Philip Carey Building
The Philip Carey Building is a two-story brick warehouse located at the corner of Seventh Street and the railroad tracks, constructed around 1908 in the Victorian Romanesque style. Its front facade features decorative brickwork with rounded arches, ornamental windows, and detailed masonry patterns reflecting early 20th-century commercial construction.
The building was constructed in 1908 by Florida businessman William W. Hagood and initially leased to the Philip Carey Company for its roofing materials business. Following the company's departure around 1915, it housed the Ford Motor Company and numerous other commercial tenants through the decades, with ownership passing to the Hayman family in 1920.
The building takes its name from the roofing materials company that first occupied it in the early 1900s. Over more than a century, it has housed various trades and businesses, remaining a working space for Charlotte's commercial life and serving as a tangible reminder of how industrial buildings adapted to community needs.
The building sits at a corner location adjacent to railroad tracks, making it straightforward to locate and orient yourself from the street. Visitors can walk the surrounding warehouse district to view other period structures and get a sense of how the area functioned as a commercial hub.
This structure was one of the original eight warehouses in the area, representing Charlotte's early reliance on railroad commerce for growth. Notably, it became a hub for Google's fiber internet service in 2016, bridging a century of industrial history with cutting-edge connectivity.
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