A wooded parcel on University Parkway that was the setting last winter for a temporary ice rink will become the new location for the Homewood Early Learning Center.
Designers unveiled preliminary plans on Thursday for a two-story facility that would be constructed to build to replace the Homewood Early Learning Center at 200 Wyman Park Drive near Remington Avenue.
The current facility occupies part of the land where Hopkins wants to construct a 500,000-square-foot Data Science and Artificial Intelligence Institute, and the university needs to relocate the early learning center before it can move ahead with the larger project.
Homewood Early Learning Center is managed by Downtown Baltimore Child Care Inc. and accommodates up to 94 children aged 10 weeks to preschool. According to its website, it is open to all but priority admission is available to “Johns Hopkins parents.” The Johns Hopkins University Office of Benefits and Worklife serves as an operational partner and liaison between the university and the learning center.
The early learning center will move to university-owned property at 115 W. University Parkway, near the southeast corner of University Parkway and San Martin Drive. It’s the land where a three-story Modernist structure called the Carnegie Building stood from 1960 until 2020, when Hopkins tore it down.
Since the Carnegie Building was razed, the land has been used as a green space on the northern edge of the Homewood campus. Sometimes, students put up a volleyball net there. Last winter, it was the site of a temporary ice rink. The point of land nearest the intersection of University Parkway and San Martin Drive is occupied by several dozen mature trees that help give the area a wooded feel.
Preliminary plans for the replacement facility were presented to Baltimore’s Urban Design and Architecture Advisory Panel. They call for a two-level, flat-roofed building that would be roughly L-shaped in plan. The two legs of the L would frame the existing stand of trees and other vegetation. The area would be enclosed by an eight-foot-tall fence and used by the early learning center as an outdoor teaching space.
Lee Coyle, Hopkins’ senior director of planning and architecture, told the design review panel that the replacement facility is being designed to accommodate 162 children. The architect is Page Southerland Page of Washington, D. C.
Designers said most of the mature trees would remain as part of the early learning center, and new ornamental and shade trees would be added. The project also includes a surface parking lot that would be created between the early learning center and Hopkins’ Imagine Center, a campus facility created by repurposing the former U. S. Lacrosse Foundation headquarters at 113 W. University Parkway.
According to Hopkins, work on the 26,000-square-foot building is expected to begin this fall and it could open in late 2025 or early 2026. The early learning eenter will continue its partnership with Downtown Baltimore Child Care, which also runs the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Early Childhood Centers at the Henderson-Hopkins School in Eager Park and on the campus of the University of Maryland Baltimore.
Hopkins said that Page, a nationally recognized expert in the design of child care facilities, has worked closely with Downtown Baltimore Child Care to design a space that exceeds the state requirements, including for classroom size.
Page and Johns Hopkins architects are also working with a parent volunteer group, the Hopkins Early Learning Center Advisory Committee, to help evaluate building features including planning for a safe and efficient drop-off area and child-friendly landscape design.
The outdoor playground will be a signature feature. Nancy Striniste of Earlyspace, a playground design specialist, is working with Page and landscape architect WRA to transform the site’s naturally sloping wooded hillside into play spaces that will include climbing, sensory trails, water play areas, and native edible plants.
Building materials will blend with the surrounding natural environment and feature a palette of forest greens and wood tones, reminiscent of a comforting “summer camp” experience. The building will open to the west with panoramic views of the Stony Run Creek Park.
Editor’s note: This article has been updated with additional information from Johns Hopkins University, and to correct the spelling of Stony Run Creek Park.
