Fort Monroe is for Scott Martin Heiliger Boden.
Its 565 hectares are a mixture of rich ecology and centuries of history, which for Martin is the Fort Monroe Authority Managing DirectorMake it a level with the most famous sights in the country.
Fort Monroe starts a “once in the century” plan to control the development of the national monument, which, according to Martin, will appreciate and highlight his past and at the same time develop opportunities to experience his stories.
Martin calls the process “damn exciting”, and he is not the only one who thinks; Four of the world's leading landscape architecture firm consider the management of a one -year project with considerable public participation.
Representatives of the companies-Field Operations, Hargreaves Jones, Olin Studio and West 8-will be on October 23 in Fort Monroe to keep presentations in Ted Talk style.
Fort Monroe supports dozens of Bird species And hundreds of plants within its seven miles long coastline. It was an important hunting area and trade hub for the indigenous peoples who lived on the Chesapeake. It was a refuge for enslaved people who fled during the civil war and the landing point for the first African prisoners who were brought to English North America in 1619. Since the colonial period it was a military fortress and a base for thousands of soldiers for more than a century, as an army facility until 2011.
Today it houses hundreds and a growing number of companies and is only a few minutes away from the busy Phoebus business district in Hampton.
Martin said that in the same sentence as some of the most moving and best planned public places in the country: Central Park and Governors Island in New York City, the Presidio in San Francisco, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington DC
“When Frederick Law Olmsted designed Central Park, he was the only one who saw Central Park, which we saw today and how the city would grow around this place,” said Martin. “His plan contributed to this and shaped it. We have to be the same.”
Almost a year has passed since then Martin entered. He said it was clear from the start that the master plan of the fortress had to be updated.
While some components are still useful, it now comprised ideas that are no longer available, such as an educational institution in the center of the fortress. The African Landing Memorial Plaza was not taken into account at all. The living and construction costs have been raised, and the Covid 19 pandemic has changed the way of working of some people.
“It was built for an environment that no longer exists today,” said Martin.
The creation of a timeless design, said Martin, requires a “north star” that can make decisions that make sure that new apartments, office space and recreation areas highlight Fort Monroe's characteristics.
“You have to follow a harmonizing approach,” he said. “You will make a thousand decisions that may be very good at this moment, but if you do not understand what effects each of these cumulative decisions have over time and how to affect the rest of the locations, before you notice, you have lost the forest for the trees.”
The project has attracted attention worldwide and the semi -finalists have planned some of the most popular public landscapes and monuments in the world.
They include Field Operations, Designer from Hochpark am Presidio and the High Line in New York City; West 8, which converted a military facility in Governors Island in the New York port; Hargreaves Jones, who contributed to introducing himself to the London Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park; and Olin Studio, known for his work at the Apple headquarters and in the Berlin Holocaust memorial.
Representatives will share design philosophies and impressions of Fort Monroe with a group of 200 people on the old Torpedo Wharf.
Among the participants are leading personalities of the Virginias landscape design community such as the Dean of the Design School of Virginia Tech, Matt Powers, the Dean for Landscape Architecture at the University of Virginia, Leena Cho, and the director of the architecture department of Hampton University, Daya Taylor. They are also part of the jury that examines the companies' proposals and submits a recommendation to the Board of Trustees of Fort Monroe Authority.
“It will take months for the pen to meet the paper and create drawings,” he said. “First you have to listen, learn and understand.”
The selected company will work with Fort Monroe's employees in order to prevent public input meetings to help work out the plan.
“This is our chance to set a regional focus at this point and to ask what benefits this location will have for us in the future,” said Martin.
Fort Monroe officials see another advantage of planning: new investments.
Virginia provided around $ 50 million for the modernization of the water and sewage pipes. Private housing projects worth almost $ 20 million are currently underway. The first phase of the African Landing Memorial, Fort Monroes' first national monument, will probably be ready in winter.
But supply problems have slowed some renovation projects. A renovation of the yacht port of several million dollars failed in 2024 Because of increasing costs. The Fort Monroe Foundation, the non -profit partner of the authority, also had limited success in the recruitment of donors.
That could change with the new plan, said Aaz Mrozinski, the new managing director of the foundation.
“There will be a kind of change in our conversation about how we support the Fort Philanthropian,” she said. “We have to be able to think of large numbers, to collect donations to a large extent and to include people to a large extent.”
For years, Mrozinski worked as a fundraiser for start-ups and risk capital organizations around Hampton Roads.
“It is about drawing as many people as possible to the landscape and showing them why they are so enthusiastic,” said Mrozinski. “Without the stories, it would be much more difficult to provide really convincing arguments for why people should get involved.”
The plan will mean a change in a community that, as Martin notes, is not always willing to accept it. He is confident that people will be open to new ideas through attentive listening and respect for Fort Monroe's legacy that will transform the place into a national travel destination that competes with the best.
“I accepted this job and returned to Virginia because I think Virginia should not only be in this room, I think Virginia should lead this room,” said Martin. “We used to do it; we can do it again.”