Reimagining Shared Space
At St. Joseph AME
An institution in Durham since the mid-1800s, St. Joseph AME is exploring how its land and quiet rooms could serve neighbors facing a changing city.
Church placemaking at St. Joseph AME
St. Joseph AME has been part of Durham since the mid-1800s, one of the oldest congregations in the city and a steady presence on the Fayetteville Street corridor.
Through New Chapter Ventures’ placemaking cohort, St. Joseph is looking at its own campus with fresh eyes, alongside five other historic Hayti churches. Placemaking begins with listening, not building. Before any plans are drawn, the church is sitting down with its neighbors to understand what a changing city needs.
This is the story of those early conversations, and of a congregation asking what more its space could hold.
Who they are
St. Joseph AME has been an institution on Durham’s Fayetteville Street corridor since the mid-1800s, one of the oldest congregations in the city. Its campus holds rooms and space that sit quiet through much of the week, and the church is beginning to ask what more they could hold.
Why placemaking
St. Joseph AME has been part of Durham since the mid-1800s, and the corridor around it is changing fast. As gentrification reshapes the neighborhood, the church is asking how a long-rooted institution can help its neighbors stay, and feel seen, heard, and supported through the change.
It has assets to work with: land and rooms that sit underused through much of the week. Through the placemaking process with New Chapter Ventures, St. Joseph is exploring, in partnership with the community, how that space could serve the people around it, listening first and planning second.
The vision
Placemaking begins with a question rather than a blueprint: what does the neighborhood around St. Joseph AME 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
We want people who live in this area to feel seen, feel heard, and feel supported.
James “J.T.” Tabron IV, Church Member
St. Joseph has always been known for caring for the community and being a leader in the community.
Jarvis Martin, Church Member
Where things stand
Summer 2026. St. Joseph AME 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, St. Joseph AME 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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