Fort Monroe needs a national profile, survey finds

By David Macaulay, dmacaulay@dailypress.com | 247-7838
1:21 p.m. EDT, June 24, 2011

WILLIAMSBURG – The need for Fort Monroe to gain a national profile after the
Army leaves on September 15 is contained in a fledgling visioning update for
the community.

Phyllis Terrell, Director of Marketing for the Fort Monroe Authority, told a
meeting of the authority's Executive Committee on Thursday in Williamsburg,
about work being done to develop a vision for Fort Monroe.

The authority has been working with the Siddall advertising and public
relations agency in Richmond which carried out 26 in depth interviews with
authority staff, board members and City of Hampton officials.

Terrell said the interviews identified some "key strengths of the brand."
"To be successful we need to be on the national stage for fundraising,
obtaining grants and driving tourism," she said.

Terrell identified the need for Fort Monroe to gather support from other
national cultural institutions and other major companies that wish to
locate at Fort Monroe.

In the interviews, Terrell said "almost everyone uses the words vibrant
community to describe how Fort Monroe will look in 10-15 years."

"Many of us also talked up developing Fort Monroe, realizing that it will
take time and that the expectations need to be carefully managed. We may
not see profits until 7,8, maybe 10 years from now into this project."

"September 15 is really the beginning and not necessarily the end," she
said. "That's something we really need to keep in mind," she said.
"We all recognize that one of the most important things is economic
sustainability. We also recognize that this will not happen quickly and
we all have very different ideas about how to achieve that," she said.

The authority is in the process of nominating a committee for the Fort
Monroe Foundation which will raise money from donations.