Membership growth spurs LDS expansion

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is poised for expansion in Glendale and throughout the West Valley as construction has started on a retail service center and a warehouse and office complex.

The two buildings, located near West Bell Road and North 67th Avenue and close to the Kmart and Chuck E. Cheeses, will span nearly 70,000 square feet and cost almost $10 million, according to building permits the city issued in December.

It is anticipated that the opening will occur sometime in the first quarter of 2016, said Jennifer Wheeler, a spokesperson for the churchs Greater Phoenix Public Affairs Council.

The first building will contain a Deseret Industries retail store and an employment resource center. Future expansion could include a family history center, where people can do genealogical research, according to the citys building design review narrative.

The second building will have a bishops storehouse, to which local church leaders can refer the poor and needy for commodities; a center for food storage and commercial packaging; and offices to oversee missionary efforts in the region and where church members can receive counseling.

The services available at those buildings will be familiar to many church members.

The Deseret Industries chain operates 43 stores in seven western states with significant numbers of church members. Arizona already has two DI stores, with one each in Mesa and Phoenix. The Glendale DI will replace the one in Phoenix, Wheeler said.

Arizona has four home storage centers, where church members often package food that they plan to store for months or years, but the only one serving the Valley is in Mesa. The new center in Glendale will help meet the demand in the Phoenix area.

The Church makes every effort to construct facilities where there is a concentration of members to allow them to worship and have other support services that are convenient for them to access, Wheeler said.

The mission office slated for Glendale might house the staff for the already-existing Arizona Phoenix Mission, since the church did not announce any new Arizona missions at the start of this year, according to an article in the Deseret News.

Go here to read the rest:
Membership growth spurs LDS expansion