New Girl‘s Max Greenfield has been tapped as a lead opposite Cedric the Entertainer in CBS newly picked up comedy series The Neighborhood (fka Welcome to the Neighborhood), from Aaron Kaplan’s Kapital Entertainment and CBS TV Studios.

Greenfield is replacing Josh Lawson, who played the role in the pilot.

Written by Jim Reynolds and directed by James Burrows, in The Neighborhood, Cedric the Entertainer stars as Calvin Butler, an opinionated neighbor, when Dave Johnson (Greenfield), the friendliest guy in the Midwest, moves his family to a neighborhood in Los Angeles where not everyone looks like him or appreciates his extreme neighborliness.

I hear Greenfield had been a top choice for the role from the get-go and was originally approached early in the casting of the pilot. He was sought-after this pilot season coming off of New Girl.

Reynolds executive produces with Kapital’s Kaplan and Dana Honor as well as Kapital-based producer Wendi Trilling via her TrillTV and Cedric and Eric Rhone of A Bird And A Bear Entertainment.

Greenfield stars as Schmidt in New Girl, which wraps its seventh and final season tonight on Fox. He also has appeared in Ryan Murphy’s American Horror Story and most recently in The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story. Greenfield is repped by WME and Untitled Entertainment.