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Gift shop to move into church building
01:00 AM EDT on Friday, July 3, 2009
EAST GREENWICH — The 175-year-old United Methodist Church building on Main Street, where the final draft of the current Rhode Island Constitution was approved in 1842, is going to find new life as a gift shop.
The Zoning Board of Review has given its blessing to plans by Thorpe’s Gift Shop, now at 517 Main St. next to CVS, to move north to the church, at 214 Main St.
Owner Chad Verdi said the exterior of the church will not be changed, although there are plans to turn the downstairs, which now houses offices and a chapel, into office space and convert the annex in the back into five condos.
The church moved services to its new home on South County Trail in September.
According to its Web site, the state Constitution was supposed to be signed at the East Greenwich Court House, which is now Town Hall, but the lack of space and heat prompted the ceremony to be relocated to the church.
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