Vacant Lot In Charles Village Will Soon House Hopkins Upperclassmen

BALTIMORE (WJZ)—The recession caused a lot of real estate projects to never get off the ground.

Now, as Mike Schuh reports, one long dormant building in Charles Village is being resurrected by a new team.

For nearly a decade a one acre lot in the heart of Charles Village has laid dormant.

Johns Hopkins University bought it in 2008 after a previous development fell apart in the great recession.

Alan Fish takes care of real estate for Johns Hopkins.

A block away from campus, a parcel sits in the middle of buildings already owned by Hopkins. If a previous developer's ideas hadn't run into the recession, there would have been condos there by now.

With a blessing or two from the city, 157 apartments housing 560 Hopkins juniors and seniors will be built there now.

"There are a lot of Hopkins students that want to be here in the middle of things. They want the access to retail. They want to be able to get to campus fairly easily," said Fish, Hopkins' vice president of facilities and real estate.

"The bulk of the retail will face St. Paul Street because that's our longest street frontage," said Tim Pula, Beatty Development Group and Armada Hoffler Properties.

One goal is to get a pharmacy into that space.

Freshman and sophomores must live in a Hopkins dorm, but older students are free to live where they choose.

The apartments built here will be owned by the developer, but Hopkins will retain ownership of the land.

"Our juniors and seniors are looking to be close and have high quality and affordable housing that is still in the public market but not a resident dorm owned by Hopkins," Fish said.

If the developers get the needed approvals, the first Hopkins students could be living in the new development by fall semester 2016.

The developers need a few additional approvals from the city before they can break ground.

Other Local News: