Preserving Salt Lake Temple was 'nothing short of another miracle,' project official says

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• The Salt Lake Temple's seismic retrofitting is hailed as a 'miracle' by project official.
• Georges Bonnet detailed the complex project at the University of Utah lecture.
• The temple's open house is set for April 5 to Oct. 1, 2027.

SALT LAKE CITY — A multiyear effort to seismically secure the iconic Salt Lake Temple, which is nearing its end, has been about as impressive as the original 40-year construction of it, one of the project officials believes.

"(Its initial construction) is nothing short of a miracle, just the like the work we have done the past seven years is nothing short of another miracle," Georges Bonnet, director of communications for the Salt Lake Temple and Temple Square renovation project, told a crowded auditorium at the University of Utah on Wednesday.

Bonnet spent over an hour explaining everything from the laborious process of seismically retrofitting the building to the deep meaning that it and other temples have for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as part of the university's William R. and Erlyn J. Gould Distinguished Lecture on Technology and the Quality of Life.

The Salt Lake Temple first opened in 1893. Buildings constantly experience wear and tear over time, but many Wasatch Front construction projects only began to incorporate ways to offset seismic concerns after deeper research into the Wasatch Fault was released in the 1970s.

Thus, church officials said the temple would undergo structural and seismic renovations to better withstand large earthquakes when repairs were first announced in 2019. Bonnet shied away from calling it a renovation project, instead calling it a "renewal" of the building, something that was included in the project's mission statement.

"This is a renewal of the great legacy of the past, and that is to be extended for a very, very long time," he said.

Construction began in 2019, and scaffolding around the temple only came down earlier this year, as most of the remaining work shifted to interior improvements, before it reopens next year.

Over that time, crews learned about the original construction and other decisions as they dug underneath its foundation to install the complex system that seeks to limit damage from earthquakes. Soil studies suggested that Brigham Young chose the right place for the temple, Bonnet explained.

The land's soil-bearing capacity far exceeded what's considered good, and it's much higher than other locations in the downtown area, meaning crews didn't need to substitute the soil or compact it during the project.

The new base isolation system it now sits on isn't new technology, even for the state. The Utah Capitol and Salt Lake City-County Building are among the historic buildings in the state that have been seismically retrofitted over the years.

What's different is the lengths that went into the temple project, which has been the "most complex project the church has ever undertaken," Bonnet said.

The 187 million-pound temple now rests on the base isolation system. A series of steel cables were installed throughout, running from new trusses that were installed at its roof to the building's base to structurally reinforce it.

Some of it is new to historic preservation.

"What is novel about this project is the jack-and-bore pipes under the foundations. That had never been done under a building," he said, noting that previous techniques weren't possible. "Building the transfer girders to transfer the load of the temple through the existing foundation into the new seismically-designed foundation — that has also not been done, as far as we know."

The temple's preservation was part of an even larger project that included renovations to historic buildings within Temple Square, as well as a redesign of the landscape of the square.

Most of the full project area has already reopened, but planning and preparations are still underway for when the temple's open house takes place from April 5, 2027, to Oct. 1, 2027, before the temple is rededicated.

The first million tickets were reserved within 24 hours, and a second wave of tickets went up for reservation this week.

"These upcoming reservation releases are part of the planned approach to accommodate as many visitors as possible," church officials said in a statement last week.

The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.

Related topics

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day SaintsUtahSalt Lake CountyHistoricReligion

Carter Williams

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Carter Williams is a reporter for KSL. He covers Salt Lake City, statewide transportation issues, outdoors, the environment and weather. He is a graduate of Southern Utah University.