Essential Temple Tee (San Diego)

Location
San Diego, California. The temple stands on a 7.2-acre site in northern San Diego near the La Jolla community, directly beside Interstate 5, at 7474 Charmant Drive. Its district serves about 50,000 members across San Diego County, southern Riverside County, and Yuma, Arizona.

Temple Number
The Church's 45th operating temple at its dedication.

Announced
April 7, 1984, by Gordon B. Hinckley, then a counselor in the First Presidency.

Groundbreaking
February 27, 1988. President Ezra Taft Benson presided and turned the first shovelful of sod; President Thomas S. Monson dedicated the site.

Dedicated
April 25 to 30, 1993, in 23 sessions by Presidents Gordon B. Hinckley and Thomas S. Monson, counselors in the First Presidency, attended by 49,273 people.

Renovated
Closed July 31, 2023, for an extensive renovation. A public open house ran June 18 to July 11, 2026, and the rededication is scheduled for August 23, 2026.

Architecture
William S. Lewis Jr., design architect; Dennis Hyndman, project architect; Shelly Hyndman, interior design architect. A four-story structure of structural steel and precast concrete finished in marblecrete plaster, rising 169 feet, with 58,005 square feet of floor area and ten spires: two central towers, each framed at its base by four smaller spires, with a gilded angel Moroni statue atop the eastern spire.

Ordinance Rooms
Four instruction rooms, six sealing rooms, and a baptistry.

First Temple President
Floyd L. Packard, called as the temple's first president for its 1993 opening, with Alice E. Packard as matron.

• President Ezra Taft Benson presided at the 1988 groundbreaking and turned the first shovelful of sod himself, while his counselor Thomas S. Monson offered the site dedication.
• The gilded angel Moroni statue was set atop the eastern spire on December 23, 1991, well over a year before the building opened.
• The pre-dedication open house ran February 20 to April 3, 1993, and drew about 720,000 visitors, roughly 100,000 more than the 620,000 the Church had expected.

• Ten spires in all: two central towers, each ringed at its base by four smaller spires. When the renovated temple reopened in 2026, the Church described the ten-spire configuration as unlike any other of its temples in the world.
• At the center of the building sits an atrium shaped as an eight-pointed star, formed by two overlapping squares offset 45 degrees and holding a garden, a rare feature among the Church's temples.
• The white exterior glistens in direct sun because marble chips were blown into the wet plaster. Church historian Spencer McBride has compared the effect to the Church's first temple in Kirtland, Ohio, where early members mixed crushed china and glassware into the stucco for the same shimmer.
• The celestial room rises through two levels and is lit by four chandeliers, with fixtures finished in satin gold and set with Asfour crystal; art glass throughout the building runs to gold and tan tones.

• The 2023 to 2026 renovation replaced the aging art glass with insulated units, upgraded the heating and air conditioning systems, repaired the roof, added ADA-compliant bathrooms, and restored the marblecrete facade and landscaping.
• The temple's cafeteria was removed, and the space became an 85-seat waiting room for guests attending weddings.
• The 2026 open house was pitched to neighbors who had watched the building from the freeway for decades but never seen inside; the rededication that follows is scheduled for August 23, 2026.

• The third temple built in California, following Los Angeles (dedicated 1956) and Oakland (1964).
• After the 1993 open house, the San Diego Press Club named the temple its 1993 Headliner of the Year, and the Church's open house effort earned a Silver Anvil Award from the Public Relations Society of America.
• The building is a fixture of local curiosity coverage: The San Diego Union-Tribune counts it among the county's most recognizable landmarks, and a Fox 5 San Diego explainer answered viewers asking about "that castle-like building off the freeway."
• At its dedication the temple district covered about 80,000 members in 21 stakes across four Southern California counties plus five stakes and a mission district in northern Mexico; today it serves about 50,000 members on the United States side of the border.