The last great Taj-ma-"hall" (as commonly referred to by JoHo member volunteer workers), the Fairfield CA Assembly Hall has been completed after a year of construction and will hold its first assembly this month.
It features a marble-faced stage and columns, 2200+ seated capacity, flatscreen monitors for baptismal viewing, two Kingdom Halls and an apartment for travelling overseers. No doubt Northern California will a "seniority" stop for Circuit and District overseers. Tours are currently available on Thursdays and Fridays, although tourists are encouraged to dress appropriately (as for a meeting).
The next Assembly Hall to be built in USA will be in Georgia (?? location not confirmed) according to a new scaled down and standard plan as has been applied to Kingdom Hall building projects. This will be a werehouse style building to in an effort to control costs.
Meanwhile California, the luxury state of the world, will now have 4 assembly halls in the Northern half of the state alone, located in: Fremont, Yuba City, Madera and now Fairfield.
Volunteer laborers rejoiced to be told to "build it to last into the new system" according to the philosophy of other major construction such as Patterson New York. Volunteer labors were allowed to count time on the project toward their ministry service report, including pioneers who could count up to 70 hours per month, thus reliveing them of any need to do their normal service of door-to-door ministry. Over 370 congregations contributed fixed monthly payments to specific fund for this project, the amount calculated by having each member estimating what they could contribute on a monthly basis. Although no final expence for Fairfield was announced, it is estimated at $10 million.