Lennar has broken ground on a 220-home community in Eatontown, New Jersey, built on a parcel of the former Fort Monmouth that sat empty for more than two decades. The Premiere at Monmouth will bring 32 single-family homes and 188 townhomes to the site, with sales anticipated to begin in late fall 2026.
The homebuilder marked the occasion Wednesday with a ceremonial groundbreaking, according to a Lennar announcement distributed through PR Newswire. Lennar New Jersey–New York division leaders joined Eatontown Mayor Anthony Talerico Jr. and other municipal and community representatives at the event. Every home in the new community will include Lennar's Everything's Included program, which folds popular features and finishes into the base price rather than tacking them on as upgrades.
A Long-Vacant Parcel Gets New Purpose
The site sat unused for more than two decades before this week's groundbreaking, part of the broader push to redevelop the former Army post. The company describes the new community as approximately five miles from the Jersey Shore, and notably close to the future Netflix Studios East campus, a 292-acre production facility that is expected to generate significant employment and economic activity in the region, per the same release.
Mayor Talerico said the borough is ready to welcome new families to the area after years of vacancy, and said he hoped new residents would feel at home in the community. Dana Romano, Lennar's New Jersey–New York division president, said the project gives Monmouth County families a new place to call home amid a major Jersey Shore redevelopment. The groundbreaking also drew Robert Calabro, Lennar's New Jersey–New York senior vice president of land, and Eatontown Borough Administrator William P. Lucia III, alongside Laura Drahushak, interim executive director of the Fort Monmouth Economic Revitalization Authority.
Part Of A Much Bigger Redevelopment Push
The Premiere at Monmouth sits within what Lennar's announcement describes as the 1,226-acre Fort Monmouth redevelopment, though earlier reporting from Real Estate NJ put the former Army post's footprint at 1,126 acres spanning Oceanport, Tinton Falls and Eatontown — a discrepancy the available records don't resolve. The broader site has been governed by Fort Monmouth's Reuse and Redevelopment Plan, a blueprint intended to promote employment, commerce and economic development as the base transitions to civilian use, according to the Fort Monmouth Economic Revitalization Authority.
That transition has picked up pace in recent years. By February 2020, the redevelopment had already activated 1 million square feet of commercial space and 116 residential units, Real Estate NJ reported at the time. More than 100 obsolete buildings across Eatontown and Oceanport were slated for demolition as of a December 2024 authority meeting, according to the Two River Times, and a December 2024 state economic development release had targeted 2028 for completion of the Netflix studio project.
Following Earlier Fort Monmouth Housing Projects
The Premiere at Monmouth joins a string of residential developments that have gradually filled in the former base. East Gate, billed as the first residential component brought to market in the redevelopment, launched sales in 2018 as a 68-home collection of townhomes, duplexes and single-family homes in Fort Monmouth's Oceanport section, Real Estate NJ reported. By 2021, prices for East Gate's three-bedroom homes started in the upper $700,000s.
Lennar itself has built elsewhere on the former base before. The company was developing Patriot's Square, a mixed-use project combining 243 homes with 58,000 square feet of commercial space, and was also building 45 single-family detached homes called Anthem Place on a separate 15-acre Fort Monmouth parcel, according to Real Estate NJ's 2020 reporting. More recently, the planned Liberty Pointe development called for 275 residences, including single-family homes, townhomes and 20 affordable rental units, the Two River Times reported at the start of 2025.
Lennar says it has built more than 1.5 million homes since its founding in 1954. The Premiere at Monmouth marks the company's latest entry in a redevelopment effort that has steadily transformed a decommissioned Army installation into new neighborhoods for Monmouth County families.
