WEYMOUTH, MA-One of the last puzzle pieces in a long-aborning redevelopment of the former South Weymouth Naval Air Station here fell into place Thursday as master developer LNR Property LLC closed on the purchase of the final 830 acres of land from the US Navy. An LNR spokesman confirms that the parcel sold for $25 million; the $2.5-billion project that’s under way at the long-shuttered air station, SouthField, will eventually encompass 2,855 housing units and two million square feet of commercial and retail space.

GlobeSt.com reported in August 2006 that the South Shore Tri-Town Development Corp., which is overseeing the former Navy base’s redevelopment, had transferred 549 acres at the 1,440-acre base to LNR. In the five years since, the Miami Beach, FL-based developer has had to overcome the hurdles of a cratered housing market along with bureaucratic snags in getting control of the property.

“For LNR, it has been nine years in the making,” company VP Kevin Chase, who’s spearheading the project, said in a statement last month when the deal for the 830 acres was forged. The air station 12 miles southeast of Boston was mothballed in 1997; the sale of the remaining 830 acres hinged on the Navy agreeing to perform environmental cleanup on the site.