Fort Monmouth
A separate area (Camp Charles Wood) to the west included post housing, a golf course, and additional office and laboratory facilities.
A rail line, owned by Conrail, ran through Camp Charles Wood and out to Naval Weapons Station Earle.
The post was home to several units of the U.S. Army Materiel Command and offices of the Army Acquisition Executive (AAE) that research and manage Command and Control, Communications, Computing, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) capabilities and related technology, as well as an interservice organization designed to coordinate C4ISR, an academic preparatory school, an explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) unit, a garrison services unit, an Army health clinic, and a Veterans Administration health clinic.
On December 21, 2022, Governor Phil Murphy described Netflix's purchase of the Mega Parcel as a "transformative investment” for New Jersey.
[7] Eatontown's mayor Anthony Talerico commented on the potential economic growth the project will bring to the surrounding area.
Oceanport's mayor Jay Coffey praised the project and cited "social revitalization" that Netflix would bring to Fort Monmouth.
[8] On February 21, 2024, FMERA unanimously approved an amendment to create zoning for the project, allowing Netflix to move ahead with its plans for the complex.
[9] As of the end of 2023, three separate businesses (a microbrewery, a speciality foods business, and a "massive" entertainment venue offering fine dining, live music, virtual golf and other sports and sports viewing) had all opened at the former Fort Monmouth Commissary which had formerly provided food and grocery offerings to thousands of military personnel on the base.
In 1928 the first radio-equipped meteorological balloon reached the upper atmosphere, a forerunner of weather sounding techniques universally used today.
A production model of this equipment detected the oncoming Japanese air attack on Pearl Harbor, but the warning it provided was discounted.
In 1946 celestial communication was proved feasible, when the radar developed by the Project Diana team was used to bounce radio signals off the moon.
At its peak during World War II, Fort Monmouth measured 1,713 acres (6.93 km2), and had billeting space for 1,559 officers and 19,786 enlisted personnel.
More communications units, including the Pigeon Breeding and Training Center, were consolidated into Fort Monmouth after the war ended.
[15] Fort Monmouth was also home to the combat motion picture school, including laboratories and a production studio.
The fort also hosts the Avenue of Memories, a set of trees and monuments dedicated to Signal Corp soldiers who died in World War II.
Representatives Frank Pallone and Rush D. Holt, Jr. to remove the post from the list was made to the BRAC commission, but was rejected.
However, in June 2007, an investigation by the Asbury Park Press revealed that the projected cost of closing Fort Monmouth and moving its research functions to Aberdeen, Maryland, had doubled from $780 million to $1.5 billion.
[19] In addition, recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) findings uncovered substantial errors in the Army estimation of BRAC cost savings—in one case turning a projected saving of $1 billion into one of just $31 million.
The legislation creating the commission, proposed by State Senators Joseph Kyrillos and Ellen Karcher, received bipartisan support, but only after wrangling in the legislature over its composition and authority.
In December 2016, the Monmouth County Board of Chosen Freeholders issued $33 million in bonds to allow FMERA to purchase outright 560 acres (230 ha) of land on the base from the Army.
As a condition of the bonds, the county reconstructed the main road through the base to allow for public travel between Route 35 / CR 537 and Oceanport Avenue for the first time since 2001.
FMERA also proposed further commercial development constituting a gas station, grocery store, and restaurant adjacent to said housing.
