Johns Hopkins University plans hotel near North Baltimore campus

Johns Hopkins University is working with a developer to convert an apartment building near the main gate of its Homewood campus in North Baltimore into a university-branded hotel, officials announced Wednesday.

Pending city approvals, construction on the building at 33rd and North Charles streets will begin next summer and take about a year.

The Study Hotel at Johns Hopkins will be the university’s fourth project in Charles Village. Others involved street improvements and housing, including the Nine East 33rd project at the intersection with St. Paul Street.

Hopkins will work with New York-based developer Hospitality 3, which launched the Study Hotel brand and will own the hotel. The building, now called the Blackstone Apartments, will include 115 hotel rooms, 2,500 square feet of conference space and a restaurant and bar.

Paul McGowan, president and founder of Hospitality 3, said in a statement that the developer built or was building similar projects at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, the University of Chicago, and in University City in Philadelphia, which encompasses several universities.

Mitch Bonanno, Hopkins’ chief real estate officer, said the community has needed more hotel rooms for years to accommodate “visitors from around the world.”

“Study Hotels, which has created beautiful, welcoming spaces at other universities, offered an exciting plan for a hotel that will serve the needs of the university community and add to the vibrancy of the Charles Village Retail District," he said in a statement. "We are excited to welcome The Study at Johns Hopkins to our campus and neighborhood, as it will be an attractive amenity for our campus, city, and all of those who visit.“

A hallmark of the Study Hotels is a large bookcase in the hotel’s living room. It will feature books written by Hopkins authors and scholars.

The developers would not disclose the cost of the project.

The leases of all current residents of the Blackstone expire in May 2020. The university will help Hopkins-affiliated tenants to find new housing for the next academic year.