SALT LAKE CITY — It's a symbol of church headquarters, and to Mormon
leaders it's even a miracle maker.
The mountainous, 28-story Church Office
Building soars above North Temple Street, where it has been the nerve
center for the tremendous growth of The Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints for the nearly 35 years since its dedication.
"The Church Office Building has served
very, very well for 35 years as kind of a symbol of church
headquarters," Bishop H. David Burton, presiding bishop of the church,
said in a recent interview with the Deseret News.
__IMAGE1__"What do you see when you come into the
valley?" he said. "You certainly see most prominently the lovely Capitol
building and some of the buildings downtown, but this building is very
visible and very symbolic, that this is the international headquarters
of the church. More than any other single thing, that established the
international aspect of the church — here was the spot from which the
church would go forward around the world. What has happened in the 35
years since has been a miracle."
The towering, 420-foot-high building,
which houses the administrative support staff for the LDS Church, turns
35 on July 24, having been dedicated in 1975, though it was in partial
use by 1972.
"It has served well, indeed," Bishop
Burton said. "It has been a great blessing. I don't know if there are
very many people around who could remember that period of time, but
church entities were spread to virtually all four corners of this city —
spread out and housed in 20 to 30 different locations. The opportunity
of bringing together the operational aspects of the church into a single
place brought a lot of synergism, a lot of efficiency — and it also
brought a togetherness not formerly possible with people so spread out,
particularly the General Authorities."
Although the Joseph Smith Memorial
Building directly honors the first president of the church, the Church
Office Building was originally envisioned to do so too — with a planned
38 floors, to commemorate the 38 years of Joseph Smith's life.
The 38 floors didn't materialize — for a
variety of reasons — or the building would have soared more than 500
feet high.
So, what happened to the additional 10
stories?
J. Howard Dunn, who
was in charge of project development for the LDS Church's building
committee, said in a 1962 Church News article that the plans were
changed and eight stories were scrapped to better meet mechanical
requirements of the engineering department. Heating and air conditioning
for the skyscraper would best be handled in 14-story units, beginning
above the first two floors. At that time, the high-rise was to be 30
stories. Later, two more stories were also eventually deleted from that
plan.
__IMAGE2__The building height was reduced for two
other reasons as well: First, construction began on the Granite Records
Vault in Little Cottonwood Canyon in 1960 and reduced the downtown
office building space needed; second, departing missionaries were to be
housed elsewhere, again reducing required space.
The original building plans had called
for housing space for up to 430 outgoing missionaries in the first few
floors of the Church Office Building. As it turned out, missionaries
were housed across the street to the north in an old school until the
Missionary Training Center opened in Provo in 1978. (Missionaries were
fed in the Church Office Building cafeteria in the early 1970s.)
The Church Office Building cost $31.4
million (the equivalent of about $185 million today). The new building
led to the substantial widening of North Temple and State streets, too.
"The building is designed for immediate
and future needs of the church," Mark B. Garff, chairman of the church
building committee, told the Deseret News in 1969.
George Cannon Young designed the
building, which was under design as early as 1961. The old Deseret
Gymnasium, 37 E. South Temple, had to be relocated across the street to
where the LDS Conference Center is now. Some LDS Business College
buildings and other structures also had to be moved to make room.
Work on the three-story, underground,
1,400-space parking structure — Utah's largest building excavation at
the time — began first in 1962 and was finished by about 1967. The
extracted dirt, 250,000 cubic yards, provided fill material for original
I-15 construction in Salt Lake County.
When completed, the Church Office
Building also allowed the church to temporarily house all General
Authorities there while doing a substantial remodel of the Church
Administration Building, 47 E. South Temple.
"You'll remember when this (Church
Office) Building was first built, this is the floor (the 18th Floor) the
First Presidency occupied for several years," Bishop Burton recalled.
"When this building was completed, the Administration Building was then
torn apart and restructured as it currently is, and all the church
departments formerly packed in that building like sardines were now over
here or in other places, and it was time to make that truly the
administrative nerve center of the church."
Bishop Burton continued: "My memory is
that it was President Kimball's administration that occupied these three
offices that the Presiding Bishopric now occupies, just as they were
built 35 years ago. For the better part of two years, this was the home
of the First Presidency."
Constructed prior to
today's more stringent seismic codes, there's occasional debate of how
the building would fare during a major earthquake.
"Building codes have changed some, and if
we were to build this building again today, we'd build it probably the
same way but probably with a little more stringent standards," Bishop
Burton said. "It's good, it's served well, it's been a great asset to
the church in every way. It has been a marvelous addition to church
headquarters."
The building also remains a top Utah
tourist attraction, with thousands each year who enjoy the commanding,
bird's-eye view from the 26th floor observation deck — some 400 feet
high.
"Enjoy a magnificent view of the Wasatch
mountain range on the east, the Oquirrh range to the west, and the state
Capitol building (patterned after the nation's Capitol) to the north,"
reads a section on places to visit at lds.org. "A view from this observation deck is a
great way to become oriented on your visit to Salt Lake City."
Visitors to the Church Office Building
may also want to admire some of the first floor lobby's artwork.
Visitor hours at the Church Office
Building are April through September, weekdays, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Call
1-801-240-1000 for more visitor information.
E-mail: lynn@desnews.com; taylor@desnews.com