The reactivity of the tetradentate ligand bis(p-thiomethylphenylacetylene) (MeSC 6 H 4 C≡C-C≡CC 6 H 4 SMe; L2) towards the CuI salt is compared to that for the known organometallic analogue trans-bis(p-thiomethylethynylbenzene)bis(trimethylphosphine)platinum(II) (trans-Pt(PMe 3) 2 (C≡CC 6 H 4 SMe) 2 ; L1). While L1 with CuI form a highly luminescent porous 2D coordination polymer (CP) of general formula ([Cu 4 I 4 ]L1 • EtCN) n (CP1; Juvenal et al. in Inorg Chem 55:11096-11109, 2016) exhibiting both Cu(η 2-C≡C) and Cu-S bonds, L2 reacts with CuI to produce a luminescent non-porous 2D CP exhibiting the general formula ([Cu 4 I 4 ]{L2} 3) n , CP2, which does not use the highly expected Cu(η 2-C≡C) linkage, relying strictly upon Cu-S coordination. An examination of the X-ray structures for both L2 and CP2 indicates that CP2 network is built upon an expansion of the L2 lattice (plane sliding and slight L2-L2 distance separation) resembling to a sort of template effect. CP2 has been characterized by TGA, UV-Vis, emission spectroscopy, and photophysics, which are accompanied by DFT and TDDFT computations.