First Presidency releases Tacoma Washington Temple site

The First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has released the location of the Tacoma Washington Temple, one of six houses of the Lord in the Pacific Northwest state.

The site announcement includes the first details of the future temple.

Planned as a multistory structure of approximately 45,000 square feet, the Tacoma Washington Temple will be built on a 11.6-acre site at 1405 S. 364th Way, Federal Way, Washington. An accompanying utility building is planned for the site as well.

The temple site is three miles south of central Federal Way, six miles northeast of Tacoma and 23 miles south of downtown Seattle. Federal Way and Tacoma are part of the greater Seattle metropolitan area.

The site release was first published Monday, Sept. 16, on ChurchofJesusChrist.org.

President Russell M. Nelson announced a future house of the Lord for the Tacoma area on Oct. 2, 2022, one of 18 temple locations he identified at the conclusion of October 2022 general conference.

President Nelson’s announcement included a promise and an invitation. “I promise that increased time in the temple will bless your life in ways nothing else can,” he said, later adding, “May you focus on the temple in ways you never have before.”

Washington is home to more than 281,000 Latter-day Saints in nearly 490 congregations and four operating houses of the Lord — the Seattle Washington Temple (dedicated in 1980), the Spokane Washington Temple (1999), the Columbia River Washington Temple (2001) and the Moses Lake Washington Temple (2023). The Vancouver Washington Temple was announced on Oct. 1, 2023, with its site identified on Feb. 26, 2024, and an exterior rendering released earlier this month.

The Church of Jesus Christ in Washington dates back to the mid-19th century, when four missionaries laboring in the area of California were sent into the Washington and Oregon territories. Enough converts joined to create a congregation just north of present-day Vancouver along the Lewis River, a tributary of the Columbia River.

Many Church members helped with the 1880s railroad construction of the Northern Pacific Oregon Short Line in Washington. In 1930, Church membership in the state totaled 1,900 in eight congregations, with chapels in Seattle, Spokane, Olympia and Everett.

Completed in the early 1940s, the Grand Coulee Dam on the Columbia River in central Washington produced hydroelectric power and increased irrigation water, resulting in many Latter-day Saints moving into the area and the state.