Johns Hopkins hopes to centralize the university's and Johns Hopkins Medicine's administrative offices in about 280,000 sf of the space. "Johns Hopkins has added about 1,000 jobs in Maryland in each of the past three years," notes university president William R. Brody. "We expect to keep growing at nearly that pace as academic and clinical programs expand and our scientists win more federal research dollars. We're committed to keeping as many of those new jobs as we can in our home city of Baltimore; this acquisition of a spectacular property will help us do that."

Located astride the line marking the boundary of the city of Baltimore from that of Baltimore County, the highly visible Mount Washington Corporate Campus has five major structures. Included in the list of buildings is the 250,000-sf Founders Building, which is currently being leased for the long-term to tenants including law firm Piper Rudnick LLP Other structures include the Octagon, McAuley Hall, computer center Davis Hall, and a large conference center. The campus has a storied past, having served as the home of Mount St. Agnes College and the US Fidelity & Guarantee Co. before The St. Paul Cos. took over the property.

For Johns Hopkins, the acquisition represents not only its desire to adequately accommodate the school's future growth, but it also marks a further amplification of its limited real estate holdings beyond university use. The school will continue leasing activities to businesses using office space, and users of the conference center. "We're looking at this as, in part, a diversification of our endowment and other investments, " Johns Hopkins University spokesman Dennis O'Shea tells GlobeSt.com. "We have a relatively small exposure to real estate investments at this time, and this investment will broaden our short-term investments in terms of their exposure to real estate." Johns Hopkins and The St. Paul Cos. expect to solidify the deal after a 45-day study period, which is scheduled to conclude on March 27.