Money Point Revitalization: the co-existence of waterfront industry + ecological regeneration

Money Point is a 330-acre industrial area along the southern branch of the Elizabeth River in Chesapeake, VA. An odd mix of petroleum tanks, shipping terminals, and scrap metal yards share the peninsula with rundown houses and a small Baptist Church. In 1967, a catastrophic wood treatment plant fire and spill released large quantities of creosote into the River, resulting in current high levels of toxins in river sediment, on shore soil and groundwater. The Elizabeth River Project has established the Money Point Taskforce to guide planning for a River sediment Remediation project. Crisman+Petrus' design work, supported by the Virginia Environmental Endowment, is a part of this two-year public process facilitated by the UVA Institute for Environmental Negotiation.

Our task is to engage local inhabitants, businesses, and federal, state and city regulatory agencies in a process of conceptualizing an environmentally sustaining future for Money Point. We proposed a plan that integrates the existing industrial infrastrcutural network with a restored biological network for the purpose of containing and cleansing polluted surface storm water before release into the Elizabeth River, and establishing habitat corridors across the site. The goal of the project is to change one of the most contaminated sites on the Eastern Seaboard into a model of co-existence for ecology and industry. The Learning Barge concept grew out of this public design process and has become an important aspect of the Money Point sustainable redevelopment project.