Rugged warehouse: not-so-strange bedfellows: lawmakers, tech workers and artists.

• Author: Mims, Bryan
• Position: RALEIGH

If you stood on the southwest corner of Raleigh's Harrington and Martin streets a decade ago, you would have shared the space with a produce warehouse well past its expiration date. It stood dark and lifeless, except for the rodents and spiders taking up residence. Even with a few spiffy restaurants nearby and the skyline as backdrop, the city's warehouse district had the air of a hollowed-out Rust Belt town.

Stand on this corner now, and it pulsates with the avant-garde and an urban cool. When the Contemporary Art Museum, known as CAM Raleigh, opened in 2011, it was the first broad brushstroke that began changing the complexion of the district.

Since the museum opened, the district has flowered with some dynamic digs. In 2012, Citrix Systems moved its local operations to the neighborhood, and its payroll keeps growing: The Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based software company plans to add 400 jobs by 2021. Across Martin Street from the museum, Raleigh developer John Kane is transforming the Dillon Supply Co. warehouse into a 17-story, $150 million complex of apartments and offices. Nearby, the city is building an $80 million transit hub, called Union Station. The three-story Amtrak station is expected to open in early 2018, with other rail and bus services planned.

CAM Raleigh may not have directly spurred these projects, but Mayor Nancy McFarlane says the arts sector often plays the role of pioneer in unsung areas of the city. In 2015, McFarlane said she wants Raleigh to be the "capital of the arts" for the Southeast, helping to craft a 10-year plan to capitalize on the economic benefits of a thriving arts scene. "Artists go to the places where they can afford to go," she says. "They start to add vitality, and all of a sudden there are people in an area where there weren't people before."

But there's a risk those artists could become victims of their own success as Raleigh property values soar. Several small businesses have closed shop in downtown in the last two years because of high rental rates. Last year, the city passed a 2% property-tax increase to, in part, provide more affordable housing in Raleigh, which has become populated by luxury apartments and condos.

The Devon Sevenl2 apartments downtown recently sold for nearly $38 million. The Sir Walter Apartments on Fayetteville Street had a listing price of more than $16 million and is under contract with a new owner; the current ownership paid about $850,000 for the building in 1978.

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