Fort Monroe development moving forward

Published January 30, 2023 by Sarah King

Apartments, a 250-person event center, a boutique hotel, a 500-seat restaurant, a marina and a firing range will soon dot the landscape at Fort Monroe with the help of historic tax credits, public funds and private investment.

Hanover County-based Echelon Resources Inc. was named master developer by the Fort Monroe Authority for four concurrent parcels. The first two are in the design stage and will be converted into 65,000 square feet of apartments, with flexibility for commercial use, according to owner Edwin Gaskin, who is hopeful construction will begin in 2023. Gaskin estimates the four parcels will eventually include 250 to 300 apartments.

Smithfield-based Pack Brothers Hospitality LLC is investing $45 million to build a marina, renovate two existing historic buildings into conference space and a restaurant and hotel over the water, akin to its Smithfield Station development. The new development will be called 37 North at Fort Monroe.

“With both of these developers, we wanted to focus on an understanding that the sites would be developed as part of Fort Monroe — and not become an island within an island — and both Echelon and Pack Brothers embrace that concept,” FMA Executive Director Glenn Oder explains, stressing the mixed-use focus of the 565 acres comprising Fort Monroe, a national historic landmark and former Army installation decommissioned in 2011.

The marina will accommodate 300 slips, spaces for super yachts, a pool and possibly a boardwalk connecting to the fort’s 7-mile trail along Fenwick Road. Pack Brothers Principal Randy Pack says construction could start in fall 2024. The marina and restaurant are anticipated to open in fall 2025. The hotel and conference center, in the third phase, would be completed 12 to 18 months later, Pack says.

The former post’s commissary, which has sat vacant for years, will be a new firing range and training facility for Hampton Police and Joint Base Langley-Eustis officers, made possible through a $7.6 million Department of Defense grant coupled with $3.7 million from the city of Hampton, says Bruce Sturk, the city’s director of federal facilities. Fort Monroe is owned by the state and the National Park Service and managed by the authority and NPS.

In September 2022, NPS issued a request for proposals for the nearly 24,000-square-foot former Paradise Ocean Club, which has been vacant after unsuccessful lease negotiations with the former tenants.  

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