Fort Monroe’s redevelopment was a $400 million dream. It went into the ground.
Four years into implementing a master plan that aimed to turn 565 acres of land, 2 million square feet of buildings, and one water meter into a successful real estate project, former Fort Monroe CEO Glenn Oder hit his breaking point.
The Fort Monroe Authority had already spent more than $25 million by 2017 on reuse and redevelopment planning for the former military installation. That’s when Oder found the map.
It showed outlines of where two buildings previously stood along Fenwick Road that had been paved over — living quarters for former slaves and a hospital where Harriet Tubman may have worked as a matron at during the Civil War.
Given the historical importance of the sites, Oder told his Board of Trustees at their next meeting that all land sales would need to stop. No one knew what was underground, said Oder, who served as the authority’s first executive director from 2011 to 2024.
“I could no longer recommend selling property at Fort Monroe because I had no idea what we were selling,” Oder said.
Halting all land sales meant the authority would be unable to implement its redevelopment plans as originally intended, which shattered the authority’s pathway to making the site’s redevelopment dreams a reality.
A master plan developed in 2013 by international design firm Sasaki Associates had promised an economically-sustainable Fort Monroe by fiscal year 2027 by creating nearly 1,000 rental units and more than 900,000 square feet of commercial space by 2030. Some of the amenities promised in the long-term plans included a new hotel, a 7-mile waterfront trail and a “living shoreline” along Mill Creek.
Those promises never came to fruition. Thirteen years and $400 million later, the reality is the authority is back at the drawing board. It’s tapped designer Hargreaves Jones to develop a new master plan.