Preservation Updates: St. George Tabernacle, SLC 5th Ward, and Salt Lake Temple

After all the excitement of the Manti Temple open house, there are a few other interesting news items that have come up in the past few weeks:

St. George Tabernacle closed for another project

Even though it just completed a renovation in 2016-18, the St. George Tabernacle closed this month for another 3-month renovation. The fact that it's so soon after a major renovation--and that it was announced so soon before it closed--tells me that there was some urgent issue that came up. The article mentions painting, roof repairs, and stairs, entries, and exits, so my guess is some leak. I toured the tabernacle just a couple of months ago and it still looks spectacular.

Salt Lake Fifth Ward Partially (and Illegally) Demolished

It's been all over the news, but the Salt Lake 5th Ward, built in 1910 and sold by the Church in 1975, was partially, illegally demolished on Easter Sunday. This is incredibly tragic that someone tried to bypass all of the city and historic codes to presumably do what they want with the property. 

From what I can tell the demolition did most of the entryway and part of the wall of the original chapel. Salt Lake City has said the developer has to rebuild it, so we'll see how it turns out.

Salt Lake Temple Rumors

As the Salt Lake Temple renovation progresses--two years away from its opening--I had a slew of people email me saying they heard that the temple was gutted. While I am as unenthused with the removal of the original baptistry and endowment rooms as anyone, this is not the Logan Temple fiasco all over again. (Prior to this week, I also had several messages from people claiming that the Angel Moroni would not be restored to the temple.)

Still lots of work being done

It appears there was a tweet several months ago that claimed that one of the building managers was in the temple and could see up to the ceiling, hence, the whole temple was gutted. But some basic fact-checking of the tweet showed that Pres. Nelson was standing in the original celestial room a couple weeks after he claimed it was gutted.

I think the entire basement level has been gutted, which would include the original creation room, garden room, and baptistry, to make way for four stationary rooms. To be clear, I still think it's tragic that these spaces were renovated so drastically. But I anticipate the rest of the temple will be preserved pretty well. The world room will be converted to another stationary room, but the terrestrial room shouldn't have any major changes as it changes to a veil room. The celestial room and its sealing rooms should also not see any major changes, nor should the rooms above them (the rooms holding council rooms for leadership of the Church and the assembly hall).

I'm as anxious as anyone to see the results of the renovation. While part of me wishes the Church would take a step similar to Manti and keep the progressive endowment--even with the film--I'm still hopeful that with the exception of the bottom floor, much of the temple is being preserved and even restored.