RALEIGH -- A group of North Carolina business, education and political leaders wants Gov. Bev Perdue to endorse turning the Dorothea Dix Hospital property into a public park once it's emptied of patients and state workers.
Dix Visionaries, a nonprofit group, is pushing Perdue to declare the 306-acre campus a park district. The buildings that make up the psychiatric hospital are surrounded by tree-shaded lanes, fields and patches of woods overlooking the downtown skyline.
The designation would give Raleigh and the state a rare opportunity to create a large public park close to Raleigh's downtown, said Gregory Poole, owner of Gregory Poole Equipment Co. and head of Dix Visionaries. It also would prevent the possibility of residential or commercial development. "We've got one chance to save that land," Poole said. "It's a gem."
Dix's future has been debated for years as the state made plans to close the facility that has provided mental health treatment since 1856.
Poole, head of the Visionaries Board of Directors, spoke to News & Observers editors and reporters Thursday about the group's intents, which also will include a fundraising effort. Joining him was Jim Goodmon, head of Capital Broadcasting and another Visionaries board member.
The park designation, which could be made through an executive order, would protect the land while the state hashes out who would run such a large park, who would pay for it and what it should look like, Poole said. Several ideas already have been proposed, including having a nonprofit land conservancy run the park or handing over control to the city of Raleigh.
"If we try to settle that now, we'll never have a [park] plan," Goodmon said. "This is a 25-year project. We've got to stay focused."
Perdue spokesman Mark Johnson said the governor was concentrating on the plans announced this week to move most of the hospital's programs to Central Regional Hospital in Butner.
Dix Visionaries hasn't met with Perdue yet but hopes to have her declare the area a park district by the end of the year.
