diff --git a/src/app.py b/src/app.py
index e358111c..4542490e 100644
--- a/src/app.py
+++ b/src/app.py
@@ -47,6 +47,10 @@
 from hubmap_commons.exceptions import HTTPException
 from hubmap_commons.S3_worker import S3Worker
 
+# Specify the absolute path of the instance folder and use the config file relative to the instance path
+app = Flask(__name__, instance_path = os.path.join(os.path.abspath(os.path.dirname(__file__)), 'instance'), instance_relative_config = True)
+app.config.from_pyfile('app.cfg')
+
 # Root logger configuration
 global logger
 
@@ -60,10 +64,6 @@
 # will be inherited by the sub-module loggers
 logger = logging.getLogger()
 
-# Specify the absolute path of the instance folder and use the config file relative to the instance path
-app = Flask(__name__, instance_path = os.path.join(os.path.abspath(os.path.dirname(__file__)), 'instance'), instance_relative_config = True)
-app.config.from_pyfile('app.cfg')
-
 # Remove trailing slash / from URL base to avoid "//" caused by config with trailing slash
 app.config['UUID_API_URL'] = app.config['UUID_API_URL'].strip('/')
 app.config['INGEST_API_URL'] = app.config['INGEST_API_URL'].strip('/')
diff --git a/src/instance/app.cfg.example b/src/instance/app.cfg.example
index 9cab5ad9..37b4f792 100644
--- a/src/instance/app.cfg.example
+++ b/src/instance/app.cfg.example
@@ -1,5 +1,4 @@
-# Set to False for PROD deployment to use INFO logging level
-# Default to DEBUG for DEV/TEST
+# Set to False to use INFO logging level
 DEBUG_MODE = True
 
 # Set to True to disable the PUT and POST calls to make entity-api READ-ONLY