New LDS Church facility in Provo to house 48 wards, 4 stakes

PROVO — In Utah County, where Mormon meetinghouses number in the many hundreds, the construction of yet another LDS Church building attracts little attention.

But a sign at the corner of 900 East and 300 North in Provo is drawing double takes — it's announcing a new structure for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that will serve 48 wards.

Say what?

To understand the incredibility of a 48-ward ward building among the LDS faithful, one must understand the typical meetinghouse in Utah generally houses from one to three wards (or congregations), with some larger buildings also accommodating administrative offices for stake leaders, who oversee five to a dozen-plus wards.

Meetinghouses are used by each ward for a three-hour block of worship and instructional meetings on Sundays, with various additional activities, administrative meetings, interviews and other gatherings conducted throughout the week.

And scheduling the overlapping meetings and activities of wards sharing the same building can be challenging.

"When everybody hears '48 wards,' they ask, 'how do you circulate 48 wards in just one building?" said Terry Cano, section manager in the Architecture, Engineering and Construction Division of the LDS Church's Meetinghouse Facilities Department.

It's because the new building is not so much a meetinghouse for regular Sunday worship, but rather a dual-purpose "facility" — one, a site to hold stake conference meetings where upwards of 2,000 can be accommodated at one time; and two, a four-pod configuration to house leadership and clerk offices and interview rooms for four stakes and 48 wards of BYU student and young single adult LDS members.

In some parts of Utah, the LDS Church has built large buildings shared by up to eight student/young single adult wards. The massive meetinghouses are complete with two chapels, a shared large cultural hall, administrative offices for eight wards and fewer but larger classrooms, since there's few if any children's classes and no youth classes to worry about.

But this building is even bigger — in size and in the number of units served.

"It's the very first one of its kind," said Cano, admitting the building plan hasn't been given a design name, unlike most meetinghouse plans. "We don't know if it will ever be built again."

But it could be feasible in similar areas of high LDS student concentrations near a church campus, such as BYU-Idaho or BYU-Hawaii