Alison Bologna Creates a Space for All with New Shri Location

A collage of Shri students welcomes visitors to the space. Photography by Angel Tucker

Punching out the bricked-in windows was one of the first orders of business when work started on Shri’s new location in the summer of 2021.

The move was both strategic and metaphoric: The word shri, in Sanskrit, means light, radiance and abundance. Once finished, the windows would let sunlight stream into the building’s expansive yoga studio space.

“We did not go small with windows,” says Shri’s founder, Alison Bologna, peering into the sunny space on a recent morning as folks from the Pawtucket Senior Center reach their arms into the sky during a chair yoga class. “We literally replaced everything that was bricked in with brand-new windows to let in as much light as we possibly could.”

Alison Bologna stands outside her office, framed by art by local artists and a refinished door salvaged from the lower level. Photography by Angel Tucker

Three years and nearly $5 million later, Bologna has created a bustling live, work and wellness community in the newly renovated structure at 390 Pine St. in Pawtucket. The 15,000-square-foot space holds the Shri yoga studio; Flying Shuttles Art & Weaving Studio, which serves adults with disabilities; a food pantry operated by the Segue Institute for Learning; and eight apartments on the second floor: a mix of market-rate and low- and middle-income units. 

The Italianate structure once served as the administration building at the sprawling Conant Thread/Coats & Clark Mill Complex, the city’s largest employer in the 1870s. It dates from 1880–1882 on one side, and the early 1900s on the other, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. 

After outgrowing three leased spaces in the city, Bologna — a certified yoga teacher and NBC 10 WJAR news anchor — was ready for a place of her own. The social entrepreneur started Shri in 2010, and the studio now offers 500 yoga outreach classes a month, throughout the state, for the general public and special-needs populations, including people with disabilities, those in recovery, and people living with PTSD.

“I was really motivated to go into an old space and revitalize it with the purpose of then filling it with something good, and that good was yoga outreach,” she says. 

A yoga outreach class in the newly renovated studio. Photography by Angel Tucker

Coats & Clark’s sewing machines found during demolition. Photography by Angel Tucker

Her younger sister, Jackie, who has an intellectual and developmental disability, is a major motivating force behind Shri and Bologna’s work. 

“My thought was always, ‘Well, if I have the ability to go into a beautiful space and practice [yoga] and feel better, then why can’t she?’” Bologna says. 

She signed a purchase and sales agreement in 2018 and closed on the building in January 2020. She hired the Pawtucket Central Falls Development Corporation as a development partner and consultant, and the project received funding from Rhode Island Housing, the Commerce Corporation, the Pawtucket Redevelopment Agency, historic tax credits and other sources. 

Construction began in the summer of 2021, with architect Ed Wojcik at the helm and Bologna using her skilled eye to share design suggestions. 

“She was texting me while she was on the news during breaks,” Wojcik says. “I literally was watching her, it would go to commercial, and I’d get a text.” 

Repurposed doors from the basement and chairs from an old prep school share space. Photography by Angel Tucker

A mural by local artist Helio Pacheco pays homage to Conant Thread’s history, employees and founder Hezekiah Conant. Photography by Angel Tucker

Bologna kept as much as possible. Old doors found in the basement became functional pieces, old safes stayed in place, and eleven vintage sewing machines found behind a wall morphed into the centerpiece of a small museum. The nook also houses old spools of thread, receipts, ledgers and other ephemera found during the renovation, and a mural on one wall by local artist Helio Pacheco pays homage to Conant Thread’s history, employees and founder Hezekiah Conant. 

The many brick walls are rough and unfinished — Bologna loves how the raw, industrial look plays off the bright, renovated space. She also wanted to keep the mosaic entryway, so Wojcik installed a small glass panel into the new flooring above. When visitors peek down, they can see a portion of the original black-and-white tile, preserved for eternity.

Every space on the first floor is accessible, with wide halls and doorways, and large, gender-neutral bathrooms and changing rooms under one roof. 

“Accessibility was number one,” Bologna says, as she’s greeted with smiles and waves as clients of LIFE Inc., an organization that provides services to people with developmental disabilities, walk into class. “It can be beautiful — and I really want it to be beautiful — but if people can’t get in and out, then what’s the point?”

The building was completed in 2023. Preserve Rhode Island honored Bologna with a 2024 Rhody Award for Historic Preservation for her efforts. shriyoga.org

Coats & Clark’s thread found during demolition. Photography by Angel Tucker