CLAREMONT — Riverbank Church will have a permanent home this spring after buying an old armory on Winter Street.

Riverbank, first established in White River Junction in 2010, opened a second location in Claremont in 2018, and for almost seven years has had to find temporary space for Sunday services.

Stevens High School and the Opera House have served as locations, but most often services were held at the Claremont Cinema in the Market Basket Plaza on Washington Street. The movie theater closed last spring but the plaza owner, Market Basket, allowed Riverbank to continue using the space.

Having a space to call its own will allow the church to focus more on its mission of spreading the Gospel message of Jesus and less on adjusting each week to a temporary location, Matt Burge, executive pastor of Riverbank, said this week.

“Being portable, setting up and tearing down each week doesn’t allow you to do a lot of other stuff,” Burge said in a phone interview. “We are excited we will be able to spend more time with the people and not worry about where we will be.”

Church officials began looking at the building, which was advertised for sale, last year and negotiated the purchase with Allen Farris, owner of Farris Acres LLC., which operates a firearms manufacturer, Matrix Arms, in the space, Burge said.

He declined to disclose terms of the sale.

The one-story brick building and 5 acres is assessed at $582,000, according to the city’s assessing records. Farris Acres bought the property in July 2022 for $545,000. 

“We have been operating our firearm manufacturing company ‘Matrix Arms’ for several years out of the property, a globally sold competition pistol manufacturer, and we rented the building for many years before purchasing,” Farris said in an email.

He did not say why the company is moving and couldn’t say where it will end up.

“We are not sure of our next location yet as we will be moving out in a couple months and are weighing options,” Farris said in the email. “I am extremely pleased with the building going to the church and believe it will certainly be a blessing to the city of Claremont.”

Riverbank began in 2010 when Chris Goeppner, the church’s lead pastor, came up from Florida with a few other families, Burge said. They first met in homes and then launched publicly in 2010. Burge said the church moved around a lot in the Upper Valley, 12 different locations by his count, before finding a permanent space at a former Holiday Inn on Sykes Mountain Avenue in 2016.

The church has about 1,000 members, according to the news release, with 200 of those attending in Claremont.

Goeppner said in the news release Riverbank’s new home will bring with it a greater opportunity to serve the area.

“We look forward to having a permanent location in Claremont where we can continue serving the people of Claremont and the surrounding communities,” Goeppner said.

When he first considered the building, Burge, executive pastor since 2017, said he was not sure it would work for what he had in mind but later changed his mind.

“It is the perfect space and it doesn’t need a ton of work,” he said. “Matrix did a lot of work. They took out the old flooring. Everything is in really good shape so when they move out, we should be able to move in very quickly.”

Riverbank’s plans for the 14,500-square-foot building include a 200-seat auditorium, classrooms for children and family programs, meeting spaces for recovery and educational programs, common areas and a multi-functional space for use by the community that could include blood drives, hosted events and conferences for local organizations, according to a church news release.

The rear portion of the building, where there is a large garage, is slated to be converted into the auditorium and the front area will be for the classroom and other spaces, Burge said.

“We are excited about this move. We are a rescue mission to help people take the next step with Jesus,” Burge said. “We believe people’s lives can be changed by following the ways and teachings of Jesus.”

The church aims to have the new space ready in time to hold Easter services there on April 20, Burge said.

Patrick O’Grady can be reached at pogclmt@gmail.com.