The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints plans to build its new, 9,950-square-foot Cody temple just west of the city’s golf course.

Last week, the church acquired a 4.69-acre parcel of vacant land that sits just northwest of the intersection of Skyline Drive and the Cody Canal.

The LDS church announced its plans to build a Cody temple in October 2021 and revealed the location and the single-story building’s square footage on Monday.

Although the deed to the Cody property wasn’t officially transferred to the church until last week, the transaction had been in the works for some time. Cody City Planner Todd Stowell said the property’s boundary was adjusted in September in anticipation of the church using it as the temple site, and the boundary was tweaked again in December.

The Salt Lake City-based organization acquired the property from a trust owned by Glenn and Erica Nielson of Cody.

“As members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we’re excited for the prospect of a temple in the Cody area and think it’s a sacred place and a spiritual place that I hope in the grander sense can just be a good influence on our community and for all people,” Glenn Nielson said.

The Nielson family’s own residence is near the site and Glenn said he’s sensitive to the concerns some neighbors may have about the impact of the new development. But he expects the temple won’t disrupt the neighborhood, and will instead add a nice religious feeling.

“I hope it really is a good thing for the area,” Glenn Nielson said.

The Nielsons own another home near the LDS temple in Billings, and he said it’s “just a fairly peaceful, quiet place where my kids literally ride their trikes around the sidewalk, and do so comfortably and safely.”

Cody Mayor Matt Hall called the location a nice spot, saying he thinks it offers enough space and won’t bring a huge increase in traffic for residents on Skyline Drive and nearby areas.

“It will be an exciting addition for our community,” Hall said.

Constructing such a large building will require a review by the city government, though Hall predicted that “obviously they’ll do a good job” constructing it.

“There will be some type of public process,” said Stowell, the planner. Whether that will involve the city’s planning and zoning board or city council will depend on how the plans for the building proceed, he said.

At this early stage, “a lot of stuff I just don’t know yet,” Stowell said Monday.

The church has not yet announced a timeline for construction. In the case of a temple in Casper that’s now under construction, the 10,000-square-foot facility was announced in April 2021 and work began that October. The church hopes to complete the building late this year or in early 2024.

Temples differ from the church’s meetinghouses or chapels, which a lay person might refer to as a church building. While anyone is welcome to visit an LDS meetinghouse, only faithful members of the church may enter temples once they have been formally dedicated.

Andy Jacobsen, a Powell resident and president of the Cody Wyoming Stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said temples are places of reverent worship for members. Temples are where members make covenants and ordinances “that bind us and point us toward our heavenly father and his son Jesus Christ, our savior,” he said. The sacred ceremonies include marriages and proxy baptisms on behalf of deceased ancestors.

Jacobsen said there are roughly 7,800 members of the LDS church in the Big Horn Basin and the new site in Cody will provide them with easier access to a temple; currently, local church members need to drive to Billings. 

The new location in Cody “means we have greater access to the spiritual gains we get from visiting the temple,” Jacobsen said.

The Cody temple will ultimately be the LDS church’s third in Wyoming, following the one now under construction in Casper and an 18,600 square foot temple that opened in Afton in 2016.