Shasta Sikhs to raise second gold dome

CHURCH PLANS:Sikh Temple of Redding project manager Charanbir Singh Kandhola looks over plans for the new temple at the church’s Riverside location.

An $836,000 building permit was approved in July and the foundational slab prepared in August for a new temple to be built for the Sikh Temple of Redding, 3900 Riverside Ave., in Anderson.

Project manager Charanbir Singh Kandhola expects construction on the 6,000 square-foot structure, complete with golden dome, to begin within 30 days.

“It’s getting cramped,” Kandhola said, describing the crowds who fill the small temple for weddings. “We need a hall.”

The loan for the new temple was backed by four of the Sikh community members who also own businesses in Shasta County.

The proposed structure would serve as the new temple, whereas the current temple, a bright yellow single residence structure, would serve solely as the residence for the temple’s three priests.

The second phase of the project would involve the construction of a kitchen on the south side of the temple.

The tiny Riverside Avenue temple has been home to the Sikh community since 2002. Before then, families worshiped at the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center in Redding, said Jaspal Singh Gill.

Kandhola estimated 60 Sikh families go to church at either of the two Anderson temples from as far south as Red Bluff. The construction of two temples in Anderson should not indicate a rift in the Sikh community or variance in styles worship, Kandhola said.

“The families all go back and forth (between the two temples),” Kandhola said, indicating the Sikh Centre at 5400 Sikh Centre Drive in Anderson. “We go over there too.”

“God’s house is incomplete,” Gill said of the Riverside Avenue temple. “We need to complete this one.”