn Construction as the general contractors for the temple. "We are proud and humbled that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints would select JE Dunn as their building partner on the [temple]," said Terry Dunn, CEO. "We look forward to working to provide members of the LDS Church in the Kansas City region a special, holy place to call their own."⁷

At the Liberty Missouri Stake Conference held on Sunday, October 12, 2008, the site for the temple was announced as southwest of the intersection of I-435 and Shoal Creek Parkway. The site is situated on land located near the southern tip of Shoal Creek Valley—a beautiful mixed development owned by the Church in northeast Kansas City, just west of the Liberty Jail Historic Site.⁸

President Thomas S. Monson announced a temple for the greater Kansas City area during his opening remarks of the October 2008 General Conference.⁹ The Church first attempted to build a temple in this area in the 1830s when the early Saints dedicated a temple site in Independence, Missouri in 1831 and farther north in Far West, Missouri in 1838. Those temples were never constructed, however, as the Mormons were driven out of Missouri persuant to an extermination order issued by Governor Lilburn W. Boggs in 1838.

Mormons had also settled in Kansas, but they left when the Church relocated its headquarters to Nauvoo, Illinois, and then to Salt Lake City, Utah. Church members are now found in every major city in the Midwest. Kansas City's first stake was established in 1956. Today there are approximately 100,000 members in Missouri and Kansas organized into 21 stakes where the Church has one operating temple in St. Louis, Missouri.¹⁰

The Kansas City Missouri Temple will be the second temple built in Missouri, following the St. Louis Missouri Temple (1997).