Urban Land Institute Panel Discusses Dix Today

A panel that's studying what to do with the Dorothea Dix property near downtown Raleigh meets today at 5:30 p.m. Hired by a legislative committee charged with shaping the Dix property's future, the panel is made up of members of the Urban Land Institute, a nonprofit think tank of big real estate. (For more on ULI, read my Sept. 8 post titled "'Big Voice' Joining Dix Debate Belongs to the Real-Estate Development Industry" online here.)

There are competing visions for the 300-acre property -- one of the last big parcels of open space near the city's core -- that involve everything from a park to offices and condos.

ULI helped advise officials on the rebuilding of Lower Manhattan after the 9/11 attacks and post-Katrina New Orleans. Its work in New Orleans was controversial, with one writer describing its role there as "refram[ing] the historic elite desire to shrink the city's socioeconomic footprint of black poverty (and black political power) as a crusade to reduce its physical footprint to contours commensurate with public safety and a fiscally viable urban infrastructure."

Today's meeting, which is open to the public, will take place in the third-floor rotunda of the General Assembly building at 16 W. Jones Street in Raleigh, WRAL reports.