This past June, about 400 construction workers gathered at the former Fort Monmouth Army Base for a ceremony that probably would have sounded like science fiction to anyone standing on that same ground 10 years ago.
Netflix’s director of enterprise operations, Kenneth Falcon (a Jersey guy, born and raised ), addressed the crowd in front of the steel skeleton of Soundstages 3 and 4. The final structural beam had just gone up. Saltwater taffy and ice cream were passed around. The tradespeople who had spent the better part of a year transforming a shuttered Army base into one of the biggest film studios on the East Coast took a few minutes to appreciate what they were building. It was a low-key ceremony for a project with anything-but-low-key implications. And the Netflix studio is only one piece of what is happening along the Jersey Shore right now.
Earlier this year, we wrote about the big shifts underway in this region, such as the Netflix investment and Monmouth Mall redevelopment, along with what all of it might mean for local businesses. A lot has moved since then.
Netflix Fort Monmouth: The Steel Is Up
When Netflix bought its 292-acre parcel at the old Fort Monmouth back in December 2022, it was easy to file it away as one of those big announcements that sounds great and then quietly stalls in permitting for a decade. A billion-dollar Hollywood studio promised on a vacant Army base in Monmouth County? Sure. We will believe it when we see it.
Well, we are starting to see it.
Netflix broke ground in May 2025 and has not let up since. In the months that followed, crews demolished 85 former military buildings on the property. Much of it, remarkably, before the formal land sale had even closed. That is not how cautious development moves. That is a company that decided it was doing this and started acting accordingly. The McAfee Zone, a 29-acre section in Oceanport, is where the first four soundstages are going up, and by the time of the recent June 23rd ceremony, the structural skeleton of all four was in place.
The numbers are significant. Phase 1A, which includes four soundstages totaling roughly 88,000 square feet, a 61,800-square-foot mill building, and renovations to the McAfee Center, is about 50 percent complete. Phase 1B, which will add more stages and support facilities in Eatontown, is already 10 percent underway. When it is all said and done, the full campus will have 12 soundstages totaling nearly 500,000 square feet. The timeline has Netflix opening Phase 1A by summer 2027, with Phase 1B coming in fall 2028. The construction phase alone is expected to generate close to 4,000 jobs.
Permanent positions once the studio is operational are estimated at more than 1,500. And that does not count the downstream ripple, such as the caterers, drivers, equipment vendors, hotels, and restaurants that fill up when a production crew rolls into town for six weeks.
Netflix is not sitting on its hands waiting for the studio to open, either. The company has already filmed more than 20 titles in New Jersey such asHappy Gilmore 2, Office Romance, The Rip, and others. And for the first quarter of 2026, New Jersey saw the largest growth in production spend of any state in the country. The studio will not be introducing film production to the Garden State. It will be giving an industry that is already accelerating here a permanent home.
Falcon said it plainly at the June ceremony. His goal is to have all 4,000 of his tradespeople out of work by 2028. Meaning the construction will be done, and the studio will be open. For a site that sat largely dormant for 15 years after the base closed in 2011, that is a sentence worth sitting with.
Monmouth Square: Whole Foods Opens on Wednesday
While Netflix’s story is still largely about what is coming, the Monmouth Square redevelopment is starting to deliver something you can actually walk into.
Kushner Companies broke ground on the $500 million transformation of Monmouth Mall in May 2024. The concept (which Kushner has been deliberately calling a “de-malling”) tears out 600,000 square feet of the original enclosed mall and replaces it with an open-air town center including freestanding buildings with street-front entries, a central public green with walking and biking paths, and 1,000 luxury apartments. The retail footprint shrinks by 40 percent while the whole development becomes a place people might actually want to spend time rather than just park and shop.
The most immediate thing happening is a 40,000-square-foot Whole Foods that opens this Wednesday at 8 AM. It is taking the space Barnes & Noble left behind when they relocated next to Macy’s. The store is Jersey Shore-inspired (pastel color palette, sea-inspired elements, raw wood finishes) and will carry more than 1,000 locally sourced Northeast products, including brands like Undercover Snacks, Paper Plane Coffee Co., and Mushroom King Farm. The first 300 people in line get a limited-edition Eatontown tote bag and a Secret Saver coupon with up to $100 in savings. If you are in the area on Wednesday morning, it might be worth a look.
The other tenants coming in around Whole Foods give you a pretty good read on the direction Kushner is heading. Prince Street Pizza. Cava. Van Leeuwen Ice Cream. Offshore Coffee. Felice, a restaurant group that operates in Manhattan, the Hamptons, and West Palm Beach. STRONG Pilates. These are not discount-mall anchors. This is the kind of retail mix you see in markets that are trying to attract a specific kind of year-round resident, not just summer shoppers.
The residential piece will include 1,000 luxury apartments under the Livana brand and is targeting a late 2026 leasing launch. The full project is 75 percent pre-leased, which real estate observers will tell you is meaningfully above what you typically see at this stage of a redevelopment this size. Full completion is still on track for 2028.
The Felice signing is also worth noting specifically. That restaurant group does not open in markets they do not believe in. The fact that they are coming to Eatontown tells you something about who they expect to be eating there, and what the broader demographic of Monmouth Square looks like when it is fully built out.
The Bigger Picture
Fort Monmouth and Monmouth Square are the two biggest stories, but they are not the only ones worth watching.
Bell Works in Holmdel, Ralph Zucker’s “metroburb” development at the former Bell Labs campus, continues expanding a few miles from Fort Monmouth. The Fort Monmouth Economic Revitalization Authority, which has been overseeing the base redevelopment for years, now operates out of Bell Works after selling its previous building as part of the Netflix land deal. That move tells you something about the confidence both organizations have in the Holmdel corridor as a serious economic hub.
