The old Raleigh Bonded Warehouse on Capital Boulevard.

Everyone who commented is correct, it’s the Raleigh Bonded Warehouse on Capital Boulevard. Ruth Little of Longleaf Historic Resources wrote a fantastic architectural survey of the Warehouse, noting the following:

The complex contains six buildings: (1) the original ca. 1923 Raleigh Bonded Warehouse; (2) ca. 1923 Office, expanded ca. 1949; (3) Packing Building, ca. 1949; (4) Weigh Station, ca. 1949; (5) Warehouse 14-19, ca. 1949; and (6) Warehouse 20-21, ca. 1953. The ca. 1923 warehouse is parallel to and approximately 400 feet south of the edge of the Norfolk Southern Railway tracks.

[…]

The Raleigh Bonded Warehouse complex meets National Register Criteria A for commerce and C for architecture and engineering. The two-story building, over 112,000 square foot in size, with reinforced concrete walls and heavy timber framing, is one of the earliest, largest, and best-preserved commercial warehouses in Raleigh. In its use of reinforced concrete construction, the warehouse exemplifies the innovations in structural engineering in factory and warehouse design that transformed industrial construction during the early twentieth century. The warehouse, with annexes constructed in the 1940s and early 1950s, served as one of the primary repositories of durable goods in Raleigh throughout the remainder of the twentieth century. Because its commercial significance is not exceptional within the past fifty years, the period of significance for the complex
ends in 1956.

–Ruth Little

You can read more historic information on this and the surrounding structures (including where the Bonded Llama Art Studio now is) in the National Register of Historic Places registration form.

so obviously this complex predates Capital Blvd., which I understand was an undeveloped stream and floodplain. I guess this area was accessed by road through the part of Hayes Barton east of Glenwood (what a friend of mine used to call the “poor end of Fairview”)??