Menu Close

Category: Bob Geary

Bob Geary, City Council Statement 1/8/2019

I’d like to take us back to a time 15 years ago, to when Raleigh was just starting to show up on all the Top 10 lists. The best places to live. The best places to play, and to BE. We were going to reopen Fayetteville Street—remember that? We were nothing if not optimistic. And so we imagined that the 306-acre Dix Hospital site, when vacated by the state, could become a great destination park for our city and the region. That was the shared vision of Dix 306, the Friends of Dorothea Dix Park, and the Dix Visionaries. But then a debate ensued about whether we could afford it. You’ll recall that ULI, an arm of the development industry, advised that the middle of Dix should become, “highest and best,” a mixed-use center. Think North Hills. To a group like ULI, not to develop Dix was to waste it. So thousands of us pushed back with our Dix306 signs and our determination that this prized, historic landscape not be lost to a welter of the usual shopping-mall stuff. Yes, we said, Raleigh can afford a great park. And not just afford it. We said that by having it—by creatingRead More