Sunday, April 23, 2006

Fort Monroe, Tidewater Virginia's answer to San Francisco's Presidio, should be treated as a national treasure. Instead, the 200-year-old military installation, located beside the bridge-tunnel from Hampton to Norfolk, seems likely to become a developer's dream. Under base realignment plans, the fort is slated for closure in 2011.

With little public discussion, state Sen. Martin E. Williams (R-Newport News) recently sponsored a bill to donate 270 acres of the military installation to the city of Hampton for redevelopment.

Williams's bill passed the Virginia Senate but luckily never reached the floor of the House, because the future of this fort, with its views across Hampton Roads, down the Chesapeake Bay and into America's past, deserves much more public discussion than it has received so far. It also needs a fairer planning process than the Hampton-dominated one that is underway through a deal with the Pentagon and the state.

Not long ago a local paper that supports the Hampton deal joshed about rumors that Donald Trump had visited Fort Monroe. That would have been no surprise, an editorial observed, because the "property is magnificent."

Indeed, it is. Fort Monroe has more than 80 national historic landmark homes, more than 400 live oaks, a chapel with Tiffany windows and a dignified parade lawn overlooking the entrance to Hampton Roads harbor. In summer the bandstand is the centerpiece for picnic concerts, and in a region with too few public beaches, the Fort Monroe grounds offer a pristine one along with green space worthy of a national or state park.

The post also has a stone fortress with a moat and a rich history peopled by Andrew Jackson, Robert E. Lee, Edgar Allan Poe and Abraham Lincoln. During the Civil War, escaped slaves found sanctuary at the fort. After the war, Confederate leader Jefferson Davis was confined within its walls.

Regional leaders may have the best of civic-minded intentions in signing over the fort to Hampton, but the practical effect is to undervalue the site as simply a plum for one city's economic development. With high-rises going up on the Norfolk and Virginia Beach bayfronts, and with Hampton seeking to develop green space beside its own bayfront, a further assault on Tidewater's shoreline charm at Fort Monroe seems almost inevitable.

Most people want to preserve the historic homes at the site, and most people understand Hampton's stake in Fort Monroe's future. But, although it's unclear whether any legislation concerning the disposition of the fort will appear next year, Hampton already has begun redevelopment planning that it intends to finish this year.

Public hearings are scheduled for the summer, but questions remain about how much the city will take into account the public will. Hampton is keeping tight control over planning, requiring even the citizen members of a steering committee to be Hampton residents. One recent list of six so-called regional planning representatives included a Hampton hospital director, Hampton's city manager and a developer.

Some Hampton officials apparently believe that it should be reassuring that the city promises that Fort Monroe won't be converted into a gated community. Somehow, though, those of us who cherish Fort Monroe as a national historic, cultural and recreational treasure do not feel reassured.

-- Steven T. Corneliussen

Corneliussen@alumni.Duke.edu