Ouch! 
While not large and impressive buildings, they offer a glimpse or Raleigh’s past that we loose with very little thought. It seems…sad 
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Just a quick thought, get the the state to turn the block back over to City. Clear the block, other than the building that has the “Soil and Water” offices. Restore the park, maybe with nice fountain running all along Lane street, and use the Soil and Water building for the City of Raleigh museum.
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Agreed. Once the buildings are down and gone, our ability to restore this land to the public square it once was increases. What better honor to our history than returning the square to the city for its intended purpose? This would only leave the Governor’s Mansion as the remaining built square. In that case, I am perfectly fine leaving that mansion in place.
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From Leo’s post just above, that first building is literally the most boring building to have ever been built in human history. The second pictured building is literally a giant heap of garbage. The third building is just old. I’m not sure what historical significance it has?
I can’t wait for 200 years from now and reading forums on how nobody wants to tear down Charter Square because it’s part of Raleigh’s history!
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My name is actually Jeff and it’s gotta be coincidental. But I’m dying at this. Couldn’t have said it any better myself!
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@GucciLittlePig I can’t tell if you’re being ironic or not.
http://goodnightraleigh.com/2009/08/raleighs-last-remaining-castle/
Here’s a nifty article on one of the buildings in the square. It is fairly unique and historic. That and a couple others are worth keeping. Probably won’t change your mind if you’re actually serious but, something to consider.
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The odd name stems from the building’s original use: Headquarters for a dental hygiene education program that launched in the 1940s.
I bet they find vats of PINK SWISH in the basement…
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I hope this means that they are restoring Caswell Square as a public square?
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Not immediately, because the State still controls the land, and we all know how long it can take them to do anything. But I believe the City wants to eventually see it returned to its original purpose, so I hope this is a step in that direction.
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Just for the record, Project Phoenix was going to keep at least the biggest of these three. It was built in 1898 along with the dormitory at the Jones corner. Those are the last two original school buildings (the oldest school building was built in the 1840’s I believe). I also liked the Project Phoenix stuff. I have been a state employee for 19 years and while I love the democratic environmental programs and such,they have been notoriously bad at managing their physical assets, such as buildings unless its a school. Afraid of being told they’re wasting taxpayer dollars? I don’t know, but my building had a ton of work done in McCrory’s first 6 months, some of which we’d been screaming for but told there was no money. This demolition seems like more decision paralysis since they are ‘tearing them down with no plans’. 
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Bid process is started for demolition of 2 buildings on Caswell Square: Old Steam Plant (224 N. Dawson) & Old Film Library (228 N. Dawson).
“Subsequent to demolition, the site shall be graded and sodded.”
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While I do want to see the square largely restored, the Steam Plant appears to be a pretty cool building from google’s street view. For Raleigh, it looks pretty old, lol. (as discussed before, R’wood just doesn’t have that many old industrial buildings.) I imagine we will be waiting forever for those 50’s era office blocks to come down - those are the ones that need to go!! Please save the old Deaf & Blind school building though!!
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- Its undercutting its history to call it the steam plant. its original function was as the broom and mattress factory operated by the NC School for the deaf and blind. It should have been sold and restored but the council of state sat on their asses and is now choosing this lame ass course.
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Jeez. Anything commercial from the 19th century that is still standing and in decent structural shape should be restored. I would think that there would be some sort of Federal grant program that the state could have leveraged to save it instead of demolish.
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Or just pony up and be good stewards of NC heritage.
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The real history and heritage is the square from the original design of the city and the state should never have built on it
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That was in the 1840’s originally (structure in question 1898). Would you peel back all the layers of Notre Dame to the original structure? Maybe we should go back to to when all Raleigh was Lane’s farmland? Perhaps when it was Tuscarora land? Honoring and respecting original structures from the original North Carolina School for the Deaf and Blind seems like honorable heritage to me.
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I live across the street from it and restoring Caswell Square would add far more to the neighborhood and downtown than making those structures commercial office space. Moore and Nash are treasures as would be Caswell. And no we shouldn’t make Raleign go back to farmland though that was a cute retort. Maybe find a public use for the building like a museum and restore the rest of the square as a park? Also, indeed I do think the original design of the city is historically important.
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The cute retort is to you trying to sound objective by saying “the real heritage”, which is clearly your subjective opinion. These lines can be drawn anywhere a mind chooses. Its nice you live in the neighborhood and are expressing your opinions. It doesn’t make your opinion more important.(as you again imply)…or does it? I suppose we can reserve that for the NIMBY threads. For what its worth, those of us who have lived nearby since the early 90’s feel like the best balanced approach was to keep the two 1898 buildings (the broom and mattress factory and the dormitory) and doze the rest back to park land. FWIW I think the Christmas plan is celebrated a little too much. It kind of sucks in my opinion. The main roads are all dead ends. Cities al lover had commons back then making the parks really nothing new or ingenious. There are no alleys. Even with my interest in historic everything, I never saw what was so great about the design other than its 66’ and 99’ wide streets specifically to deter the spread of fires across town.