Netflix Studios Fort Monmouth Celebrates “Major Milestone” With Construction Update … and BBQ

Kenneth Falcon (pictured above, left) wants all 4,000 of his tradespeople out of a job by 2028. It’s cool: as Netflix‘s director of enterprise operation, that’s kind of his job. Plus, they’ll all move on to the next gig — construction is not so dissimilar from film and TV production.

In December 2022, Netflix purchased a quarter of the 1,200-acre vacant U.S. Army base Fort Monmouth, a business decision entirely tied to the Garden State’s generous film tax incentive program. In May 2025, Falcon, the Jersey-born Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos, (former) Gov. Phil Murphy, and me broke ground on the the ambitious multi-year construction project. OK, so I didn’t get a shovel, but it was a fairly intimate affair. As was this morning’s.

On Tuesday, Falcon, 400 construction workers, and myself (and, yes, a few others) celebrated what the streamer has dubbed a “major milestone.” The final structural beam is now in place on Netflix Studios Fort Monmouth‘s Stages 3 and 4 (of the 12 planned, totaling 500,000 square feet; there will also be offices and post-production facilities). Contractors love beams, so we had barbecue. (There was also mediterranean food, but probably not a ton of vegetarian and vegan masons in attendance. The choice to serve hibiscus iced tea likewise did not receive a favorable review from the hardhat in front of me.)

Netflix Studios Fort Monmouth is being developed in a two-part phase. What Falcon is calling Phase 1-A is 50 percent complete, he estimated for The Hollywood Reporter after lunch dessert (cookies, salt water taffy, and ice cream). The shells (below) are there, but the interior work is what takes longest.

Phase 1-B is already partially underway, Falcon said, with about 10 percent of that work complete.

“We had a very harsh winter, but we were able to keep the momentum going, and the contractor was able to stay on track,” Falcon said.

The new phase’s site work, like land grading and demolition, is done; construction will begin next week, Falcon said. Phase 1-B will be finished in 2028 — but Netflix Studios Fort Monmouth will still just be getting started. That is both functionally true and possibly physically true as well.

There are still “a handful” of acres available for purchase, Falcon, who also oversaw the expansion of Netflix Studios Albuquerque, told THR. Though he believes it is unlikely Netflix will buy more land (“probably not”), it could overdevelop what it’s got. (And why not? That’s what the rest of central NJ land developers do.)

“There might be a Phase 2,” Falcon said. “We would hope that — if production is what we’d like it to be, then we will initiate further building.”

So should Netflix close on the historic Radford Studio Center lot in Los Angeles, Falcon may not be available for that rehab. Radford is a relative steal at $330 million, though it is only 55 acres to Netflix Studios Fort Monmouth’s 295 acres. The differing investments reflect industry momentum inside and outside of L.A., which is to say so much of it is moving outside of L.A. For the first quarter of 2026, New Jersey saw the largest growth in production spend in the U.S., according to ProdPro (below).

California is still the biggest spender overall, and even the neighboring New York state dwarfs New Jersey today — but change is in the Jersey Shore salt water air.

Netflix has budgeted $1 billion into building out its Fort Monmouth campus. That’s chump change: Netflix will spend $20 billion on content this year.