I proud to say that I am an Arizona native who actually loves Arizona! I also love the city of Phoenix. And when I say Phoenix, I mean Phoenix, not Scottsdale, not Tempe, not Surprise, not Avondale. That doesn’t mean I hate those places, but Phoenix proper is my home. It is what I know. It is where my wife was born and raised, and now where we are raising our children.

So planting a church in the heart of Downtown Phoenix deeply resonates with me. Of course you have heard me say this before because I’ve been telling this story for a while now. With this in mind, the renewal of downtown is still in its embryonic stage. It’s coming along, but it still has a ways to go. This is important for us to know because St. George’s has launched into this embryonic stage. There is a lot of work to do and we are going to have to try and grow up with the city itself.

The Arizona Republic had a great article about it the other day. Andrew Conlin, a long-time Arizona developer, wrote this:

For nearly two decades, we’ve heard confident predictions that downtown Phoenix was on the brink of a crucial “tipping point,” when public investment would no longer be needed to generate new development that was both vigorous and self-sustaining.

A term like “tipping point” is a kind of mental shorthand, useful in summarizing complex ideas but sometimes misleading when it comes to making decisions or drawing conclusions.

In reality, we won’t see the beginning of a significant shift from public to private investment until downtown achieves the requisite critical mass. This will be the moment when the collective energy generated by the diverse collection of downtown businesses, retailers, residences, entertainment venues and academic and cultural institutions fuses into the nucleus of an energetic and growing community.

Read it all and be sure to look at all the projects that are in the works and/or almost completed that are helping Downtown attain its “tipping point.”

“New Growth, New Promise for Downtown Phoenix.”

Shane+