The State of New Jersey has put real money behind all of this. Netflix is eligible for up to $387 million in tax credits through the Aspire program, credits they only collect by maintaining operations at Fort Monmouth for at least 10 years. There is also a 40 percent base credit available on qualified production expenses through the state’s film and digital media program. These are not small incentives. They reflect a deliberate state policy decision to build a film industry here rather than simply compete for individual productions.
Taken together, what is happening along this stretch of the Jersey Shore is not a single project or a random cluster of investments. It is a region being deliberately repositioned (with real money, real construction, and real timelines) as something more than a summer destination. That repositioning has been building for years through the population growth and remote-work migration we wrote about earlier this year. Fort Monmouth and Monmouth Square are the most visible expressions of it, but they are not the cause. They are the symptom of something that was already happening here.
What This Actually Means for Local Businesses
We keep coming back to the same question, because it is the one that matters most for the people actually running businesses in this market: what does all of this mean for you right now?
The honest answer is that most of the opportunity is still ahead. The Netflix studio does not open until 2027. The Monmouth Square apartments do not start leasing until late this year. There is still time to be the business that was ready when the shift arrived, rather than the one scrambling to catch up after it did.
That readiness question has a pretty specific answer in 2026. The production crew member who needs a contractor, the new Monmouth Square resident looking for a dentist, the Netflix employee relocating from Los Angeles who wants to find a good local restaurant, they all start the same way. They open their phone and search. Whatever comes up first, looks most credible, and has the best reviews is probably who they call.
The local businesses that have put work into their digital presence (their Google Business Profile, their review volume, their content) will be visible to those people. The ones that are behind will be right there in the same market and completely invisible to the same customer. That gap is not about budget. It is about whether a business has been paying attention.
There is also a storytelling angle here that most local businesses are leaving on the table. The people arriving in this region over the next few years are coming somewhere they do not know yet. The local business that can tell its story (who they are, how long they have been here, what they know about this place that nobody else does) has an advantage that no newcomer can replicate. That kind of local credibility is earned over years. The moment to make sure it is visible is before the new customers arrive, not after.
The steel is up at Fort Monmouth. The Whole Foods opens on Wednesday at Monmouth Square. The Jersey Shore is changing in real, tangible, irreversible ways. What happens next for individual businesses depends entirely on whether they are positioned to meet it.
Key Takeaways
- Netflix Fort Monmouth is real and on schedule. The June 23rd topping-off ceremony completed the structural framework for all four first soundstages. Phase 1A is about 50 percent complete, targeting a summer 2027 opening. The full campus will eventually include 12 soundstages across 292 acres.
- Monmouth Square’s Whole Foods opens this Wednesday, July 29th. The 40,000-square-foot Jersey Shore-inspired store opens at 8 AM. Cava, Prince Street Pizza, Felice, Van Leeuwen, and STRONG Pilates are all coming. Residential leasing for 1,000 luxury apartments begins late 2026.
- New Jersey’s film production momentum is real. Netflix has filmed 20-plus titles in the state. New Jersey led all states in production spend growth in Q1 2026. The studio gives that momentum a permanent place to land.
- The window to be early is still open. The major projects do not fully open until 2027 and 2028. Local businesses still have time to build the visibility and reputation that determines whether they capture the new customers this transformation brings.
- This is a structural shift, not a seasonal one. A working film studio, a year-round mixed-use town center, and a growing permanent population. These change who comes to the Jersey Shore, when they come, and what they need when they get here. The businesses that understand this early are the ones that will grow with it.
FAQs About Netflix Fort Monmouth and Monmouth Square
When will Netflix Studios Fort Monmouth actually open?
Netflix is targeting summer 2027 for Phase 1A, the first four soundstages in the Oceanport section of the campus. Phase 1B, which covers the Eatontown section, is expected in fall 2028. The June topping-off ceremony confirmed the project is on track. The full 292-acre campus with 12 soundstages is a multi-year buildout that extends well past 2028, but the first studios opening in 2027 will already make Fort Monmouth one of the largest and most active production facilities on the East Coast.
What is opening at Monmouth Square right now?
The Whole Foods Market opens on Wednesday, July 29th, at 8 AM at 180 Route 35 South in Eatontown. The first 300 customers get a limited-edition Eatontown tote bag and a Secret Saver coupon with up to $100 off. Macy’s, Boscov’s, AMC Theatres, and Barnes & Noble have all remained open throughout the redevelopment. Additional tenants (such as Cava, Prince Street Pizza, Van Leeuwen Ice Cream, Offshore Coffee, Felice, and STRONG Pilates) are expected to open on a rolling basis through 2026 and 2027. Residential leasing for the 1,000-apartment Livana component is on track for late this year.
How will these projects affect local businesses in Ocean County?
The downstream impact of a working studio is broader than most people initially think. Production crews spend weeks or months on location, and they will be eating, sleeping, driving, and hiring local. Supporting businesses (such as catering, security, equipment, lodging) tend to follow studios over time. For Ocean County businesses specifically, the biggest opportunity is in being findable before the influx arrives rather than trying to compete for attention after it does. The new residents drawn to Monmouth Square’s apartments, the production workers coming for Netflix shoots, the visitors pulled in by the broader regional investment. They will all search for local businesses the same way everyone searches now. Whatever shows up first and looks most credible is who gets the call. Building that visibility is something that has to happen before they arrive, not after.
We are based at the Jersey Shore and we have been watching these business developments closely. At Resolution Promotions, we help local businesses get positioned for what is coming, not just what is already here. If you want to talk about what that looks like for your business, let’s talk.
