The Ft. Monroe site sits on Old Point Comfort Peninsula in the Chesapeake Bay at the mouth of the James River.  Ft. Monroe once guarded the entrance to the waters that serve the Hampton Roads area.  Today, it is decommissioned but it an historic destination.  The area adjacent to the fort consists of housing and businesses and the site itself contains a few contributing buildings, existing street grid and a power substation.  Given its location on the Peninsula, the site also boasts views of the water to the northeast and the west, and views of the Fort to the south. 

In 2018, Frye Properties hired Michael Watkins Architect, LLC to prepare a plan for the site, with the charge to maintain the contributing buildings and street grid, and to screen the power substation from view.  The proposed plan provides an increased variety of housing types for the area with the addition of new single-family lots as well as renovations to a few existing buildings into multi-family apartments.  The plan addresses its surroundings by facing homes to Mill Creek to the north, the fort to the south, and the neighborhood to the west, all while screening the substation from street view.  The land to the east of the site, which directly fronts the water, is proposed as a park defined by 3-story multi-family buildings. 

Location:  Newport News, Virginia [map]
Client:  Frye Properties
Type:  infill
Acres:  34
Program: 323 residences
Transect Zones: T3, T4, T5 
Website:  n/a