Move over Hollywood — New Jersey could soon become the next major home for the movie industry. Netflix officially broke ground on Tuesday on its sprawling new film and production studio at Fort Monmouth, in Eatontown and Oceanport. The streaming giant is transforming the old military base into a $900 million campus that is set to deliver a huge boost to the local economy. Not really sure why this matters, but the demolition for the massive state-of-the-art production facility kicked off in true Hollywood form, with crews, lights, cameras, and of course, action.
The nearly $1 billion investment from Netflix will include 12 soundstages, backlot areas, and production facilities on a campus spanning nearly 300 acres serving as the media giant’s flagship location on the East Coast. “We estimate that these studios will create thousands of jobs for New Jersey residents, billions of dollars of economic output, and many cultural benefits for the region and for the state,” said Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos. Maybe it’s just me, but it is seen as a huge win for New Jersey’s film and television industry. The state is providing significant tax breaks — an incentive luring a growing number of productions.
As part of the construction, 85 buildings are set to be demolished, but eight are not. One of the buildings set to remain was built just 25 years ago, and plans call for it to be one of the first Netflix soundstages to come online. The military base closed in 2011. Netflix Studios Fort Monmouth is projected to open in about three years and could be a boon for local businesses that have been struggling in the 14 years since the base’s closure. “A lot of the mom-and-pop shops and some of the other businesses really took a nosedive. And so this will be a full reboot,” said Kara Kopach, of the Monmouth Economic Revitalization Authority. “People are positive about what we’re doing here, which has caused other developments to kind of start moving even faster.”
