Construction crews are steadily building up the new Lone Mountain Nevada Temple in the northwest Las Vegas valley, with exterior work now visible from surrounding streets near Hickman Avenue. The project has been years in the making, shaped by a bitter local fight over its height, lighting, and place in a rural preservation neighborhood.
According to 8 News Now, the station checked in on progress at the site, which sits on 19.8 acres between North Grand Canyon Drive and Tee Pee Lane. The complex, designed by architectural firm PGAL, includes a three-story, 70,194-square-foot temple, a 15,982-square-foot meetinghouse, an 1,807-square-foot grounds building, and an 1,800-square-foot pavilion, per ChurchofJesusChristTemples.org. The design calls for precast concrete cladding and a central tower topped with a gold-colored dome.
The most recent construction milestone came in June, when crews mounted a precast concrete panel inscribed with “Holiness to the Lord: The House of the Lord” over the temple's front portico as exterior cladding progressed upward, the church-run site notes. That inscription, drawn from Exodus 28:36, is carved into every operating Latter-day Saint temple.
A Long Road to Groundbreaking
Getting to this point required a series of compromises and a court fight. The Las Vegas City Council voted unanimously, 7-0, on July 17, 2024, to approve the project after church representatives agreed to lower the central steeple from 216 feet to 196 feet, sidestepping a Federal Aviation Administration rule requiring a blinking red light on structures taller than 200 feet. Church leaders also agreed to dim exterior lighting and adjust nighttime hours to address neighbors' concerns, according to ChurchofJesusChristTemples.org.
That approval followed months of vocal opposition from nearby residents, who argued the tall structure would spoil mountain views and disrupt the area's rural character. In April 2024, ahead of public hearings, opponents tethered a 7-foot weather balloon 216 feet in the air at the proposed site to give surrounding homeowners a visual sense of just how tall the original spire design would have been.
Official groundbreaking and site dedication took place on September 25, 2025, in a ceremony presided over by Elder Michael A. Dunn, First Counselor in the church's United States Southwest Area Presidency, per ChurchofJesusChristTemples.org. Hoodline previously covered the ceremony amid ongoing legal challenges to the project.
Legal Challenges and Lighting Rules
Opponents did not stop at the council vote. In February 2025, Clark County District Court Judge Ronald Israel dismissed a lawsuit challenging the city's approval, ruling that the plaintiff nonprofit, the Nevada Rural Preservation Alliance, lacked standing under Nevada law because it had formed only after the City Council already made its zoning decision, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. The group later petitioned the Nevada Supreme Court in April 2025.
Around the same time, the Las Vegas City Council affirmed a dark-sky ordinance restricting nighttime exterior light emission levels and operating hours for developments within rural preservation zones, the Review-Journal reported. Church legal counsel had confirmed the temple's lights would face inward and comply with the dimming rules.
Why Las Vegas Needs a Second Temple
The push for a second Las Vegas temple stems from sheer demand. Nevada is home to roughly 180,000 members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints across more than 360 congregations, representing about 6% of the state's population as of 2025, according to ChurchofJesusChristTemples.org. Latter-day Saint pioneers first established a presence in the Las Vegas valley in 1855.
Before the Lone Mountain project was approved, the existing Las Vegas Nevada Temple, built in 1989, served 31 geographic stakes — nearly three times the church's global average of 11.25 stakes per temple — a strain that created severe scheduling congestion during weekend operating hours, per Meridian Magazine. A stake is an administrative unit comprising 3,000 to 5,000 members. Once complete, Lone Mountain will be the second LDS temple in the Las Vegas valley, making Las Vegas the ninth city worldwide to host more than one operating temple, joining Nevada's other temples in Reno and Elko.
Hoodline first reported on the council's initial review and community debate over the project in mid-2024, and later covered the lawsuit filed against the city's approval. No completion date for the temple has been announced.
