Serving the Next Hundred
At Kyles Temple AME Zion
Part of its Hayti neighborhood since 1929, Kyles Temple is reimagining its spaces to remain a community anchor for the next hundred years.
Church placemaking at Kyles Temple
Kyles Temple AME Zion has been part of its Hayti neighborhood since 1929, small in size but deeply rooted in the block it calls home.
Through New Chapter Ventures’ placemaking cohort, Kyles Temple is asking how a historic church stays a community anchor for the next hundred years, alongside five other Hayti churches. Placemaking begins with listening, not building. Before any plans are drawn, the church is imagining together with its neighbors what its spaces could become.
This is the story of those early conversations, and of a congregation determined to keep showing up.
Who they are
Kyles Temple AME Zion was established on Dunston Avenue in 1929 and has been part of its neighborhood for nearly a century. Small but deeply rooted, the congregation knows its corner of Hayti intimately, and it is asking how a historic church can keep showing up for a changing block.
Why placemaking
For nearly a hundred years, Kyles Temple has been an intricate part of its corner of Hayti, a steady presence as the neighborhood changed around it. The question the congregation is sitting with now is how to remain that kind of anchor for the next hundred years.
Placemaking is where it starts. Through the process with New Chapter Ventures, the church is reimagining how its everyday spaces, from the sanctuary to the parking lots, could better serve the wider community, listening first so it can stay a cornerstone where anyone in need finds support.
The vision
Placemaking begins with a question rather than a blueprint: what does the neighborhood around Kyles Temple AME Zion actually need, and how could the church’s space help meet it?
The congregation and its neighbors are early in that conversation, imagining together how shared land and underused rooms might serve the community. Nothing is decided yet, and that is the point of this stage. The ideas are still taking shape, drawn from the people who live around the church.
Voices
I look forward to seeing Kyles Temple remain here for another hundred years.
Louise Weeks, Church Member
We can have the grandest building, but it doesn’t do anything if no one is in there. So we want to be that cornerstone so that people know that they have somewhere to come.
Kenneth Dunn, Church Member
Where things stand
Summer 2026. Kyles Temple AME Zion joined the Hayti Cohort, six Durham churches going through the placemaking process together. The congregation traveled to Asheville for the cohort’s immersion weekend in June, and New Chapter Ventures completed a walkthrough of the church’s buildings and land.
Fall 2026. The church is now in the storytelling and visioning phase alongside its five cohort partners. That phase is expected to wrap up by the end of 2026, when the cohort gathers to share what each church has envisioned for its corner of Hayti.
The Future
Looking ahead, 2027 is when pursuing the vision begins in earnest. With the cohort’s storytelling behind it, Kyles Temple AME Zion expects to take its next steps toward the ideas that emerge, testing and refining them alongside its neighbors before anything is built. The story on this page is an early one, and it will keep growing as the church moves from imagining what is possible to shaping it, together.
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