Abundant Living Faith Center Bought The Tricky Falls Location In Downtown El Paso

Downtown El Paso is branding itself to be the place to party, the place to see and be seen, the place to go hang out and be among the cool kids. Part of the cool factor dimmed a bit when Tricky Falls closed down.

Tricky Falls had been rocking the El Paso music scene as a concert venue for about 7 years, but they had to close their doors because the building was sold. The Tricky Falls lease expired at the end of October. Tricky Falls was owned by among others, Jim Ward, a founding member of the band At the Drive-In, and was known for attracting medium market bands that used to travel through El Paso but often didn't play here because there wasn't a venue of a size they needed.

Tricky Falls was one of the first venues to open up downtown, and even one of the co-owners, Gabe Gonzalez, said "the City hadn’t put street lights out there yet, so it was pretty menacing."

There were offers for the 103-year-old building, but it looks like the Nieman family came up with the best offer to but the Trost-designed building that opened in 1914 as the Alhambra Theatre.

Will having a downtown church like Abundant Living Faith Center change the face of downtown? Why would they choose such an iconic concert venue as their third El Paso location? Will this affect the branding of downtown as a place to party?

We'll have to see. I reached out to Jared Nieman for comment on this story, but have not heard back from him. I'm sure we will get more information soon.