Mark Driscoll’s Booming Trinity Church Pays $15.5M For Vacant Office Complex
Trinity Church, a Scottsdale, Arizona, congregation led by controversial pastor Mark Driscoll, has purchased a vacant 116,200-square-foot office building for $15.5 million.
The Jan. 5 acquisition of the property at 10001 North 92nd St. in Scottsdale was financed with $2,765,000 down and $12,735,000 in new debt with AG Financial Solutions, according to real estate tracker Vizzda.com.
AG Financial Solutions is affiliated with the Assemblies of God and includes church purchase loans in its portfolio. Trinity Church, however, is not listed as an Assemblies congregation in the denomination’s online directory.
The two-story Class A building was constructed in 1996 on a 7-acre site east of the Loop 101. A two-story parking garage is also part of the campus.
Trinity plans to convert the vacant structure into a new house of worship. The move is driven by overcrowding at its current location at 8620 E. McDonald Drive, according to a report in the weekly Scottsdale Progress newspaper.
“Lives and legacies are being transformed, but the campus is full,” the church’s website states. “It’s time to build a permanent home for Trinity and make room for all God is doing!”
Driscoll announced a “Lives and Legacies Building Fund” campaign, launching March 14. In a video on the church’s website, he outlined the scale of the upgrade.
“We have purchased a big building … five times the parking, four times the square footage, two times the seating,” he said. He added, “And I’m going to ask you to provide the provision.”
The church reports more than 5,000 people attend weekly services.
Before arriving in Scottsdale, Driscoll built Mars Hill Church in Seattle from a home Bible study into a megachurch with 15 branches across five states.
His tenure ended abruptly in October 2014. Driscoll resigned after being placed on leave, while church elders investigated formal charges brought by 21 former pastors.
The Seattle Times reported at the time that the church had been “facing an avalanche of allegations against Driscoll in recent months.” Those allegations ranged “from charges of bullying and abusive behavior to plagiarism and overseeing mismanagement of church funds.”
A church board found Driscoll had “at times, been guilty of arrogance, responding to conflict with a quick temper and harsh speech.” The board also cited his “leading the staff and elders in a domineering manner.”
In a 2022 Trinity Church sermon, Driscoll claimed he had been warned that church leaders had planned to accuse him of adultery. “I said, ‘God told me a trap was set,'” he told the congregation.
However, in a podcast with The Roys Report (TRR), former Mars Hill Executive Elder Sutton Turner, said Driscoll’s claim was untrue.
“For him to say that those men were discussing adultery, it’s just a flat lie. I mean, like, I have every meeting note. And let me just tell you, there was none,” Turner said, referring to any discussion of accusing Driscoll of adultery.
The 2021 Christianity Today podcast “The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill” documented how “the perils of power, conflict, and Christian celebrity eroded and eventually shipwrecked both the preacher and his multimillion-dollar platform.”
TRR also has extensively reported how former members at Driscoll’s new church in Arizona is run like a “cult” with mandated loyalty from staff and 24/7 surveillance of members who don’t tow the line.
The 92nd Street building has a checkered history of its own. Eqqus Property Management AZ LLC bought it in 2014 for $24 million and sold it to Exeter Property Group in 2020 at a $5 million loss.
Long-term tenants CVS and HonorHealth vacated in 2022. Exeter then sought city approval to convert the space to storage — and hit a wall.
At an Aug. 26, 2025, Scottsdale city council meeting, Councilman Barry Graham flatly opposed the storage plan.
“I don’t support internalized storage at this location,” Graham said. He called a proposed zoning text amendment “dangerous. That is a path that is a precedent we do not want to set.”
He warned the change would have “a chilling effect on hundreds of property owners and neighborhoods.” The council rejected the proposal.
Exeter sold the property months later to Driscoll’s congregation, taking a $3.5 million loss from its 2020 purchase price.
Graham is a member of Trinity Church. He posted in November that he had joined Driscoll “on stage for a Q&A with over 700 men from Trinity Church Scottsdale’s ‘Real Men’ ministry.”
The councilman told the Scottsdale Progress he had “no knowledge that transaction would happen” when he opposed the storage plan at the same site.
Driscoll had a run-in with an unnamed Scottsdale official in 2024. He told his congregation someone from the city had emailed him, requesting the church remove a “Jesus Christ ‘24” sign on church property, saying the display was not in support of a political candidate.
The pastor said he refused on First Amendment grounds.
This piece was originally published at The Roys Report.
Mark A. Kellner is a reporter based in Mesquite, Nevada. He most recently covered statewide elections for the New York Post and was for three years the Faith & Family Reporter for The Washington Times. Mark is a graduate of the University of the Cumberlands and also attended Boston University’s College of Communication.