Despite its unclear future, funds flow to Dix

Meeker fears plan for park will suffer

RALEIGH -- As lawmakers continue to study what should be done with the Dorothea Dix campus after the mental hospital closes this year or next, the state agency that oversees it has been steadily moving more employees onto the property.

The Department of Health and Human Services recently told its Raleigh-area employees about a new perk: Haywood Gym at Dix will be their new wellness center. The department began issuing pass cards this month.

The department says the gym was underused by hospital patients and that the more than $18,000 it spent on renovations and equipment would be more than offset by long-term savings in insurance claims and lost work time as employees get healthier.

Raleigh Mayor Charles Meeker and others who have advocated converting Dix into a park say the department is expanding its grasp on the property. At the last official count, in April 2006, the human services agency had 1,195 employees there. Today estimates are as high as 1,500 -- about 43 percent of its 3,460 Raleigh employees.

"While the legislature has been studying and debating this issue, DHHS has been moving ahead with its plan to put more employees on this site," Meeker said. "This is just part of their strategy. At some point, they will have made it their headquarters and will say it's too late to make it into a park, though I don't think we're there yet."

The state decided in 2002 to build a new mental hospital and move patients from Dix, which has overlooked Raleigh since the mid-1800s. The legislature must decide whether it will keep the property, sell it for development or use it as a park.

Since 2003, the department has spent more than $6.3 million at Dix, including $2.25 million designated last year to repair or upgrade plumbing, heating, air conditioning and electrical systems, windows, doors and other elements in 11 buildings.

For more than a year, the department has allowed Haywood Gym to be used for basketball and volleyball leagues organized by employees at DHHS and other state agencies -- at times when the gym wasn't scheduled for use by hospital patients.

After the department announced May 30 that the gym would serve as a wellness center, it was painted, and bathrooms were renovated. A room off the main gym was painted, carpeted and outfitted with two treadmills, a stationary bike, an exercise ball, resistance bands and a TV for exercise videos. Another stationary bike has been ordered.

Renovations cost about $10,000, said Mark Van Sciver, a spokesman for the department. The fitness equipment, which cost $8,254, was paid for by the N.C. State Health Plan, the state employees' heath insurance program funded by the legislature.

Wellness efforts at the human services department might serve as a model for other state agencies, said Dan Soper, chief executive of the State Health Plan, though different employee groups tend to have different health issues. All active state health plan members already have access to a "worksite tool kit" through the plan's web site, www.shpnc.org/ worksite-wellness.html, which includes a health-risk assessment and other educational materials.

"It's just important for their quality of life, and it certainly will have a long-term payoff," Soper said of the effort to encourage state workers to take care of themselves.

Other state employees can participate in the intramural sports but can't use the fitness gear.

Last week, a half-dozen women took part in a Pilates exercise class on the cool tile floor of the air-conditioned gym. Paula Nichols has taught the class for more than a year. Her students are mostly people who work, as she does, on the Dix campus. Nichols is 42; her students range in age from early 30s to nearly 60.

"It makes a big difference" to have a pleasant place to hold the class, she said. Students squeeze it into their lunch hours once or twice a week.

Other hopes for space

Hugh Partridge was disappointed to learn that the state agency had claimed the gym. As artistic director for the Philharmonic Association Inc., Partridge had hoped his organization might get Haywood for its three youth orchestras and jazz ensemble, which have no permanent practice space and nowhere to store instruments and equipment.

Partridge, who played with the N.C. Symphony for 30 years, remembers performing Christmas concerts for Dix patients in the gym many years ago.

Giving the gym to human services employees seemed to him a narrow use for the space.

"I would hope they could join a commercial gym," he said, "just like I do."