CARY - The four-lettered graffiti that graced the boarded door seemed to spell the future of the abandoned call center on Gregson Drive. Drab and dank, many presumed it was doomed to meet with the wrecking ball after sitting empty for five years.

But the Dilweg Cos., which bought it this spring, had other plans. Instead of tearing it down to make way for a bigger building -- a plausible strategy in one of the Triangle's most competitive office markets -- the developer stripped it naked to its steel frame and concrete foundation.

"To the bones," said David Urben, a broker at Dilweg, which plans $7 million in renovations.

These days, those bones are booty to buyers of buildings.

In five years, Triangle steel prices have jumped 66 percent and concrete prices have risen 55 percent, according to construction research firm RSMeans.

Meanwhile, the cost of delivering those materials has surged with gasoline prices, and wages for the construction workers have climbed at least 16 percent.

That means more less-than-celebrated office buildings -- ones that might otherwise be candidates to be demolished for more elaborate edifices -- are being spared and spit-shined.

"It's so expensive to rebuild, so why don't we re-use it?" Cary developer Gregg Sandreuter said.

That was the thinking behind Paragon Commercial Bank's new Raleigh headquarters.

Paragon bought a 26-year-old, tan-brick office building on Glenwood Avenue to give its growing ranks some elbow room once its lease expired in February.

The company considered demolishing it, but ultimately chose to hire Sandreuter for a $5 million rehab that included red bricks, big windows and prominent signs on a strip boasting other bank-branded buildings.

"We saved the roof, the steel, the elevator," and some plumbing, said Martin Borden, a senior vice president in Paragon's commercial real estate division. The company saved about 15 percent against building anew.

Urban Ministries of Wake County took a similar tack. The organization spent three years searching for bigger administrative offices that would house a crisis intervention program, a clinic and classrooms. It had a contract to buy land in South Raleigh and expected to build such a facility for $2.5 million.

Then came Hurricane Katrina, fueling demand for materials amid a worldwide building boom.

Urban Ministries' new quote: $4 million, plus land. "We had to back away from that," said Anne Burke, the organization's director. "We're a nonprofit."

So the group bought the abandoned offices of a beer distributor on Raleigh's Capitol Boulevard, complemented its faded gray-and-red exterior with brick facades and saved 20 percent in the process.

Renovating the Cary call center could save Dilweg 15 percent, compared to building anew. The Durham developer hopes to use the savings to undercut those competitors, asking rents of about $22 per square foot, or 8 percent less than many new competitors.

"It gives us an edge," Urben said. "That's the name of the game."

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