Hello again, everyone! As I predicted, today, the Church announced the latest major temple construction update has been announced. But contrary to what I had supposed, today's announcement did not include opening arrangements for the Red Cliffs Utah Temple. Instead, the First Presidency confirmed the site location and preliminary information for the Bakersfield California Temple, and an exterior rendering for the Cleveland Ohio Temple.
Let's break down the details: The Bakersfield California Temple was announced in April of this year. In addition to the 30,000-square-foot single-story temple, the Church will also be building a distribution center and a new meetinghouse at the northwest corner of Jewetta Avenue and Stockdale Highway in Bakersfield. Meanwhile, the site location and preliminary information were confirmed for the Cleveland Ohio Temple on December 19 of last year.
The single-story temple of approximately 9,950 square feet will be built south of Longano Dr., Independence, Cuyahoga County. The current status of that temple suggests it is another that is being fast-tracked to the construction phase. The exterior rendering does not suggest this will be another modular temple, but since it is a smaller one, and because approvals are well underway for it, hopefully we will see a groundbreaking announcement soon.
In view of today's announcement, of the 79 announced temples, 46 have not yet had official information confirmed. Having covered these developments, I wanted to post a few thoughts about the timing for the opening arrangements for the next few temples. The announcement of opening arrangements for the Orem Utah Temple was made on Tuesday, June 20, with a dedication set for January 21, 2024.
If we assume that the Red Cliffs Utah Temple dedication will have a similar length of time between the announcement of opening arrangements and the subsequent dedication, and we assume that the opening arrangements for that temple will be released next week, the dedication of the Red Cliffs Utah Temple is likely to be held sometime in March.
I still don't know whether construction for the Puebla Mexico Temple is still being halted by the government, but we do know that that temple, in addition to those in Layton Utah, Salta Argentina, and Coban Guatemala, is nearing completion. So I think the Layton temple could be dedicated in either March or April, the Salta temple in April, the Coban temple in April or May, and the Puebla Temple in May.
The next 3 temples likely to be dedicated are, in order, Casper Wyoming, Taylorsville Utah, and Urdaneta Philippines, with a May or June window for Casper, a June window for Taylorsville, and a late June or early August dedication for the Urdaneta temple. Of course, these are no more and no less than my own projections, and they are subject to confirmation, correction, or clarification by an official announcement from the Church.
Whatever might happen with temple construction updates, you can count on my bringing word thereof to you all as I receive it. I also am continuing to monitor all Church News and Newsroom updates and will likewise pass word of those along to you all here as I receive it. In the meantime, that does it for now. All comments are, as always, welcome and appreciated on any post at any time, as long as the offered feedback is made per the established guidelines.
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