The Mormon Church has picked a site for its new Tacoma Temple. It won’t be in T-town

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has chosen the location for its 45,000-square-foot Tacoma Temple.

It’ll be in Federal Way, the church announced Monday.

The name and location isn’t a mismatch, according to Clay and Mary Lu Dickinson, spokespeople for the LDS Tacoma coordinating council.

“The Seattle temple is actually in Bellevue,” Mary Lu Dickinson said. “(A temple is) often named after the largest city it’s by or the general area.”

In October 2022, the LDS church announced the selection of Tacoma and three other U.S. cities that would be getting a temple in the coming years.

The 11.6-acre site is located at approximately 1405 South 364th Way, adjacent to Interstate 5. The location is south of Todd Beamer High School and west of Wild Waves theme and water park.

The temple will serve LDS members from Port Angeles to Olympia and east to Puyallup.

Timeline

The Dickinsons didn’t know when ground would be broken for the temple, but Clay Dickinson said they are usually completed within three years of a location announcement. They also didn’t know if it would be visible from I-5.

“I think members of our church want it to be,” Mary Lu Dickinson said.

The announcement comes two months after Sound Transit said it would be purchasing and demolishing a megachurch to the north of the temple site in order to build a light rail operations and maintenance facility for the Tacoma Dome Link Extension.

David Jackson, a spokesperson for Sound Transit, said Monday that the route through the area the temple will be built has yet to be chosen. According to maps, two of the four proposed routes would skirt I-5 adjacent to or on the Tacoma Temple site. The line won’t reach Tacoma until 2035.

Church officials generally decline discussing the church’s finances, including the cost of building temples.

Temple use

“Everything in the temple points to Christ and helps us return to his presence,” Clay Dickinson said.

LDS temples are used for marriages and making covenants and ordinances.

“The promises we make in the temple help us strengthen our families, be better neighbors and members of our community,” Mary Lu Dickinson said. “It’s the most sacred place we feel we have on the Earth.”

The temple grounds will be open to the general public. However, the building itself will be open to the public only during an initial open house before it becomes permanently open only to LDS members.

The LDS church said more than 280,000 members worship in over 480 congregations in Washington. The first branch of the LDS in Washington was organized Dec. 24, 1899 in Tacoma, according to Clay Dickinson.

Washington has four temples — in Bellevue, Spokane, Richland and the newest one in Moses Lake.