PHILADELPHIA — After months of uncertainty as the city threatened to seize the land, construction of a $70 million Mormon temple near Logan Square will not only proceed but will help make the Parkway "one of the most incredible boulevards anywhere in the world," Mayor Nutter said Monday.
The 68,000-square-foot Philadelphia Temple at 17th and Vine Streets will create 300 building jobs and 50 permanent jobs, and attract 400,000 visitors a year, bringing "tens of millions of dollars of additional spending" to the city, Nutter said at a news conference.
Groundbreaking is expected late this year or early next year, according to officials of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The site is close to the Free Library, the Roman Catholic Cathedral Basilica of SS. Peter and Paul, and the future Barnes Collection. It will include a visitor center and a genealogical research facility as well as the temple, which is open to Mormons only for religious rites.
The prospect of an LDS temple in Philadelphia had seemed increasingly remote during the last two years.