Stonington COMO Thrift Shop Expanding

The buzz of construction noise fills the .

It’s the background music for anyone who drops by the Stonington COMO Thrift Shop to donate items or meanders through the store in search of treasures. The sound signals the store’s expansion and the COMO Board of Director’s confidence and investment in the future of the .

The Stonington COMO Thrift Shop is expanding creating about 30 percent more retail space by cutting through a wall and opening up a room that use to be for storage.

The expansion, according to COMO Executive Director Jim Truscio, should be complete in December at which time the COMO will have a grand opening. Truscio however said there are no plans to shut down the COMO Thrift shop during the construction.

“We’re trying to do it without disrupting the shop,” Truscio said.

When the COMO opened up the in the spring they were able to move the pottery that use to be in thrift shop to the . The COMO also purchased a storage container for long-term storage, which freed up space in the thrift shop. The additional space allowed for the thrift store to expand creating new dressing rooms additional retail space and also reorganizing how donations are taken in.

“The thrift shop is so busy all the time we just didn’t have enough space for all of the product we get donated,” Truscio said.

Not a bad problem to have, and one that wouldn’t be possible with the generosity of Stonington community Truscio said.

According to Truscio the COMO did have to dip into some of its reserved money to pay for the expansion. Truscio didn’t have an exact estimate of how much the expansion would cost, but added that the board of directors had decided to allocate the funds for the expansion as well as infrastructure repairs including new windows and a boiler as in investment in the COMO’s future.

“We’re very very busy on both ends—both in donations which we really appreciate and in the number of people coming in the front door making the purchases there’s been large increases,” Truscio said.

Stonington COMO Thrift Shop go towards the funding of COMO activities.