HAMPTON — The Fort Monroe Authority wants to remake the 560-acre national landmark and park into an experience rivaling New York’s Central Park or London’s Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. Now, officials are saying they’ve attracted the development firms to make that vision possible.
Scott Martin, the new CEO of Fort Monroe, stands for a portrait following a Fort Monroe Authority board of trustees meeting in Hampton on Thursday, Nov. 21, 2024. (Kendall Warner / The Virginian-Pilot)
The authority aims to develop its landscape action plan by this time next year to provide a long-term outline for the future of the former military installation, including reimagining commercial, recreational and residential opportunities at the waterfront site. Several of the world’s top architectural firms are competing to help guide Fort Monroe’s future, according to authority CEO Scott Martin. The winning proposal will lead the design process for the fort’s architectural reshaping.
Nineteen firms submitted proposals, which Martin said staff whittled down to four semifinalists through procurement processes and an internal grading system. After that, Martin said he needed help from a jury panel comprised of local experts to make a final decision.
“There’s a marriage that happens between local knowledge, local wisdom, appreciating what we have here, with a little bit of a spike from folks who have successfully achieved projects like this from elsewhere,” Martin said. “That’s the secret sauce.”
The four landscape architecture firms competing for the authority’s approval to build the fort’s master plan are:
Field Operations, which led projects like the High Line in New York and Presidio Tunnel Tops in San Francisco
Hargreaves Jones, which designed London’s Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and led a national waterfront rediscovery initiative
OLIN Studio, whose projects include the Washington Monument Grounds and the Holocaust memorial in Berlin
West 8, which designed the 170-acre Governor’s Island park in New York
A sunny, crisp autumn day at Fort Monroe on Friday, Oct. 31, 2025. (Stephen M. Katz / The Virginian-Pilot)
A big point of emphasis for the fort moving forward is to have a cohesive plan before development begins rather than reacting to pitches as they come in, Martin said. That also means factoring in the park’s future, including big considerations like the fort’s water resiliency or smaller ones like the ripple effect of placing a coffee shop in a particular space.
“The point of the plan is to have one approach that shapes and makes sure all those experiences, from the small ones to the big ones, all compliment each other so you get a forest and not just a bunch of trees,” Martin said.
Charles Birnbaum is the founder of the Cultural Landscape Foundation, a nonprofit focused on land stewardship and connecting people to places. He’s also one of five jurors who will decide which firm lands the contract.
He said when a place like Fort Monroe, which closed as a U.S. Army post in 2011, falls into a period of neglect, there is often a push for drastic changes to the site from both the public and officials. That can can ultimately lead to issues once private developers come in without an overarching plan.
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But that’s not what he sees at Fort Monroe.
“It’s very rare to go to a place where I don’t have to squint to imagine what it can be, because the bone structure is there and the engagement of the public is so strong,” Birnbaum said. “It’s a rare perfect storm in the best way possible.”
Aside from the complexities of tackling a site as big as Fort Monroe and the adhering to regulations from the various agencies that own different parts of it, Birnbaum said the larger challenge of the action plan is “telling the largest story possible” of a site with centuries of history that’s evolved while interwoven between different cultures.
The National Park Service, U.S. Army and Virginia all own Fort Monroe land and control what happens on their respective pieces. However, the action plan intersects with all of those different spaces, according to Martin.
For Birnbaum, that means creating a site that uses existing infrastructure to offer people deeper storytelling beyond what can be read on plaques and signage, and invites everyone to share stories that may not have been told yet.
He added all of the shortlisted firms have each redefined what landscape architecture can be through their respective projects. Whichever firm ends up leading the project, he’s looking that level of innovation within Fort Monroe’s existing bounds, as well as authenticity and transparency with the community it belongs to.
“In all of these cases, it wasn’t just a stewardship quest, but also these projects all led with design excellence,” Birnbaum said. “They led with the art of landscape architecture as a way to revitalize and often heal these landscapes that were in need of recovery and renewal.”
According to Martin, the jury will make a final selection by the end of the year, and the action plan will begin development in January. He said is the rough estimate to develop a master plan of a site of comparable size to Fort Monroe is roughly $1 million, but that could run a bit higher here due to the fort’s complexities. The finished plan will also include operation costs and required revenues to keep the plan sustainable.
Devlin Epding, 757-510-4037, devlin.epding@virginiamedia.com
https://www.pilotonline.com/2025/11/01/fort-monroe-firm-search/
