The actual build-on-it soil rested a bit on the soggy
side, but the ceremonial dirt was nice and dry for the
groundbreaking of the much anticipated third building of
the university's 15-year-old
Montgomery
County Campus in Rockville, Md.
The morning event, held on Sept. 4 at the campus's
Central Building Auditorium, drew a large, high-powered
crowd that included Maryland Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.;
David Edgerley, director of the Montgomery County
Department of Economic Development; university President William R. Brody; and other
top-level Johns Hopkins administration.
The 115,000-square-foot building is expected to be
completed by summer 2004. The L-shaped facility will add
about 50,000 square feet of classrooms and related academic
and research space to the 98,000 square feet in the first
two buildings; it also will include space to be leased to
other tenants--primarily science- and technology-related
companies, agencies or organizations--with whom Johns
Hopkins will establish academic, research or other
collaborations. Features of the new building include wet
labs, computer labs, meeting space and a larger,
1,000-square-foot campus bookstore.
Provost Steven Knapp, senior VP
James McGill and Joanie Millane of JH Real Estate receive
commemorative construction trucks from Elaine Amir, campus
director.
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The new structure is the next piece of the planned
total buildout of the 35-acre site. The master plan of the
campus includes expansion over the next 10 years to seven
buildings totaling 700,000 square feet of academic and
research space.
The governor said in his remarks that the day was a
celebration of both the "long-standing relationship between
the state and Johns Hopkins" and the pivotal role the
Montgomery County Campus will play in attracting the best
and brightest researchers and leading technology companies
to Maryland.
"I'm very proud to be here today. This is a terrific,
terrific facility, and I really can't wait to see it built
out even further and the jobs and the economic activity
generated from this great collaboration begun by a
wonderful university. Congratulations, everybody," Ehrlich
said to the more than 200 in attendance.
In his opening remarks, David Edgerley wryly brought
attention to the rainbow that hung over Montgomery County
on the rain-soaked day.
"I am absolutely convinced that that rainbow is
symbolic of Johns Hopkins' marvelous investment and
marvelous commitment here today," Edgerley said. "And I
think the pot of gold from our perspective is in your
office, Gov. Ehrlich, at the end of the rainbow."
Gov. Ehrlich talks with Gary
Ostrander, associate provost for research.
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Montgomery County currently has the nation's
third-highest concentration of biotechnology firms and is
the world's largest center for gene research. Many of the
courses offered at the Johns Hopkins campus have been
developed in academic disciplines that are of particular
interest to the growing biotechnology and information
technology industries emerging in the Baltimore-Washington
corridor.
President Brody said that the construction of this new
building is "a very important project that is going to help
create Maryland's high-tech future." He went on to laud the
governor on the creation of the Commission on the
Development of Advanced Technology Business, chaired by
George F. Pappas, a patent trial lawyer at Venable, Baetjer
and Howard.
"To achieve leadership, we must create a critical mass
of advanced technology and biotechnology companies
clustered around our research institutions. That is
precisely what we are doing here at the Johns Hopkins
University Montgomery County Campus. It is to that end that
I thank Gov. Ehrlich for his vision and leadership in
creating the Pappas Commission," said Brody, who sits on
the 20-member advisory group. "The governor has recognized
the state's opportunity, and its need, to become a leader
in today's technology community and is putting his support
behind this important effort."
When Maryland becomes the No. 1 technology center in
the nation, Edgerley said, "we will know from today forward
that Johns Hopkins will have played a critical role in that
process."
Elaine Amir, director of the Montgomery County Campus,
said that although the rain kept the construction trucks
away on this day, work on the new building is already under
way and that it will be "totally operative" for the fall
2004 semester.
"For Johns Hopkins, today is a literal breaking of
ground, but we break ground every day here, through
research and innovation and the creation of new
partnerships," Amir said. "Everything about what we are
doing here is a celebration of creativity and innovation,
just like [President Brody] said."
Opened in 1988, the Montgomery County Campus--located
in the Shady Grove Life Sciences Center along the
Interstate 270 corridor--hosts more than 60 part-time
graduate and undergraduate degree and certificate programs
that annually attract more than 8,300 course enrollments.
Classes are offered by the Krieger School
of Arts and Sciences, the Whiting School of
Engineering, the
School of Professional Studies in Business and
Education and the Johns Hopkins
Bloomberg School of Public
Health.
Among the university attendees at the groundbreaking
ceremony were Steven Knapp, provost and senior vice
president for academic affairs; James T. McGill, senior
vice president for finance and administration; Daniel
Weiss, dean of the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences;
Andrew Douglas, interim dean of the Whiting School of
Engineering; Ralph Fessler, dean of the School of
Professional Studies in Business and Education; and Gary
Ostrander, associate provost for research and associate
dean of the School of Arts and Sciences. The invited guests
of honor in-cluded Montgomery County state senators,
delegates and County Council members. Also on hand were a
number of people involved in the development of the real
estate.