Photos of Conference Center organ

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More than 100,000 people are expected to pack the LDS Church's new Conference Center this weekend, and those attending will see — and hear — many new amenities the crowds last April missed.

In addition, workers were scrambling Friday to put the finishing touches on the church's new Main Street Plaza just southeast of the building, scheduled to open for the first time this weekend to conference and downtown visitors.

The massive Conference Center, to be dedicated during the Sunday morning session of the 170th Semiannual General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, still had months of construction work to be finished last spring, when the first sessions of conference were held inside the 21,000-seat auditorium. This weekend, conferencegoers will hear for the first time the new 7,667-pipe organ, the facade of which provides a dramatic backdrop for speakers and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir inside the auditorium.

While the facade was in place last April, the musical instrument itself was installed during the past six months, with sound technicians doing the final testing and tuning this week in preparation for today's opening session. The console contains five keyboards with digital playback capability. It can be moved from the rostrum to a small room offstage, where organists can rehearse or perform unseen by those in the auditorium.

Tabernacle organist John Longhurst said the quality of the organ's construction is "certainly on a par with that in the Tabernacle," and it is "designed intentionally using larger pipe scales to give a very rich, warm, heroic sound."

The one-of-a-kind instrument, designed by Schoenstein & Co. of San Francisco especially for the Conference Center, will highlight Saturday's debut as the first time a pipe organ has ever been played inside such a massive auditorium, according to church officials. When all of the pipes are finally installed and regulated by April 2001, the organ will be only two-thirds the size of the 11,623-pipe organ in the Tabernacle on Temple Square. It was designed to project music throughout the auditorium while retaining the quality of the sound.

Bishop H. David Burton, the LDS Church's presiding bishop, told members of the Salt Lake City Council who toured the Conference Center earlier this week that church President Gordon B. Hinckley asked builders to see that the new organ not outshine the one in the Tabernacle. Built by pioneer craftsmen, that organ will continue to be the one used for the Tabernacle Choir's weekly broadcast from Temple Square, he said.

Also completed in recent weeks is the complex's new 900-seat theater. "This is a replacement, if you will, of the Promised Valley Theater, which we've come to know and love for so many years," Bishop Burton said. Its theatrical debut will be a Christmas production that has played at the church-owned Promised Valley Playhouse, "based on scriptural accounts of the birth and resurrection of the Savior" and updated to take advantage of the theater's computer-controlled lighting and state-of-the art sound system, he said.

About half the size of Salt Lake City's Capitol Theater, the venue has lighting and sound "comparable to Broadway theater systems" and removable front seating that allows the use of an orchestra lift platform. The platform can be lowered to create an orchestra pit.

Constructed on the northwest corner of the Conference Center, the theater has its own outside entrance and is built in such a way that the sound of activities in the auditorium won't penetrate its walls, Bishop Burton said. A box office, director's booth, two large dressing rooms, two small dressing rooms, two makeup rooms, two rooms for cleaning and storing costumes and production offices are included.

"I think the day will come when we'll have summer programs for visitors here. We also hope there are some community productions. President Hinckley is very eager to have the community use it," Bishop Burton said, adding the theater can be used as a stand-alone facility or in conjunction with other areas of the building.

Other interior amenities visitors will notice this weekend include artwork, sculpture and a fountain, all added to the building's lobby areas as completion of the building progressed.

The building's four-acre rooftop meadow features a fountain that flows in four directions through a series of springs into a large tank, then west to the building's spire, where it spills over the south edge of the building, cascading in a multilevel waterfall that widens as it drops down each level of the building. A combination of 21 native grasses from along the Wasatch Front and 300 varieties of native Utah wildflowers were planted by LDS volunteers in recent months.

Visitors will see a large black stone panel on the roof, where Bishop Burton said an etching "depicting people from many places coming to Temple Square" eventually will be completed.

The Conference Center may be part of the church's effort in helping Salt Lake City play host to the 2002 Winter Olympics. When council members questioned whether the Conference Center could play a role in such activities, Bishop Burton said the church is looking at producing some kind of "spectacular" during the Olympics. "We're reviewing the scripts for that right now."

Church leaders have said throughout the building's construction that they anticipate it would not only host LDS meetings but a variety of public productions, pageants and receptions much like the Joseph Smith Memorial Building does now, only on a much larger scale.

The Main Street Plaza just to the southeast will function as a public gathering place, with stone walkways, massive fountains, benches, an oval reflecting pool and huge raised planters. A part of the city's master plan since the early 1960s, the two-acre plaza now covers a large underground parking garage. Large air intake vents to keep fresh air circulating while hundreds of cars idle beneath the street have been disguised in large raised planters and a gazebo on the plaza.

The centerpiece of the new open space is a large oval reflecting pond placed parallel with the Salt Lake Temple. The 14-foot wall around Temple Square has been removed in front of the temple's east side, and visitors will be able to stroll up close to the building in a way the previous configuration didn't permit.

"We're very anxious for visitors to have a great experience when they come here," Bishop Burton said. "The number of visitors we receive each year has outgrown Temple Square. A good example is the Christmas season," when thousands of visitors throng the square, at times shoulder to shoulder.

With the new plaza bridging two city blocks, the church will light not only Temple Square but the new plaza and the adjoining block where the Joseph Smith Memorial Building and the church office and administration buildings sit — about 22 acres in all.

"That will be something to behold," Bishop Burton said.

E-mail: carrie@desnews.com