Maranatha Worship Center in Trotwood sits on 27 acres of mostly undeveloped land, and architect Chris Pettis wants to turn that empty ground into a community hub with senior housing, a childcare center, a health clinic and a hub where people could shelter during emergencies. The project, still in its earliest planning stages, is one of several redevelopment efforts taking shape across the city.
Pettis said the idea took shape after Maranatha’s pastor pointed out that the church had acreage going unused, according to the Dayton Daily News. Pettis attended the church growing up and returned when visiting home, the outlet reports. Beyond housing and a childcare center, his vision includes a health clinic, a community center, parks with sports fields and shelters, and walking trails.
“This project is in the predevelopment stage now and we are raising capital,” Pettis said, per the same account, adding that the money being sought now is needed not just for architecture and engineering but for feasibility studies. He was explicit about how he intends to keep the church itself out of financial risk. “The plan is to fully fund it without ever mortgaging the church,” Pettis said.
What the record says about tornado shelter needs
The Montgomery County Natural Hazard Mitigation Plan addresses tornadoes and winds, topics relevant to the proposed shelter function. After the May 2019 Montgomery County tornadoes, the Ohio disaster recovery plan says the American Red Cross operated five temporary shelters—a past response distinct from the proposed church-site shelter.
From New York Skyscrapers Back to Dayton Roots
Pettis's path to this proposal runs through Virginia, New York City and Columbus. After graduating in December 2013, he moved to Virginia, then started his first architecture job at Kohn Pedersen Fox in New York City in September 2014 as an associate principal, remaining there for six years, the Dayton Daily News reports. He told the paper he grew disillusioned with how little control he had over final project designs in the city, which pushed him back toward his hometown.
By 2021 Pettis had returned to Dayton and launched a real estate investment business, which he named Nscale Design and Development, based in Columbus. He bought and rehabilitated his first two houses in Trotwood and Xenia before changing his business model in 2022 to focus on larger commercial and multifamily developments, the outlet notes. Nscale now says it focuses on affordable housing, green infrastructure and community projects, and according to the same report has already raised millions of dollars for a separate project in North Carolina that Pettis said he is trying to replicate in his hometown.
Pettis is licensed to practice architecture in Ohio, New York and North Carolina. He has described his childhood interest in design as rooted in family trips his mother, Dianne Pettis, took him and his sister Nicole on to Homearama events in Dayton, and in a house-plans book that got him drawing his own floor plans — including, at one point, inspiration from a house with a backyard beach and a two-story fish tank, per the Dayton Daily News.
Part of a Broader Wave of Trotwood Redevelopment
The Maranatha proposal arrives as Trotwood pursues redevelopment on multiple fronts. The city's Community Improvement Corporation has called the former Salem Mall and Sears site a key long-term redevelopment priority, with pre-development work already underway, according to WHIO. The same organization said it is advancing two new speculative industrial buildings designed to draw additional employers and jobs to the city, and is also working to revitalize neighborhoods through home rehabilitation.
Those employment efforts carry real numbers attached. Two proposed buildings in Trotwood's industrial park are estimated to generate 150 to 200 jobs, according to Civista Bank. The bank's account also describes the Trotwood Community Improvement Corporation, re-established in 2012, as the engine behind redevelopment programs targeting vacant, tax-foreclosed homes, including a rehabilitation effort in the Townview neighborhood that expanded from an initial plan to fix six houses to twelve.
Elsewhere in the city, the former Sears building has secured a $2 million congressional earmark and up to $7 million in historic tax credits for a planned mixed-use redevelopment, the bank's report states. Separately, a large-scale sports and community development is underway in Trotwood aimed at creating jobs while adding recreation and entertainment options for Greater Dayton residents, according to the Dayton Business Journal.
A Housing Model Already Taking Shape Nearby
Senior housing, one of the uses Pettis has floated for the church land, already exists in another form in Trotwood. Trotwood Senior Lofts, a property designed for adults 55 and older, includes a clubhouse with a community room, kitchen and dining area, and lounge area, according to Pivotal Communities. It offers a glimpse of what senior-focused housing can look like in the city, though it is a separate property unconnected to the Maranatha proposal.
Pettis has said he believes the Maranatha Life Campus project, as it has been described, would complement Trotwood's other redevelopment projects and benefit the community, according to the Dayton Daily News. The city has also expressed hope of redeveloping the former Salem Mall and Hara Arena area more broadly, the same report notes. For now, Pettis's proposal remains a vision on paper, with capital-raising and feasibility work still underway before any of its pieces could move forward.
Pettis, who said he wrote stories as a child and still loves writing, used his conversation with the Dayton Daily News to encourage others with ambitious ideas to dream big and seek out the resources to pursue them.
