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No Comments [ Add Comment ]New LDS welfare complex nearly ready in Layton
By BRYON SAXTONLAYTON -- The multimillion-dollar Deseret Industries and Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints welfare complex here is scheduled to open its doors to the public this fall.
The 65,000-square-foot complex at 930 W. Hill Field Road consists of the store, family services offices, an employment center, management headquarters, a Bishop's Storehouse and dry-pack canning center. It will open to the public Oct. 16.
The complex is more than twice the size of the donation store at 1010 W. Hill Field Road.
"It's basically to fill the needs. The old (store) wasn't big enough," said project manager Greg Flint, with Jacobsen Construction Company of Salt Lake City.
The move to the new site, about 200 yards east from the existing store, also allows the church to get into a building that it owns own, he said.
The church has been leasing the 30,000- square-foot building it operates out of in Layton from an out-of-state owner.
"They had owned that (new land site) for quite some time," Flint said. "It's a good retail location near Wal-Mart and Sam's Club."
The 5-acre parcel also allows for the church welfare complex to include with it a Bishop's Storehouse, offering products and goods for welfare recipients and a home storage center that offers the ability to dry-pack canned goods.
Of the 10 distribution centers Jacobsen construction has built for the church, Flint said, the facility to open in Layton is the largest.
"This is the largest facility they have done because it incorporates the Bishop's Storehouse and home storage center," he said.
Most of the exterior work on the project has been completed, including the parking lot, with furnishings and store merchandise to begin being moved sometime next week, Flint said.
The LDS Church will be using donated items it has received from the public in other areas to originally stock the Layton store for its opening, he said.
The complex will also serve as group office for the management team that oversees the operation of the Deseret Industries properties located throughout Northern Utah.
Flint said the Oct. 16 opening is firm and should not change unless there is some type of catastrophe.
With the new Deseret Industries store only a few months away from opening, Layton city officials are already looking for tenants to fill the building to be left unoccupied.
The city is working with the out-of-state building owner and those local property brokers who represent them in finding a tenant for the building, said Ben Hart, city economic development specialist.
"That really will be a prime real estate spot," Hart said. "The city has been working with a few possibilities that could come in and take that space as soon as the Deseret Industries vacates the building for their new facility."
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