"The Fayetteville Street Historic District comprises Raleigh’s principal commercial street, historically and iconically the commercial heart of the city. The district includes buildings that front four blocks of Fayetteville Street, along with a few buildings on two intersecting streets and one adjacent parallel street. The buildings are predominantly commercial and date from the final years of the third quarter of the nineteenth century into the third quarter of the twentieth century. Only two structures extant in the district were built for government rather than commercial use, although two commercial buildings were later put into government use. One structure built as a hotel now serves a residential use.
The Fayetteville Street Historic District occupies a densely-developed urban setting at the core of North Carolina’s capital city. The Capitol Area Historic District (NR 1978), containing Raleigh’s most important nineteenth and early twentieth century architecture, lies one block north. Here, government and commercial buildings, churches, and dwellings surrounding the State Capitol (NR 1970), which was constructed from 1833 to 1840. Portions of the western boundary of the Moore Square Historic District (NR 1985) along Wilmington and East Hargett Streets are contiguous with a section of the eastern boundary of the Fayetteville Street Historic District. The historic district centered on Moore Square, a public park platted as part of Raleigh’s eighteenth century plan, contains primarily early twentieth-century commercial buildings including the city’s historic seat of African American commerce, East Hargett Street.
Fayetteville Street is one of four streets that radiate at cardinal points from Union Square, home to the State Capitol and the heart of the first plat of Raleigh, drawn by William Christmas in 1792. Although Union Square is larger than Christmas’s average city block, Fayetteville Street, centered at the square’s south edge, bisects the blocks south of the square, creating flanking city blocks that are narrower than those shown in the Christmas plan. S. Salisbury and S. Wilmington Streets run parallel to Fayetteville Street to its west and east, respectively, on either side of Union Square. The district and the surrounding area’s topography varies slightly with the Capitol occupying a parcel that is approximately 347 feet above sea level and Davie Street, the southernmost east-west corridor in the district, at approximately 334 feet above sea level. The streets in the district are wide enough to accommodate two lanes of traffic with parallel parking at the curb. All streets have sidewalks. Fayetteville Street’s broad sidewalks were installed in 2006. Brick and concrete pavers form the surface and the width accommodates newly planted street trees, benches, and enormous concrete planters that separate pedestrians from the roadway. Other streets have poured concrete sidewalks that have been in place for decades.
The district includes the buildings that front both sides of the 200 block and west side of the 300 block of Fayetteville Street, as well as a corner building on both the 100 and 400 blocks. The majority of the east side of the 300 block falls outside the district boundaries because of the presence of noncontributing buildings. The district boundaries encompass nearly the full range of building types, materials, and architectural styles found in the district: nineteenth- and twentieth-century load-bearing brick commercial buildings of two to four floors; steel-framed or concrete-framed, brick-clad early skyscraper office buildings stretched to twelve stories; midcentury Modernist masonry commercial buildings and mid-rise office buildings; and mid-century Art Deco and Modernist steel-framed skyscrapers rising to sixteen stories. Several of the buildings on the west side of Fayetteville Street extend the full width of the narrow block so that their rear facades face S. Salisbury Street. A number of the older brick commercial buildings have been remodeled, particularly at the first floor level. In many cases, these alterations date to the period before 1965 and tell the story of the buildings’ historic evolution. This is particularly true on the east side of the 200 block of Fayetteville Street, where original facades, including a Neoclassical sheet metal facade on the Lumsden-Boone Building (NR 1983) at 226 Fayetteville Street, remain intact at the second and third stories.
The district also includes buildings on West Hargett Street, which intersects Fayetteville Street between its 100 and 200 blocks and on West Martin Street, which intersects between the 200 and 300 blocks. These buildings include three early-twentieth-century skyscrapers with Neoclassical and Art Deco detailing (the Raleigh Building and the Oddfellows Building, at 5 and 19 West Hargett Street, respectively and The Capital Club at 16 West Martin Street) and plainly detailed two-story brick commercial and office buildings from the early to mid-twentieth century (14 West Martin Street and 107 and 111 West Hargett Street). A row of similarly simple two- and three-story brick commercial buildings from the 1920s on the west side of S. Salisbury Street are also in the district, including the offices of the locally active Parker-Hunter real estate firm. These properties show development patterns and architectural trends on streets subsidiary to Fayetteville Street.
Eleven buildings in the proposed district have already been listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Twenty additional buildings and one site contribute to the historic integrity of the district, for a total of thirty-two contributing properties. Seven buildings and one site are non-contributing resources.
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"The Fayetteville Street Historic District in Raleigh, North Carolina is a historic district listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP). The District includes the 100-400 blocks of Fayetteville Street, the 00-100 blocks of the south side of West Hargett Street, the 00 block of the north side of West Martin Street, and the 100-400 blocks of South Salisbury Street.
The District, composed mostly of commercial establishments, is home to eleven buildings listed on the NRHP. They include:
* Masonic Temple Building, 133 Fayetteville St.
* Briggs Hardware Building, 220 Fayetteville St.
* Lumsden-Boone Building, 226 Fayetteville St.
* Mahler Building, 228 Fayetteville St.
* Carolina Trust Building, 230 Fayetteville St.
* Federal Building, 314 Fayetteville St.
* Sir Walter Raleigh Hotel, 400 Fayetteville St.
* Raleigh Bank and Trust Company Building, 5 W. Hargett St.
* Odd Fellows Building, 19 W. Hargett St.
* McLellan’s Five and Dime Annex, 14 W. Martin St.
* Capital Club Building, 16 W. Martin St."
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