Opening the Doors
At St. Titus Episcopal
Serving its Durham neighborhood since 1885 with a warmth that makes everyone feel they belong, St. Titus is imagining what its campus could become.
Church placemaking at St. Titus Episcopal Church
St. Titus Episcopal Church has served its Durham neighborhood since 1885, known above all for making people feel they belong.
Through New Chapter Ventures’ placemaking cohort, St. Titus is asking how that hospitality could reach further, alongside five other historic Hayti churches. Placemaking begins with listening, not building. Before any plans are drawn, the church is imagining together with its neighbors what its campus could become.
This is the story of those early conversations, and of a church widening its welcome.
Who they are
St. Titus Episcopal Church has served its Durham neighborhood since 1885, known for a warmth that makes newcomers and lifelong members alike feel they belong. That sense of welcome is the starting point for everything the church is imagining now.
Why placemaking
St. Titus is known for one thing above all: a warmth that makes everyone who walks in feel like they belong. That welcome has held since 1885, and the congregation is now sitting with a simple question, what would it look like for that welcome to reach past Sunday morning?
Placemaking is how the church begins to answer it. Through the process with New Chapter Ventures, St. Titus is opening its land, its space, and its people to the neighborhood, listening first so the church can become part of everyday life rather than a building that sits quiet most of the week.
The vision
Placemaking begins with a question rather than a blueprint: what does the neighborhood around St. Titus Episcopal Church 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’d like to see something going on here every single day of the week and that people feel good, safe, and happy when they come here.
Diane Hundley, Church Member
St. Titus Episcopal Church is known for its friendliness, its warmth. They make you feel a part of the church.
Kenny Bond Jr., Church Member
Where things stand
Summer 2026. St. Titus Episcopal Church 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. Titus Episcopal Church 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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