By: Kevin Litten
CVS has signed a 10,500-square-foot lease in the 157-unit student apartment building set to break ground Thursday near Johns Hopkins University's Homewood campus.
The lease, announced late Wednesday by joint developers Armada Hoffler Properties and Beatty Development Group LLC, puts in place a national retailer that answers neighborhood concerns over the developer signing a grocery store to the building at 3200 St. Paul St. The developers gave in to those concerns in April 2013, but didn't indicate at the time what type of retail they planned to bring to Charles Village.
"We listened to what the residents had to say, and what Johns Hopkins was looking for and are pleased to bring a national retailer ... to the neighborhood," said Tony Nero, the president of development for Armada Hoffler Properties. The retailer will be considered the building's anchor tenant.
The site where the building will stand was acquired by Hopkins in 2009 for $12.5 million from the now-defunct Struever Bros. Eccles & Rouse Inc., a huge development company that went belly-up during the recession. Struever Bros. had planned to build condominiums on the site.
In a statement, Hopkins provost Kevin G. Shollenberger said the building is going to be an important contribution to student life at the university as well as Charles Village residents.
“We are excited to see work beginning on a project that will do so much both for our students and for the wider community in which they live,” Shollenberger said. “3200 St. Paul will provide new options for our upperclass students, further enhancing the undergraduate experience at Johns Hopkins.”
Johns Hopkins has sought in recent years to use real estate to enhance the area surrounding its campus. The institution signed a 30,000-square-foot lease in the Remington Row project earlier this month and developed a building adjacent to the Armada Hoffler-Beatty project now known as Charles Commons in 2006.
