On April 6, 1996, Gordon B. Hinckley, President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced plans to construct, a new house of worship to replace the Salt Lake Tabernacle. The new building would be much larger, and able to accommodate three or four times the number as could be seated in the old tabernacle. The building became known as the Conference Center.
On July 24, 1997 ground was broken and the construction of the Conference Center began. During construction, nearly 750,000 cubic yards of dirt were excavated and 15,000 tons of concrete steel, and 10,000 tons of structural steel were used to build the building. Church leaders wanted the outside of the building to made of granite, similar to the Salt Lake Temple . Granite was quarried from Little Cottonwood quarry and used to make the exterior of the building.
In terms of size, the Conference Center is huge. It has 1.4 million square feet of floor space, and covers 10 acres or an entire city block (and the same amount of space that all of Temple Square sits on). The Center can seat 21,000 people, more than any other religious auditorium in the world and there are 13,000 parking spaces. It also houses an 850 seat theatre. There are also no visible pillars inside, so there are no bad seats. The organ in the Conference Center has 7,667 pipes. About 50,000 miles of electrical wire, enough to wrap around the world twice, were used to wire the Conference Center.
The building was completed in Spring of 2000, just in time to hold April Conference in the building. About 370,000 people inquired about tickets for this first General Conference in the Conference Center. The Conference Center was formally dedicated on October 8, 2000. It is mostly used for General Conference meetings which are held each year on the first weekends in April and October. However it is also sometimes used for concerts and other large meetings. Free tours are given daily.