Dive Brief:

• An appeals court has declined to hear the case of a dispute over how Johns Hopkins University could use a farm in Maryland that had been donated to the school.
• The action by the Maryland Court of Appeals means that a lower court’s ruling in favor of Johns Hopkins will stand.
• The family that had donated the 138-acre Belward Farm property said the donation was made with the understanding that the property would be developed into a suburban campus with about 1.7 million square feet of building space. Instead, Johns Hopkins proposed a 4-million square foot development, dubbed “science city.”

Dive Insight:

Did the heirs of the donor, Elizabeth Banks, have second thoughts about the decision to make a donation estimated at $49 million? The dispute is over a land agreement from 1989 stating that the property could be used only for academic purposes, research, or medical care, according to The (Gaithersburg, Md.) Gazette. The family of the donor was told it would be called “The Belward Campus of the Johns Hopkins University.” But Johns Hopkins says it will take several years to develop plans for the property, and it has no immediate plans to start construction.