ERIC BRADY The Roanoke Times

The city of Salem will hold a public hearing today to consider the request of property owner H-H of VA LLC, and lessee CommUNITY Church for the rezoning of this building on Russell Drive in Salem. The change would allow worship services to be held in the former office and manufacturing facility.

Tonight's meeting of the Salem Planning Commission could draw a far larger audience than usual, but steps taken by the city in anticipation of a crowd have caused the key petitioner to question the process.

The single item on the agenda is the commission's consideration of a request by CommUNITY Church to rezone a building in the 900 block of Russell Drive. The 25,000-square-foot office and manufacturing building is the former site of Designed Telecommunications, a business that employed about 60 people before it closed in 2008.

Thomas McCracken, CommUNITY Church's senior pastor, along with the property's owner, H-H of VA LLC, has asked the city to change the location's zoning from a business commerce district to a residential single family district, which would allow CommUNITY Church to use the building it has leased for religious assembly.

To boost that effort, McCracken said, he rallied his congregation of about 275 and alerted Baptists around the Roanoke Valley. In a letter last week, he predicted hundreds would appear at the meeting to support his request.

Tuesday afternoon, the city announced it was relocating the meeting from its council chambers on Broad Street to the much larger Andrew Lewis Middle School auditorium at 616 South College Ave., a little more than a half-mile away. The meeting time, 7 p.m., remains the same.

"It's going to hurt us, that's for sure," McCracken said of the change of venue. The consideration has been continued twice -- once in October at the commission's request, and again in November when McCracken experienced health problems.

"They've had months, and I stress months, and the same information they had about the number of people they were expecting," he said. "Why in the world, with 30 hours left, would they change the venue?"

Melinda Payne, director of planning and development, said the city is trying to avert a problem, not create one.

"We're trying to make the accommodations that we think will best meet the anticipated crowd," Payne said. She added that staffers would be outside city hall with fliers to redirect crowds to Andrew Lewis. News of the relocation has also been posted online, on the city's public access channel and with the media, she said.

"It's never easy for us to move a meeting. We deal with acoustics, we have to move equipment, it's not easy," Payne said. "Yes, it probably would've been better if we'd made this decision sooner, but we didn't. We still have time to fix a potential issue we think might come up."

But McCracken said the relocation is part of a larger issue -- his hopes for the site, versus the city's.

He founded the CommUNITY Church just under five years ago and in that time has seen its congregation grow. It relocated several times before McCracken discovered the Russell Drive site, which he called "absolutely perfect."

"We started paying the lease on it last month," he added, an agreement he said will require the church to buy the building after 12 months. "We're unable as a religious assembly to meet there until they rezone it."

According to McCracken, the rent is $8,000 a month.

Poe & Cronk Real Estate Group's Web site said the building is under a pending contract of sale. The asking price is listed at $1.95 million.

Representatives for H-H of VA, the owners, could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

"The concern from our point of view is we don't have much property that's zoned for commercial," said City Manager Kevin Boggess. "To have a good piece of business commerce district transition into a residential zoning district with a tax-exempt status is not something staff can recommend. We don't feel it's in the highest and best use, and in the city's best interest."

McCracken argues that the benefits his church will offer -- utilities, operating costs and the drawing of its members to Salem from surrounding areas -- would outweigh what the city loses in property taxes.

"Clearly, churches do bring a benefit to the community," Boggess agreed, but added, "A lot of that is a benefit that can't be easily measured.

"We can make assumptions, but that's a lot of suppositions."

Payne and Boggess also said the city has worked with McCracken to try to find another location for the church, but McCracken called the alternatives "definitely not viable."

After tonight's meeting, the planning commission will make its recommendation and that request is scheduled to go to a public hearing before the city council in January.

Staff photographer Eric Brady contributed to this report.