Ft. Lauderdale Florida Temple
That a Mormon temple would be built in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, was announced by Prophet and President Thomas S. Monson at the Saturday morning session of the 179th semi-annual General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on October 3, 2009.
The new temple serves members living in South Florida, the Florida Keys, and the Bahamas. Members in this region were required in the past to travel to the Orlando Florida Temple (dedicated in 1994) to participate in the Church's highest ordinances.
The new temple is located at the northeast corner of Interstate 75 and Griffin Road on SW 154th Avenue in Davie, Florida. It sits on a 30-acre triangular lot. The gorgeous 28,000-square-foot building was described in permit application materials as “an interpretation of Neoclassicism with arches, columns and a steeple.”
A groundbreaking was announced for Saturday, June 18, 2011, at 10:00 a.m. Due to parking restrictions, attendance at the groundbreaking was by invitation only. However, the groundbreaking was scheduled to be televised via closed-circuit transmission to various Mormon meetinghouses.
The First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced open house and dedication dates for the Fort Lauderdale Florida Temple. The public was invited to visit the temple during an open house from Saturday, 29 March, through 19 April 2014, excluding Sundays. Free reservations for the open house could be made through the fortlauderdalemormontemple.org website. The formal dedication of the temple was scheduled for May 4, 2014, held in three dedicatory sessions. Members could obtain conditional worthiness recommends from their bishops to attend dedication sessions broadcast to local stake centers, while full worthiness recommends are always required for entering a temple dedication inside the temple and thereafter, when the temple is closed to the public and dedicated for sacred ordinances.
The Fort Lauderdale Florida Temple will be the 143rd operating temple of the Church worldwide and the second in the state. The Orlando Temple, dedicated in 1994, was the first Latter-day Saint temple built in the Sunshine State.
For more photographs of the Fort Lauderdale Mormon Temple, click here. To read the text of the dedicatory prayer offered by President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, Second Counselor in the First Prsidency, at the dedication services click here.
