City Hopes to Redevelop Fort Monroe into a Landmark. Years of Stagnation Has Slowed It.

At a historic site that’s been hampered by development setbacks for years, officials said ongoing projects will help Fort Monroe look completely different a year from now.

Virginia took over the 565-acre former Army base in 2011 and planned to restore and convert it for private development. Those plans have since been nixed due to rising project costs and uncertainty surrounding potentially hazardous materials still sitting on the fort’s grounds.

According to Hampton City Manager Mary Bunting, who represents the city on the Fort Monroe Authority’s board of trustees, the main hinderance in redeveloping the site has been a lack of interest in long-term projects to bring the site’s utilities up to modern commercial standards.

“When the Army was doing work there, they didn’t have to follow some of the same regulations that local governments or other private sector companies would need to follow,” Bunting said. “For instance, they didn’t have to do things the way Dominion Power would do them, or Virginia Natural Gas, or HRSD or anyone else.”

Bunting added the authority’s plan has always been to convert Fort Monroe into a space for people to live, work and explore the site’s history. However, those are long-term projects, which can often be less attractive options for private developers.

“If you’re a private sector developer, where are you going to go? You’re going to go where it’s easier to develop,” Bunting said. “Faster development means you’re going to open faster, which means you’re going to make money faster. What we call ‘virgin land development’ is always easier than redevelopment.”

That snail’s pace may finally be turning into a light jog, according to to the FMA’s new Chief Executive Officer Scott Martin.

The African Landing Memorial commemorating the first enslaved Africans kidnapped from Angola is under phased construction, with its plaza scheduled to be completed by mid-August. It will be the first new landscape project on Fort Monroe since the base closed 14 years ago, and will close portions of Fenwick Road to make room for pedestrian-friendly areas.

“We’re going to privilege the pedestrian out here,” Martin said. “When you elevate the pedestrian experience, opportunities unlock. Human health gets better. Air quality improves. Anything you measure improves, so we have a great opportunity to explore that here.”

The U.S. Coast Guard is rehabilitating the Old Point Comfort Lighthouse. The lighthouse is the oldest in operation in the Chesapeake Bay, and the project is scheduled to be completed in late spring.

Perhaps the most important, Martin said, is a $50 million infrastructure project approved by Gov. Glenn Youngkin last year, which will bring water and sewer to the facility along Ingalls Road to lay the groundwork for accelerated private development, including residential projects .

The authority is working to bring similar infrastructure to the rest of the facility over roughly the next three years, according to spokesperson Phyllis Terrell.

Martin said the ultimate goal of transforming Fort Monroe into a can’t miss regional landmark has always stayed the same. However, it’s time for people to start seeing results.

“Our challenge, our opportunity and obligation is to get it right, here,” Martin said. “We’ve got to do some work on figuring our what that means that’s aspirational and honors the past, but also leans forward to let new histories be written out here and let new folks create new memories.”

©2025 The Virginian-Pilot. Visit pilotonline.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.