GROTON, MA—With $7.5 million raised to build North America’s largest Sai Temple in Groton, MA, temple volunteers are now getting ready for a grand opening in December and planning next steps.
INDIA New England News sat down for a round table discussion on the project with temple’s four key volunteers: Mahender Singh, Sandeep Kaushik, Ramakanth Challa and Srinivas Jigde. To view the interview, please click here.
The temple is being built by New England Shirdi Sai Parviaar, known as NESSP. They broke ground for the temple last August.
When fully completed, the two-story, 40,000-square-foot temple will be largest Sai Temple in North America. The sprawling 28-acre campus is located in two neighboring towns of Groton and Littleton. Four acres of the land is located in Littleton. The venue GPS location is 719 Great Road, Littleton, MA. Temple is actually being constructed in Groton. Reading, MA-based NM Construction Corp. is the general contractor. The project architect is Braintree, MA-based BD Nayak Architects.
The first phase of construction of the temple complex includes a temple building, a kitchen, a big dining hall and few community rooms. The second phase will include three residential units for priests and an auditorium.
The temple will be will be open to everyone and people can hold weddings, ayengetrams and other community and cultural events. The temple complex will provide a great venue for poojas, learning and weddings where havans in open can be held and barat (wedding party) can come with horses and full festivities like in India.
NESSP currently operates out of a 7,200-square-foot rented facility in Chelmsford, MA, and will relocate to the new facility when it is completed in 2016. The temple acquired the land for $1.14 million and will spend an additional $10 million to build the new complex.
