Johns Hopkins plans first phase of development at Montgomery County’s Belward Farm

Johns Hopkins University plans to build a 126,200-square-foot medical office and surgery center as it embarks on its development of the Belward Farm in Montgomery County. The project marks the first of several phases of development at the 108-acre Belward Farm site, which used to be mired in controversy. Late anti-development activist Elizabeth Beall Banks sold her farm, located at the intersection of Muddy Branch and Darnestown Road, at a cut rate to Johns Hopkins in 1989 so the land could be preserved and used for the creation of a bucolic campus.