Looking at state government offices in and around Raleigh, there can’t be much contest for the prettiest setting. The Department of Health and Human Services is based on the scenic campus of Dorothea Dix Hospital – prime real estate overlooking downtown.

But the hospital for better or worse is in the process of being closed. Will the property become a park? Will it be developed? Some combination of the two?

All along, a stumbling block to repurposing the campus has been what, if anything, to do with the 1,400 or so DHHS employees now assigned there. But Gov. Beverly Perdue’s administration appears to have made a decision: Those employees will be moved. The state is looking for as much as 1 million square feet of office space in the Triangle area for a relocated DHHS complex.

That’s big news on the commercial real estate front. And implications for the Dix site are huge, with the path being smoothed to take the property in a new direction – hopefully, not one featuring a herd of bulldozers.