President Gordon B. Hinckley announced in the opening session of conference on Saturday, April 6 that Church architects and engineers are working to design a new meeting hall that will hold three to four times more people than the Tabernacle.

"As I indicated last October," President Hinckley explained, "this historic and wonderful Tabernacle is becoming increasingly inadequate in accommodating all who wish to attend these conferences and other large gatherings."He called the project a "big undertaking," but said the Church today "can do this more easily in our circumstances than could our forbearers in their circumstances when they built this Tabernacle."

Speaking of the new building again in the Sunday morning session, President Hinckley said the structure will not be a sports palace. "It will be a great hall with fixed seating and excellent acoustics. It will be a dedicated house of worship, and that will be its primary purpose."

He explained that the building will be fashioned in such a way that only a portion or the entire hall may be used according to need. He said the hall will not only accommodate religious services, but will also serve Church purposes, such as the presentation of sacred pageants, and community cultural events that are in harmony with its purpose.

President Hinckley told members who could not attend this conference - in which the 6,000-seat tabernacle was filled to capacity - that his heart reaches out to them.

"I regret," he said, "that many who wish to meet with us in the Tabernacle this morning are unable to get in." He added that he recognizes that the Church could never build a hall large enough to seat all of its growing number of members.

"We have been richly blessed with other means of communication, and the availability of satellite transmission makes it possible to carry the proceedings of the conference to hundreds of thousands throughout the world," he said. "But there are still those, in large numbers, who wish to be seated where they can see in person those who are speaking and participating in other ways."

President Hinckley did not announce the location of the new building, explaining that "more will be said on this at a later time."