A waterfall at Dix Park? A look at what’s in the works.
Birdwatchers with binoculars step through garden paths soon after dawn.
Children play in a waterfall spilling into a splash pad in the afternoon. Couples stroll under string lights through a grove of trees.
They’re scenes that designers of Dorothea Dix Park want people to picture at the Plaza and Play. The design for the first 18-acre phase of the park, along Lake Wheeler Road, was unveiled at a community meeting Tuesday night. Construction is planned for next year.
“The whole Plaza and Play area, the waterfall, the bridges, the shading,” Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin said. “Man, this is something special. We have the opportunity to build the best destination park in the world. And we can’t mess it up.”
The Raleigh City Council approved the 308-acre park’s master plan in 2019 after more than a year of public input.
The Plaza and Play section bumps up against the Fuller Heights neighborhood and is home to the Dix Park dog park. The dog park will be moved to another part of the park sometime this fall, Baldwin said.
Once fully constructed the Plaza and Play area will include a “grand stair” that incorporates trees leading up to the plaza and waterfall. Nearby will be a natural playground with wooden towers, a sand bowl and slides, in addition to a picnic area surrounded by trees and lights. There are also plans for cookout areas, gardens, mazes and a pedestrian path along Lake Wheeler.
“It’s exciting that Raleigh had the guts to preserve this land, and it’s fun to see what they are doing with it,” said Joan-Ellen Deck, who attended Tuesday’s meeting.
Keia Parker works on the park property currently and came to learn about the coming changes.
“I am excited about it being a park,” she said. “I grew up here, so what we had Pullen (Park) and other little parks in the area. So I am excited about the different features we are going to have like the water area and eating area.”
Amanda Wilkins, a local horticulturist, was interested in the plants being chosen for the area.
“The plant choice is really important to me because any opportunity that is this public to bring horticulture and plant conservation to a public place is really exciting,” she said, calling Dix Park a unique opportunity for the green industry.
She’s concerned, though, about the maintenance of the proposed gardens and landscaping not just in the Play and Plaza but the entire park.
“The city of Raleigh struggles keeping up with their horticulture staff and with intensely planted gardens with specialized plants,” she said. “This whole project is 18 acres, and that’s a lot of money to go into the maintenance,” Wilkins said.
Construction depends on funding. Plaza and Play is estimated at $73.5 million, but the Dix Park Conservancy, a nonprofit working to support the park, said it could cover $20 million in private contributions. The remaining $53.5 million would come from a proposed parks bond set for the next municipal election, which will now be fall 2022.
The conservancy suggested a second bond four years later to restore the cemetery and create the grove and meadow sections of the park.
Raleigh didn’t spend millions to buy Dix Park to let it “sit there,” Baldwin said during the City Council’s March retreat.
“We spent that money so we could build a park of the future that emulates our city, shows our greatness, shows our philanthropy, showcases all we can be,” she said.
The city is also in the middle of its Dix Park edge study and seeking feedback from people who live on the southern edge of the park.
This story was originally published July 14, 2021 at 3:13 PM.
