I know I’m supposed to be a fan of infill development. I’ve sat through countless land use meetings when I was on Garner’s rewrite committee. Its much better to redevelop existing commercial sites than to plow down a new set of trees. Still, I can’t help but miss the decrepit hotel that was the Plantation Inn near Capital Boulevard and Old Wake Forest Road. Even after it had been abandonded.
I’d never even been inside the old hotel, having only once met relatives who were staying there ten years ago. As it sat empty, rotting alone, though, I became more intrigued by its history.
I guess it feeds off my historical interest in how transporation choices of the area fueled its development. Looking at the corner of Capital and Old Wake Forest, with its Triangle Town Center Mall, Best Buy shopping center, K-Mart, and now BJs, I can’t help but remember how things looked when I first saw them: scub pines, a two-lane US1 highway, a bit of solitude, and the old Plantation Inn.
I kind of fell in love with those old buildings after seeing them each morning on the way to work.I feel much like photographer Tom McClancey does. “There are a lot of fine old buildings just going to hell in a handbasket,” McClancey said.
He’s right. It’s one of the things that drives me nuts about Raleigh. Folks here would rather have a glorious box store and sea of asphalt than a historical landmark. Raleigh paves over its history – over its own heritage – at the whim of whatever developer writes a check. It whores itself out to the highest bidder.
So, rather than keeping a unique landmark that was the Plantation Inn – a place that tells future generations something about how people in Raleigh lived – we get a chain store.
I believe that boring cities are for boring people. Raleigh fits it all too well.