Dandelions and blades of grass won't be the only things sprouting up in and around Homewood campus in coming months: How about some good old concrete and steel? With site work beginning this fall, the new student arts center is on track for the spring of 2000. The 48,000-square-foot facility will be located on Charles Street near 33rd Street, just above the sculpture garden at the Baltimore Museum of Art. The two-story arts center, designed by Williams-Tsien, a New York City architecture firm, will house student activity groups, art studios, rehearsal and performance space for musicians, dance studios and a black box theater. For those in the Hopkins community whose interests tend toward athletics, a 60,000-square-foot recreation facility is close to groundbreaking. The recreation center, which will be built on top of the existing parking garage of the Space Telescope Science Institute, will supplement the Newton H. White Athletic Center with weight rooms, basketball courts and other amenities. Completion is scheduled for 2001. Closer to earth, and Charles Village residents, is the former Eastern High School building at 33rd and Ellerslie streets. Now owned by Hopkins, the 185,000-square-foot facility, vacant since 1988, will be home to the Kennedy Krieger High School, university administration space, the Stadium School and perhaps a high-tech business incubator. The Stadium School, for grades four through eight, will move from its current home at Northern Parkway Middle School. Similar in concept to a charter school, the Stadium School has its own board of directors and emphasizes the need for children to work closely with the community. "The reuse of this building is good from the city's point of view," says Dave Albright, development manager for the university's Dome Real Estate. "It brings jobs into the neighborhood, and it will bring more people activity to the area, making it a safer and more attractive setting."
With the recent renovation of the Homewood Apartments now
completed, the
university is moving forward with
its commitment to enhance the retail
environment around the campus. It is
aggressively seeking tenants for the Homewood building and is
actively
working toward bringing a major bookstore
to the community.
|