Work is underway at the Cupola Building, 226 W. Eighth St., to change the former church-turned-office-supply-store into a museum for the natural sciences.

Taft Family Ventures is renovating the Classical Revival structure, the historic church building constructed in 1916 with an octagonal cupola, to house the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences at Greenville.

Thomas Taft Jr., a principal with the company, offered the structure to the museum as part of a deal to purchase the museum’s current location on Dickinson Avenue from the City of Greenville. Taft and his partners plan to build a market-rate apartment complex and parking deck on several parcels in the area.