Monmouth Square Tenant Tracker 2026: Every Signed Lease, the 1,000-Unit Livana Apartment Program, and What’s Coming in Late 2026

Why I'm Tracking Every Tenant Signing

In Part 1 of this series, I framed the Eatontown transformation as five interconnected projects driving more than $1.5 billion of construction spend through the central Monmouth County corridor. Monmouth Square — Kushner Companies' $500 million de-malling of the former Monmouth Mall — is the single largest residential addition I have seen at any Monmouth County site in twenty-plus years of brokerage. One thousand luxury apartment units delivered into a borough with roughly 6,200 existing housing units. The leasing launch on those apartments is scheduled for the end of 2026, which means the first wave of move-ins lands precisely when the Whole Foods and the first Phase 1 retail tenants come online.

For buyers and sellers in the surrounding shore towns, the question that matters is not whether Monmouth Square will deliver. The financing is locked, the construction is underway, and Kushner has already announced eight tenants on the retail side. The question is which tenants are signing, when they are opening, and what that mix tells us about the lifestyle premium that will accrue to nearby addresses by 2027 and 2028. The Felice signing in October 2025 — an SA Hospitality Group flagship that operates in Manhattan, the Hamptons, West Palm Beach, and West Chester — is a different kind of signal than a generic mall food court tenant. It tells you something about who Kushner thinks is going to be living and shopping at Monmouth Square, and that signal moves through to the residential markets within a 15-minute drive.¹

This installment is the working tenant tracker I am keeping in my own market notes — a signing-by-signing inventory of who has committed to Monmouth Square as of this writing, what each tenant occupies, when each opens, and what each tells us about the lifestyle profile of the development. I will update this tracker as new signings are announced through 2026 and 2027.

The Retained Anchor Tenants

Four anchor tenants survived the de-malling and are continuing operations during construction — with one (Barnes & Noble) already relocated to its new location at 180 Route 35 next to Macy's, opened November 2024 with an updated B&N Café.

The Already-Open Medical Anchor

The 2024-2025 Lease Wave: ~55,000 Square Feet

Between the May 2023 Whole Foods anchor signing and the October 2025 Felice flagship signing, Kushner has executed approximately 55,000 square feet of new leases. BOND RP is leading the retail leasing program. Three of these tenants — Whole Foods, Cava, and Prince Street Pizza — have retail shells nearing completion as of Kushner's September 2025 update.²

75% Pre-Leased and Climbing

For context, a 75% pre-lease number on a $500 million ground-up retail redevelopment, with completion still 18-24 months out, is meaningfully strong. Most comparable de-malling projects across the country are running at 50-65% pre-lease at the equivalent stage. The Felice flagship signing in October 2025 was incremental to the 75% number disclosed in March 2025, so the actual current pre-lease percentage is somewhat higher — though Kushner has not published an updated headline figure since the Felice announcement. The remaining ~25% of unsigned space is what I am watching most closely. That residual will tell us whether Kushner is holding inventory back for premium-rent tenants targeting the residential leasing launch in late 2026, or whether the leasing market is softer than the headline number suggests.³

Livana Monmouth Square: The Apartment Stack That Will Reshape Local Rents

The 1,000 apartment units at Monmouth Square will operate under Kushner's Livana brand — a multifamily concept Kushner launched in April 2024 to position what they call "sophisticated rental options and aspirational lifestyle living." The brand name fuses "Live" and "Nirvana." Livana Monmouth Square joins a Livana portfolio that already includes Livana Fair Lawn (open, 307 units, 55-and-better community), Livana East Hanover (open, 265 units), Livana Colts Neck (broke ground July 2024, 360 units across 15 buildings), Livana Livingston (broke ground June 2025, 280 units, completion 2027), and Livana Pier Village in Long Branch.⁴

Per Kushner's September 2025 update, vertical construction has commenced on the Monmouth Square apartment buildings, with the 40,000-square-foot residential clubhouse also underway. Project interiors are designed by Stonehill Taylor, with Restoration Hardware specifically engaged to design the amenity spaces. The unit mix will offer one-, two-, and three-bedroom homes. Leasing is scheduled to launch at the end of 2026.

The 40,000 SF Resident Clubhouse Amenity Stack

For brokerage context, this is a Class-A urban-amenity stack typically associated with luxury Hudson County or Manhattan rental product. The pickleball court, golf simulator, pet spa, and TULU room (a smart vending concept) place Livana Monmouth Square in direct competition with high-end rental product in Jersey City, Hoboken, and the Holmdel Bell Works residential pipeline. From a market-strategy standpoint, this amenity package signals Kushner is targeting relocating buyers and renters who would otherwise rent in Hudson County or Manhattan — not just families trading up locally within Monmouth County. That positioning is consistent with what Felice's signing tells us about the demographic.

The Build-Out Phase Tracker

Construction status synthesized from Kushner Companies' September 2025 project update via NJBIZ and confirmed by The Two River Times October 2025 coverage of the Felice signing. Specific dates and phase boundaries are subject to revision as the project progresses.

What the Tenant Mix Tells Us About the Demographic

First, this is not a "mall replacement" tenant mix. The signed lineup — Whole Foods, Felice, Cava, Prince Street Pizza, Van Leeuwen, STRONG Pilates, Offshore Coffee, plus Macy's and AMC retained — reads as a hybrid of high-end neighborhood retail and lifestyle services. There are no apparel anchors. There is no traditional department store presence beyond Macy's and Boscov's, and neither of those is operating as a destination tenant in the Monmouth Square business plan. Kushner is positioning the property as a daily-use lifestyle hub for residents, not a regional shopping destination. That is consistent with the "de-malling" framework but it has direct implications for adjacent retail in Long Branch, Asbury Park, and Red Bank.

Second, the food and beverage skew is heavily New York-coded. Felice (NYC Upper East Side origin), Prince Street Pizza (NYC Nolita), Van Leeuwen (Brooklyn), and Cava (DC-founded but heavily NYC-distributed) all signal a tenant strategy aimed at relocating professionals who want their NYC food preferences to follow them to Eatontown. That tells you who Kushner thinks the residential program is going to attract — and it is the same demographic that I am personally watching in my Staten Island and Brooklyn relocation pipeline. The Hoboken-and-Manhattan exodus pattern that is driving Monmouth County's 6 percent year-over-year price growth is the same pattern Kushner is underwriting at Monmouth Square.

Third, the wellness and fitness signals are deliberate. STRONG Pilates is a luxury-tier boutique fitness brand, not a generic gym. The 40,000 SF clubhouse amenity stack — pickleball, spa, golf simulator, juice bar, coworking lounge — targets the same affluent professional renter that Felice's wine bar concept is built for. Layered with the existing 82,000 SF Anne Vogel Family Care wellness center and the additional 30,000+ SF Rendina medical office expansion, Monmouth Square is becoming a meaningful daily-use wellness and lifestyle destination — not just a place to grab dinner or buy groceries.

Fourth, what the residual ~25% unsigned space probably becomes. Kushner has not publicly announced what they are targeting for the remaining 247,500 SF of unsigned retail space. My read, based on the existing tenant patterns and what I've seen at Pier Village (Kushner's Long Branch property): expect a hospitality / hotel anchor announcement, additional fast-casual food, a third or fourth specialty fitness operator, and likely one or two soft goods boutiques or home-furnishings tenants targeting the Livana resident base specifically. Whether a hotel materializes is the most consequential of these — a 100-150 key boutique hotel inside Monmouth Square would significantly change the corridor's hospitality dynamics and would directly affect short-term rental demand in surrounding shore towns.

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