There are pieces of Baltimore scattered throughout the Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg Center, a 435,000-square-foot building in Washington, D.C., halfway between the White House and the United States Capitol.
The shiny Pennsylvania Avenue space that was once the Newseum has flooring dotted with the same bricks that line the Homewood campus and an indoor “beach” that pays homage to the green space in Baltimore. And the university’s D.C. ambitions, much like its looming presence in Baltimore, are only expanding.
In January, Hopkins bought a second building in the nation’s capital for $30.7 million. The university, which has paused pay increases and frozen hiring amid attacks from the Trump administration, is likely to spend tens of millions renovating the federal government building on Indiana Avenue when it takes over from the current tenants in September.
“We think it’s important to bring more of Baltimore to the world and to bring Hopkins down here,” said Cybele Bjorklund, the vice president of federal strategy at the university and the executive director of the Hopkins Bloomberg Center, which Hopkins spent more than $372.5 million to acquire in 2019. The university spent an additional $275 million to renovate the space.
At the Bloomberg Center, a gargantuan building next door to the Canadian Embassy, students from all nine of Hopkins’ schools, which they call divisions, can study and take classes. The university often brings in speakers, ranging from Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett to “Science Guy” Bill Nye. International politicians, like Kenyan President William Ruto, stop by for programming and Q&As when they’re in town.
And though Hopkins leaders were eager to talk about the Bloomberg Center, they remain tight-lipped about their plans for the newly purchased Indiana Avenue building. Bjorklund said that the Bloomberg Center is completely full, so the new space will help house more faculty and staff. Doug Donovan, a spokesperson for the university, told The Banner something similar.
“633 Indiana Avenue will provide much needed additional workspace for faculty and staff working in Washington, D.C.,” Donovan wrote in a statement. “We anticipate that significant renovations will be necessary to convert the building for use by the university, and we plan to assess those needs over the coming months.”
Both declined to provide more details.
Johns Hopkins has long had a presence in Washington, leaders insist: Its School of Advanced International Studies has been in D.C. for 75 years. But in the last decade, Hopkins’ focus on the nation’s capital has intensified.
The university has now splurged on around 600,000 square feet of building in D.C. — that’s 10 times the size of Baltimore’s Lexington Market. The investments began during President Donald Trump’s first term, and the second building was purchased less than a year after he returned to the Oval Office. That may not be a coincidence, experts say.
“Many institutions believe, rightly or wrongly, that having a significant presence in Washington, D.C., much like corporations do, is a way to show their institutional imagery in front of the nation’s decision-makers,” said Andrew Flagel, president and CEO of the Consortium of Universities in the Washington Metropolitan Area.
In 2020, Johns Hopkins became the first member of the consortium that wasn’t a D.C.-based university, Flagel said, noting that Hopkins and its president, Ron Daniels, have been “active partners” with the group. When Flagel wrote to Daniels that the consortium was studying gun violence and policies in the region, for example, the Hopkins president sent experts and resources from the university to the group the next day.
Hopkins’ latest D.C. expansion coincides with a surge in spending on federal lobbying, according to public disclosure forms.
Hopkins, the nation’s first research university, has long been the largest recipient of federal research funding. The university’s bottom line took a hit in 2025 after the Trump administration ended foreign aid and slashed the budgets of federal agencies that supported its research.
Despite the financial setbacks, the university is still funneling money into its D.C. expansion.
“It’s a real opening and an opportunity, and if a university can swing it, it makes sense to play the long game,” said Ben Wildavsky, a higher education researcher and author. “Especially if they think that’s what’s going to help keep them as a prominent national institution in 10, 20, 30 years.”
Hopkins isn’t alone in branching out. Vanderbilt University, an elite school with a similar footprint in Nashville, recently announced plans to create a San Francisco campus. Northeastern University in 2022 bought Mills College in Oakland, California, in its own effort to expand.
Leaders at Hopkins won’t call their D.C. properties a branch campus, but rather their “home” in the nation’s capital. The connection, with Hopkins’ growing physical presence, is meant to strengthen ties between the university and policymakers, according to Bjorklund, the Bloomberg Center’s executive director.
“Big problems aren’t solved in isolation,” she said. “If you’re trying to move the needle on a policy issue, you have to come talk to policymakers about it.”
It’s harder to get those policymakers and leaders to Baltimore, she said. By contrast, the Bloomberg Center is prime real estate, even boasting an on-site cafe known for its gourmet doughnuts (don’t get the roast beef sandwich — it’s nothing to write home about) with space for leaders and students to converse.
And despite Hopkins’ stature in Baltimore, its leaders still think of the institution as an underdog. Building up its presence in D.C., Bjorklund said, will position Hopkins as a more serious policy player rather than a younger sibling to an Ivy League institution.
“Hopkins is almost the best-kept secret of the research world,” said Bjorklund, a Hopkins grad herself. “I want policymakers on the Hill and in government more generally to think of Hopkins first.”
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