Dix Park

Dorothea Dix Park

Dorothea Dix Park ("Dix Park") is a public park located southwest of downtown Raleigh, North Carolina. The park occupies approximately 308 acres of land formerly used as the Dorothea Dix Hospital campus and is one of the largest public parks in the City of Raleigh and the southeast. The park has extensive views of the downtown skyline and is a major open-space and civic amenity.

The park is owned and managed by the City of Raleigh and has been developed through a multi-phase planning and public engagement process following the closure of the hospital and transfer of the property from the State of North Carolina to the city.

Site history

Dorothea Dix Hospital

The land that now comprises Dorothea Dix Park was established in the mid-nineteenth century as the site of the North Carolina Insane Asylum, later known as Dorothea Dix Hospital. The hospital opened in 1856 and was named for Dorothea Dix, a mental health reformer whose advocacy contributed to the creation of public institutions for the care of people with mental illness.

Over more than a century, the campus expanded to include numerous buildings, roadways, and utility systems and functioned as a major state psychiatric facility. The hospital played a significant role in North Carolina’s mental health system but was also associated with changing approaches to institutional care over time.

Closure and transfer to the City

In the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, North Carolina shifted away from large institutional psychiatric hospitals toward community-based mental health care. As part of this transition, Dorothea Dix Hospital gradually reduced operations and officially closed in 2012.

In 2015, the State of North Carolina and the City of Raleigh reached an agreement transferring ownership of the Dorothea Dix campus to the city. The transfer was structured as a purchase by the city for approximately $52 million, with the sale proceeds going towards state mental health programs. The full terms of the sale were:

• Raleigh would pay the state $2 million of the $52 million total on the date the contract is executed.
• The city would do site examinations before closing on the deal to get an idea of maintenance and environmental remediation costs.
• As part of the site examinations, the city would test for asbestos and lead-based paint. It would not do "invasive testing," including soil boring.
• The city would notify the state of any environmental hazard identified.
• The city and state would close on the deal no more than 60 days after the city's receipt of funding, and no later than Feb. 29, 2016.
• The city would take over a 1999 lease agreement with The Healing Place of Wake County, a nonprofit recovery program for homeless people struggling with alcohol and drug addiction.
• If the General Assembly passed a law that would restrict the city's use of the property for more than one year, the city could terminate the contract.
• The city would not take over the state's liabilities regarding the landfill site on the property.
• If the city decided to sell or lease any part of the property, the state and city would share equally in the proceeds for no longer than 17 years.
• The state would be responsible for maintaining landscaping and vegetation in its leased area.
• The state and city would work together to maintain and repair access roads, including fixing potholes and removing snow and ice.

A group of Republican State legislators attempted to block the direct sale to the City, and instead auction off the park for a minimum of $52 million. The bill did not leave the Committee on Health Care.

Park planning and Master Plan

In 2016, the City signed an MOU with the Dorothea Dix Park Conservancy to guide the development of a master plan for the park. The Conservancy works in partnership with the City of Raleigh to raise private funds, coordinate programming, and advocate for the park’s long-term vision. In April 2019, the Raleigh City Council adopted the Dorothea Dix Park Master Plan, a long-range framework intended to guide the park’s design, development, and programming over multiple decades.

Main article: Dorothea Dix Park Master Plan

Governance and advisory structure

The park’s development is coordinated across city departments, including Parks, Recreation and Cultural Resources, Planning and Development, and Transportation.

On May 9, 2020, the City and the Conservancy signed a new MOA to guide the implementation of the Master Plan. As part of the MOA, the Master Plan Executive Committee was replaced with the Dix Park Leadership Committee, which was created to provide guidance to City staff, the Conservancy, and other partners on the implementation of the Master Plan. Additionally, the 2020 MOA replaced the Master Plan Advisory Committee (MPAC) with the Dix Park Community Committee, with 21 of the 45 members rolling over from the MPAC. Ultimate authority over land use and capital decisions remains with the City and the Raleigh City Council.

Dix Park Leadership Committee (January 2026)

Name	Position
Janet Cowell (Chair)	Mayor
Bill Ross (Vice-Chair)
Marchell Adams-David	City Manager
Stephen Bentley	Director, Raleigh Parks Recreation and Cultural Resources Department
Nancy McFarlane	Dix Park Conservancy
Orage Quarles	Dix Park Conservancy
Ed Fritsch	Dix Park Conservancy
Christa Herndon	Chair, Dix Park Community Committee
Chris Pereira	Chair, Parks Recreation Greenways Advisory Board
Alicia Knight	Senior Associate Vice Chancellor, NC State University
David Smith	Deputy Commissioner, NC Department of Agriculture

Dorothea Dix Park is referenced in the City’s long-range planning documents, including the Raleigh Comprehensive Plan, as a key civic and recreational asset.

See also

• City of Raleigh
• Dorothea Dix Park Master Plan