For most of the last fifteen years, Fort Monmouth was a ghost. Eighty-five buildings standing empty along the Shrewsbury River, weeds in the parade grounds, the kind of place that shows up in drone footage every few years with a melancholy voiceover about military base closures. The fort had served the U.S. Army from 1917 to 2011 — radar research, signal corps, a century of quiet importance — and then the lights went out. For a long time, the only thing it produced was a question: what now.
The answer arrived in stages. In 2022, Netflix and the Fort Monmouth Economic Revitalization Authority struck a deal. In November 2024, Oceanport's planning board approved Phase 1A. In May 2025, Netflix broke ground. In December 2025, the company closed on the 292-acre Mega Parcel for $55 million and started tearing down what was left of the old base — eighty-five buildings, gone in twelve months, clearing the way for what comes next.
What comes next is the largest film and television production hub on the East Coast.
The numbers, plainly stated.
The Netflix Studios Fort Monmouth campus will span 292 acres across Oceanport and Eatontown, anchored by twelve soundstages totaling nearly 500,000 square feet. The first four soundstages are 22,000 square feet each and stand seventy feet tall — designed for the kind of feature films that, until now, would have been shot in Atlanta, Albuquerque, or overseas. The campus will also include production offices, a cafeteria, retail shops, trailer parks, a helipad, a cinema, a hotel, visitor attractions, and specialized water tanks for film work.
The build is happening in two phases. Phase 1A — the first four soundstages on a 29-acre site called the McAfee Zone in Oceanport — is targeted to open in 2027. Phase 1B, the remaining eight soundstages in Eatontown, is targeted for 2028. Construction is moving aggressively. The shell of the first soundstage has already been erected.
And these aren't shells waiting for tenants. At the May 2025 groundbreaking, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos confirmed that productions are already scheduled for the new complex. "We plan to hit the ground running," he said. In a separate filing, Sarandos disclosed that Netflix has moved seven productions back from overseas to shoot in New Jersey since the state passed its film incentive program — productions that will land at Fort Monmouth the moment the doors open.
This isn't speculation. It's already priced in.
The most common mistake I hear when I talk to people about Fort Monmouth — agents, business owners, friends at dinner — is the same mistake every time: they treat it like it's a few years away.
It's not. It's already here. The economic effects of a project this size don't begin when the doors open. They begin the moment the deal is announced, and they accelerate as construction does. Property values in Monmouth County have already started to move on the news alone. Commercial brokers are tracking speculative interest in industrial and flex space within a fifteen-mile radius. Local officials are talking openly about the spillover into hotels, restaurants, post-production suites, prop shops, costume warehouses, catering kitchens, dry cleaners, and every other secondary business that supports a major studio.
The numbers, again, plainly:
- 1,400–2,000 permanent jobs in production, post-production, and administration once the studio is operational.
- 3,000–4,000 indirect jobs across hospitality, retail, transportation, and trades.
- Up to $387 million in state film and digital media tax incentives committed to the project — meaning more productions, not fewer, will route through this campus once it's live.
- A hotel on the property itself, plus visitor attractions and retail — which means Fort Monmouth doesn't just bring crews in. It brings tourists.
The towns most directly affected are the obvious ones: Oceanport and Eatontown sit on the campus. But the spillover map is wider — and more interesting — than that. Creative professionals don't live where they work. They live where they want to live, and they commute to set. Which means the towns most likely to see real lifestyle and luxury demand are the ones that already have it: Rumson, Fair Haven, Little Silver, Colts Neck, Holmdel, Middletown. Plus the coastal towns that creatives gravitate toward: Atlantic Highlands, Sea Bright, Long Branch, Asbury Park.
If you're an agent working those markets, this isn't an upcoming opportunity. This is the opportunity. And it's already started.
What Albuquerque tells us about what's coming.
The closest analog to what's about to happen in Monmouth County is what happened in Albuquerque, New Mexico, after Netflix planted its flag there in 2018. Over the five years that followed, home prices in Albuquerque outpaced comparable mid-size U.S. markets by a meaningful margin. Hospitality businesses opened to serve crews. New construction caught up to demand. The city's identity itself shifted — from a regional economy with one foot in tourism to a creative economy attracting professionals from outside the state.
Monmouth County starts with two advantages Albuquerque didn't have. First, we're thirty minutes from Manhattan. Productions that shoot here can pull crew, talent, and post-production resources from the largest media market in the country without anyone having to relocate. Second, we already have the Jersey Shore — a lifestyle that doesn't need to be invented or marketed, with beaches, restaurants, equestrian country, marinas, vineyards, and a working luxury real estate market that has existed for a hundred years.
So the Netflix bet here isn't "can we make this place attractive?" The bet is "can we channel the demand that's already coming?"
Why this matters for the businesses already here.
Most of what gets written about Fort Monmouth focuses on what's coming from outside: the productions, the new residents, the construction jobs. That's the obvious story. But the more interesting story, and the one that matters more for the people reading The Slate, is what happens to the businesses that are already here.
If you run a restaurant in Red Bank, a boutique hotel in Spring Lake, a beach club on Sea Bright, a real estate brand in Rumson, a fitness studio in Atlantic Highlands, a marina, a vineyard, a surf shop — your business is about to be on camera. Not metaphorically. Literally. Production crews scout. Tourists arrive. New residents discover. Editorial coverage follows. Within thirty-six months, the volume of attention pointed at this stretch of coastline will be unrecognizable.
The businesses that thrive in that environment will be the ones that built a cinematic identity before the spotlight arrived. A body of work. Films that capture what the room actually feels like. Footage that travels — that gets shared, embedded, picked up, archived. Visual assets that exist independently of a single Instagram post or a single seasonal campaign.
The businesses that don't will be the ones still posting iPhone walkthroughs in 2028, wondering why the new arrivals are choosing the place down the street.
What we're going to do here.
The Slate is the editorial publication of Hollywood East Films. It exists because the story of what's happening here is too long, too layered, and too consequential to fit inside a fifteen-second reel.
Three departments, going forward:
- The Area. Reporting and reflection on Fort Monmouth, the Netflix build, the spillover, and the towns that are about to change. Things you can't get from a generic news roundup — written by someone who lives here, films here, and is paying attention.
- The Work. Behind the lens on real client films. Case studies. Why a cinematic identity matters more than another marketing campaign. What it actually looks like to build a body of work that compounds.
- The People. Long-form profiles of the agents, restaurateurs, hoteliers, founders, and operators building the next decade of the Shore. Some of them are clients. Most of them aren't. All of them are doing something worth documenting.
This is the first dispatch. There will be many more.
If you're a luxury real estate agent watching Monmouth County's price action and wondering how to position yourself before the next eighteen months — we should talk. If you run a Shore business and you can already feel the wave coming — we should talk. If you're just here to read along and pay attention to what's happening — welcome. That's what this is for.
Lead image: Rendering courtesy Netflix Studios. The Slate uses official renderings under fair use for editorial commentary. Future dispatches will feature original Hollywood East Films photography from the Fort Monmouth site.