Like Cinderella's coach, the old Salem, MA Evening News building will start to vanish soon after the clock strikes midnight.

Instead of turning into a pumpkin, however, most of the former newspaper plant will be demolished and replaced by a four-story building that will wrap around the corner of Washington and New Derby streets with stores on the first floor and residences above.

All that will remain from the present site will be two restaurants, Edgewater Café and A Passage to India. Both will remain open during demolition.

"We've been looking at that block for a long time," said Matt Picarsic, an official at RCG, the Somerville developer that bought the site in the summer for $2.4 million. "We see this project as a key gateway to the city."

A construction fence went up yesterday around a property that was once a downtown landmark and today has boarded-up windows and padlocked doors.

"Obviously, we're thrilled that this building that's been an eyesore and vacant for a number of years is going to be redeveloped into what we think is going to be a terrific enhancement to the downtown," Mayor Kim Driscoll said.

Although demolition officially begins tomorrow, it could be several days before the structures start to come down. It should take about a month to complete the work, officials said.

The job will be done by Testa Corp. of Wakefield, which demolished the Southeast Expressway for the Big Dig project.

RCG has already started the permitting process for its new building and hopes to gets all its approvals by the spring and complete construction in 2009. Under the current plan, there will be 31 residences - condominiums or apartments - and a minimum of 36 parking spaces.

RCG announced a much larger project last year for the entire block but abandoned it after it proved unfeasible.

The attached buildings that house the two restaurants will be renovated, with housing built on the top floors. A vacant building that extends half of the block between Front and New Derby streets will be demolished along with the former printing plant along New Derby Street.

The old green stucco building, most of which is coming down, was built in 1874 as a hotel known as the Central House and later as the Washington House Annex, according to city records. The Salem Evening News moved to the site in the mid-1920s, sold the building in 1998 and had a satellite office there until 2001.

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