DiscussMormonism.com

From thousands of acres of farmlands to thousands of places of worship and from shiny commercial enclaves in urban centers to flowing fields in swelling suburbs, a newly released list shows The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints owns U.S. properties valued at nearly $16 billion and ranks the Utah-based faith among the nation’s top private landholders.

It may be no surprise that a growing pioneer-era church with millions of members — and devoted to acquiring land, cultivating crops, erecting temples and building Zion — would today hold vast expanses of property.

Still, the sheer scope of church-held domestic real estate yields mind-stretching numbers. And the findings emerge when many Latter-day Saints and church observers are already agog at other recently reported multibillion-dollar figures associated with the faith’s wealth.

This latest cache of data — captured in 2020 and released Tuesday by the Truth & Transparency Foundation (formerly known as MormonLeaks) — reveals a nearly 16,000-parcel collection of 1.7 million acres held by identified LDS Church firms. While the list is not complete, it nonetheless shows church lands in every state, just about every sizable metropolitan area and big blankets of territory in between.

Found in the church’s portfolio — along with the expected meetinghouses and temples — are office towers, shopping centers, residential skyscrapers, cattle ranches and high-mountain timberlands worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

The faith is now Florida’s biggest landowner, controlling well above 2% of its landmass, including an enormous collection of pasturelands outside resort-rich Orlando called Deseret Ranches and a recently acquired expanse of hundreds of thousands of forested acres in the Panhandle.

Spanning out from Temple Square, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints owns almost 150 acres of real estate downtown worth at least $2.3 billion.

Visitors to downtown Salt Lake City can’t miss the timeless granite edifices of Temple Square, but The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has a less obvious real estate empire that stretches beyond those blocks in many directions.

The late apostle N. Eldon Tanner, counselor to four Latter-day Saint presidents and the faith’s financial whiz, often referred to downtown as “the church’s living room.”

And the Utah-based church of 16.8 million members worldwide owns a lion’s share of the layout, property records show, including almost 10 blocks in the east-west corridor around the Salt Lake Temple between North Temple and South Temple as well as hundreds of other parcels scattered nearby.

A new analysis reveals a portfolio of downtown church lands worth at least $2.3 billion at full market value, owned in priceless religious and historic sites and surrounding blocks filled with administrative buildings, a luxury retail mall, office and residential towers and lots and lots of parking stalls.

That’s about a quarter of all of downtown’s $9.8 billion in land and buildings, much of it tied to a rich pioneer history and run by ecclesiastical leaders and church firms whose planning timelines often stretch for generations.

An investigation by Truth & Transparency into the landholdings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—commonly referred to as the Mormon Church or LDS Church—has shed light on how expansive and diverse their real estate portfolio is. While the church has never been listed among the largest private landowners in the US, this newly compiled data places them in the top five in terms of acreage and likely number one in terms of market value.

Wonhyo wrote: ↑

Thu Dec 08, 2022 4:11 pm

Years ago, when it was understood that the church had plenty of property but its degree of wealth was not yet publicly known, I asked my TBM dad for his opinion on why the church was stockpiling money and assets.

His response had nothing to do with enabling the church to lift the poor, provide healthcare and education to the needy. He said it was so that when Jesus returns he can be presented with a portfolio of wealth to help him kickstart the Millennium, to have the needed funds to build tens of thousands of temples, to fund a hyper-expanded missionary program, etc.

I don't think my dad's opinion was that far off from the opinions of any other Joe-six-pack-of-Diet-Coke in Mormondom. Jesus apparently needs earthly property and income, even during the Millennium when the world is supposedly going to be living a sort of financial consecration.