But the city has turned that trash into treasure.

After running a landfill on the northeastern part of the Dix campus from the 1950s to the 1970s, the city of Raleigh planted grass on top, set up goal posts and leased the land to the Capital Area Soccer League.

The Dix campus is also a dumping ground for leftover dirt. The city of Raleigh dumped an estimated 200,000 cubic yards of dirt there scooped out of the convention center site downtown in 2005.

The city originally planned to spread the dirt around evenly, leveling the pine trees.

But after lobbying from neighbors in Pullen Park Terrace, the city decided to spare the trees and pile the dirt, building a vantage point overlooking downtown. Neighbors have nicknamed it "Basement Hill."

All eight proposals drawn up for the Dix campus after the hospital closes next year, call for this section to remain a park because of state laws that limit construction on top of closed landfills.

Aly Khalifa, a neighbor who organized a city workshop on the dirt, said that the hill is steeper than he had hoped. But he thinks that one day it could be refashioned to allow sledding, a nature path or an amphitheater.