Regional Mormon hub calls Oconee home

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has built a new 25,000-square-foot house of worship in Oconee County to serve as headquarters for its Northeast Georgia churches, in an area from that runs from Rabun County in the mountains to Wilkes County near Clarks Hill Lake.

"This is the biggest structure we have in our stake - just the size is impressive," said David Bradley, who leads the 12 Northeast Georgia congregations that compose what the church calls a stake.

The new Mormon facility is located at 1080 Julian Drive, between Mars Hill Road and Georgia Highway 316. Congregants had an open house in early September to celebrate the facility on the 16-acre site where ground was broken in December 2008.

As the primary church, or stake center, of its region, it replaces the facility on Athens' Whitehead Road that opened in 1963. That facility now is used by the region's Spanish-speaking Mormon residents.

"We had three congregations that met in that building, and it was crowded," Bradley said, adding that two of the congregations have moved into the new facility. The church obtained the approval of the Mormon faith's Salt Lake City headquarters before beginning construction, he said.

Mormon congregations are broken into wards, which have 125 members or more, and branches, for fewer than 125.

"In this unit, we have two wards," Bradley said. "It's

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