Overview
- Crews cut down nine trees along Remington Avenue at Wyman Park as site work starts for Johns Hopkins’ Data Science and AI buildings on the Homewood campus.
- Dozens of neighbors and environmental advocates protested and held a vigil, citing concerns about flooding, canopy loss, neighborhood disruption, and tax exemptions.
- Johns Hopkins says the project is not a data center and will house classrooms, labs, offices, and workspaces, with utility use per square foot comparable to typical academic buildings.
- The university plans to plant more than 300 new trees, including 57 on city property, and to upgrade nearby public stormwater systems last updated a decade ago.
- City approvals in December cleared the project, a section of Wyman Park Drive will close for about four years, Hopkins will pay $51,668.73 for road and stormwater work, and officials tout 4,490 construction-phase jobs and $505 million in projected economic impact by 2029 alongside design concessions.