Hopkins School’s new innovation center heads to New Haven City Plan

The project would be built on 2.9 acres of the historic prep school’s leafy 101-acre campus, located on a hill at 986 Forest Rd. overlooking the city’s Westville section. It is funded by a $50 million donation from billionaire alumnus John C. Malone, the Milford-born founder and chairman emeritus of Liberty Media Corporation. 

The gift is the largest in the 366-year history of the private school, which is the third oldest independent school in the nation. Malone graduated from Hopkins in 1959. 

The area where the center would rise is now a lawn, known as Pratt Field, and temporary parking lot at the southern end of the campus quadrangle. It is just south of Thompson Hall on the campus, the application states.

The Gibbs Center is named after pioneering scientist Josiah Willard Gibbs, another Hopkins alumnus — Class of 1854 — whom Albert Einstein once hailed as “the greatest mind in American history,” according to the application.

The Georgian Revival facility would include a robotics design and competition studio — for a program that now serves more than 130 students — and a 2,500-square-foot research center for the school’s Hopkins Authentic Research Program in Science, known as HARPS.

It also would include computer science classrooms, an innovation and fabrication space for engineering, entrepreneurship and interdisciplinary projects, a digital media production studio, a learning center, flexible classrooms and a 360-degree immersive theater, according to the plans. 

The design was prepared by The S/L/A/M Collaborative of Glastonbury, Tighe & Bond, Salas O’Brien and Cavanaugh Tocci Associates Inc. Construction is anticipated to begin in March 2027 and be completed in August 2028. 

The project would include a number of features aimed at sustainability, including a geothermal heating and cooling system, rooftop solar panels, energy-efficient mechanical systems, LED lighting and native landscaping. 

It would use local materials wherever possible, the application says.

“The site design reinforces the campus’s commitment to environmental stewardship, resilience, and long-term ecological health,” the application states. “Sustainability initiatives play a significant role in campus life and are an important component of this renovation project.”

Malone, said to be the largest landowner in the United States, said at the time his gift was announced that he wants current Hopkins students to be well-positioned to lead a changing society.

“Hopkins changed my life,” Malone said in a written statement, adding that “as technology reshapes the world, I want Hopkins students to have the skills, curiosity and confidence to lead.”

“My hope is that the school continues to be a national leader in education for the next three centuries,” he said.

Hopkins’ has more than 700 students, of which 46% are students of color. They come from about 60 different municipalities, the applications says.