New Campus Builds Excitement in the Heart of Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert
Ten years ago there was very little activity in downtown – that’s all changed now. Any given day, adding to the revived hustle and bustle on our downtown streets, we find residents walking dogs, going for an evening run and enjoying dinner with friends on a restaurant patio. With this influx of people moving downtown, we’ve also seen more than 60 companies relocate their “home” downtown as well.
“First Baptist Dallas will soon fit in with the dynamic nature of what’s happening all around it,” Mayor Tom Leppert said, referring to the new convention center and the re-creation of the Performing Arts Center. “The confidence that the church is showing in downtown by the investment they are making will have an enormous impact on downtown, spurring on others to invest here.”
“The new campus, with its green spaces, open areas and water feature, makes downtown a much more vibrant, much more inviting place to be,” Leppert added.
While the mayor remains excited about the way the new campus benefits the downtown area, he, as a First Dallas member, also recognizes the way the new campus will help First Dallas continue its mission.
“I think and pray what we’ll see, as people are drawn to the facilities, is a resurgence in the faith community – that the Lord will use our new campus to reach people for Him that perhaps we’ve never reached before,” Leppert said. “As I’m both on the public and the private side, I can tell you
how important faith is going to be, both in our city and in our country. We need to have institutions that are going to be strong, that are not going to sit exactly where they are today, but are going to have vision of how they can reach further; how they become even a greater part of the community.”
And now is the time, according to Leppert, who speaks from experience.
“At this time in our economy, we are able to stretch our dollars further,” Leppert said. “We saw this lately as we began adding a component to the AT&T Performing Arts Center and our estimated price came in 40 percent lower than what we’d projected.”
“Is this new campus big? Yes! But big ideas are what make a difference.”