Another national chain restaurant could be coming to the East Main Street business corridor next year now that the site of a vacant church building and its parking lot has been rezoned from residential to commercial.

But the rezoning applicant declined to release further details about who’s interested in the former Story-Hypes United Methodist Church property, pending approval by his client.

Attorney James Peifer in December requested the two medium-density single family residential parcels at 2000 E. Main St. and 20 N. Belmont Ave. be rezoned to a community commercial district to allow for the development of a restaurant facility, according to the filing with the city’s Planning and Zoning Board.

But a discrepency over whether a throughway between the church building and an adjacent church-owned parking lot at 20 N. Belmont Ave. was an alley or a private drive stalled the process.

The request was up for its second reading before the city commission when Peifer asked it to be tabled until June so the discrepency could be sorted out.

The throughway was found to be a private drive and was subject to a tax foreclosure, City Planning and Zoning Administrator Bryan Heck said. The request was tabled again in June when the private drive had not yet gone through a public auction.

A portion of the private drive was sold at auction Tuesday to current property owner Faith United Methodist Church, according to Heck, just hours before city commissioners voted unanimously at their regular meeting to pass the zoning ordinance.

The church building was left vacant several years ago due in part to a merger of Central, Story-Hypes and Lagonda United Methodist churches into Faith United Methodist Church, located downtown.

The Story-Hypes structure has deriorated to the point it’s unlikely to ever be repaired for use as a church, Peifer wrote to the Planning and Zoning Division in December. Peifer said its interior has been severly vandalized.

The site is surrounded on the east, west and south mainly by retail and restaurant businesses and to the north by residential property.

Community commercial district zones provide locations for development of community shopping and business areas.