When giving slide presentations about the new Conference Center, project engineer Paul Sandler enjoys displaying a fanciful diagram of a Boeing 747 jet enclosed within the 21,000-seat auditorium.
"I was giving this presentation a few weeks ago, and there was a pilot in the audience; he wanted to know who was going to land the plane," Brother Sandler remarked recently to a gathering of former members of Relief Society general boards.Whimsical though it may be, the drawing gives some sense of the magnitude of this historic new edifice which will now fill the function that the Salt Lake Tabernacle has for the past 133 years.
As President Gordon B. Hinckley foretold at the groundbreaking on July 24, 1997, the Conference Center becomes "another symbol of the strength and dedication of the Latter-day Saint people."
Brother Sandler noted that it is the largest building in the world in which all the seats face toward a rostrum on one side instead of surrounding the focal point in arena fashion, as do other huge halls.
All the seats have an unencumbered view of the pulpit and are situated on plaza, terrace and balcony levels.
Two unique design criteria characterize the conference center: It has a life expectancy of 150 years, compared with most public buildings, which are designed to last between 40 and 75 years. And it exceeds the seismic requirements for the area in which it is located, conforming to a seismic zone 4, comparable to earthquake prone areas of California, instead of zone 3.
Construction of the building required an excavation of 750,000 cubic yards of earth. Some 116,000 cubic yards of concrete was poured in its place. By comparison, the average home would have about 100 cubic yards of concrete, "so we've poured the equivalent of 1,116 homes on that block," Brother Sandler noted.
Supporting the concrete is 15,000 tons of reinforcing steel. In some of the footings, the reinforcement bar is 21/2 inches in diameter.
The building is held up by 11,000 tons, or 22 million pounds, of structural steel.
The walls enclose 1.2 million square feet, plus another 450,000 square feet of parking structure.
The building features a complete broadcast studio and 56 language-translation booths.
More than 50,000 miles of electrical wire extend throughout the building, enough to circle the earth twice. All that is housed within 780 miles of conduit, enough to extend from Salt Lake City to the California coast. And the heating and air-conditioning duct work amounts to 14 miles, enough to extend from Salt Lake City to Bountiful, Utah.
The building is served by 15 elevators and 12 escalators.
And it will feature the largest organ in the world. (The organ will not be fully installed until after conference; other arrangements have been made for organ music to accompany the singing at April conference.)
Before the Conference Center is dedicated at October general conference this year, more than 4 million man-hours will have been expended in its construction.
Within the main hall or auditorium, the pulpit is situated in front of the General Authority seating, which in turn is in front of the choir seats and organ.
In the northwest corner of the building is a theater with 1,000 seats. Adjacent to the auditorium and theater is an area of lobbies, rest rooms, public spaces and mechanical spaces. All this is above the parking garage, which features about 1,400 parking stalls.
A tunnel system about mid-block connects to the existing tunnel system under Temple Square, allowing General Authorities and other dignitaries access to it under North Temple Street between the temple block and the Conference Center.
The roof of the center features four acres of landscaping. It is accessed by two sets of stairs, one leading from North Temple Street and the other from 200 North. Atop the roof is a large water feature that cascades down to reflecting pools along both sides of the stairway, along a reflecting pool across the front, and down to another water feature along the front of the building.
The water feature is designed to center on the gates of Temple Square, affording an attractive view of the water feature from the temple grounds.
The stairs traverse the reflecting pools via four bridges. Glass in the bridges allows a view of the water feature underneath.
"All of this grandeur, all of these enormous statistics are mind boggling, yet they are there for one simple purpose, and that is to make our lives better, to encourage every human being on the face of the earth to follow our Savior," Brother Sandler remarked.