Cardinal News: Then & Now takes a look back at the stories we brought you over the last 12 months. Through the end of the year, we’re sharing updates on some of the people and issues that made news in 2025. This installment: an update on the fate of the former Virginia Intermont College property in Bristol.
With Christmas just days away and the new year closing in, an inferno broke out a little after midnight on Dec. 20, 2024, at the long-vacant campus of Virginia Intermont College in Bristol, destroying the four oldest and most historic buildings.
Later that day, the cold, gray weather seemed appropriate for the sight of what remained. The stark, burned-out shells of the structures on the VI hill in downtown Bristol could be seen from several spots across the city.
By afternoon, the campus was encircled by smoke. Some of the walls had fallen into the shells of the buildings while some of the outer, red brick walls still stood, though they visibly swayed in the breeze.
One year later, much of the campus remains in sad shape, with rubble from the buildings littering the ground, though it’s shielded by a protective coating because the bricks contain asbestos.
As bad as the fire’s destruction was, it did appear to be a catalyst for developments that finally broke through a years-long stalemate between the city and the property owner. The two sides are communicating, although they continue to disagree on what should be done next: The owner, who lives in China, wants to forge ahead with plans for a new college at the site, while the city says he isn’t moving quickly enough to stabilize the property.
There appears to have been no real cleanup or change at the site since the buildings were razed soon after the fire. The city hired a demolition crew to tear down the damaged buildings, and it mowed the grass and secured the property with fencing and locks.
The buildings that weren’t destroyed have been vandalized, and most of the windows have been broken. The building exteriors are being taken over by vegetation.
A hundred years of history, a decade of neglect
Fire Chief Mike Armstrong said the December 2024 blaze was inevitable given that the property had been abandoned for years and had become a haven for the homeless and a target for vandals. It was likely caused by someone who started a fire to get warm, he said.
The stately buildings that burned were built in the early 1890s, when the school, originally just for women, moved from Glade Spring to Bristol.
The private, liberal arts college closed in 2014 after it lost its accreditation, enrollment numbers dropped and there were ongoing financial woes. The school was 130 years old when it held its final graduation.
In 2016, the 37-acre property was sold at auction for $3.3 million to U.S. Magis International, a company based in China. The new owner announced plans to establish the Virginia Business College at the site, and it took steps toward accreditation. Work was done to a few buildings, and several employees were hired, but the project sputtered out during the COVID pandemic.
Pleas from the city to secure the buildings and come up with a plan to bring them back into compliance with city and state codes went unanswered, and U.S. Magis racked up hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid taxes.
Over the last couple of years, city officials have been more aggressive in their efforts to prompt U.S. Magis to do something with the site. Eventually, the city deemed the entire campus derelict and blighted, and raised the property tax rate by 5%.
The city and the property’s principal owner, Chinese businessman Zhitang Zhang, appeared to be at an impasse.
And then came the fire. Just weeks after the blaze, City Manager Randy Eads successfully lobbied for state legislation that could help the city take over the property and retain more control over who buys it and how it’s developed.
Soon after the law took effect on July 1, Eads filed the documents to petition the circuit court to appoint a special commissioner to convey the property to the city.
But the next day, the company’s local attorney, John Kieffer, paid Magis’ tax bill, which totaled more than $605,000, and Eads withdrew his effort to take control of the property.
Over the next few months, Eads repeatedly demanded that the owner do something with the property. By August, Kieffer said Magis was making progress, including hiring around-the-clock security, and was close to hiring an architect to assess the remaining buildings and provide a report to the city.
The new vision: a college focusing on health sciences, music
Zhang has a renewed determination to launch a four-year, baccalaureate-granting college at the site, Kieffer said.
On Dec. 2, Kieffer said he and an English-speaking representative for Magis, who traveled from China to Bristol, attended a virtual orientation held by the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia for those interested in establishing a college.
The next step is for Magis to submit a certification application and required fee. If it gets approval to proceed, Magis would then gather the required documentation and prepare a full certification application packet.
The application could take as long as a year, said Beth Ann Howard, an associate for academic quality and student protections for private postsecondary education at SCHEV.
If the application is approved, Magis would then have to gain accreditation, which normally takes three to six years, according to Kieffer.
The vision for the school has changed significantly from the earlier plan to open a business school. Rather than Virginia Business College, the school would be called Virginia International College. And rather than focus on business, it would offer courses in health sciences and possibly music, Kieffer said.
The college likely would be located in the remaining structures on the main campus, rather than in the buildings across Moore Street, which Kieffer earlier had said was likely.
Zhang is associated with a medical college in China, Kieffer said, and has always wanted to bring students from China to study in the United States.
Kieffer acknowledged that the relationship between the United States and China remains strained, and that the current “political world is not that welcoming to people from other countries,” so that possibility would likely be years down the road.
Magis’ plan to establish a school in Bristol “has a lot of distance to travel before the first student walks through the door,” he said.
Eads, however, said that Magis needs to focus more on cleaning up the property than on the lengthy process of opening a school.
“I think the owner has lofty goals if he thinks he’s going to develop a college and approval from accreditation agencies based on the condition of the property right now,” he said. “If I were him, I would focus on getting the properties up to code and getting them in a shape that you would actually be proud to show an accreditation agency. … As it stands right now, they’d be looking at rubble.”
The architect is close to beginning to put together a report on his assessments of the remaining buildings on the main campus, Kieffer said Friday.
Eads said he was told earlier that he would have that report in 75 days and that time was up.
Magis is moving too slowly, he said. On Dec. 15, he sent a letter to Kieffer asking for updates on several requests the city has made and threatening legal action in early January if he doesn’t get answers.
Kieffer said that Magis is moving forward, and that the city has no basis for a lawsuit. He emphasized that the property is secured and posted for no trespassing so there’s no danger to the public.
And maybe room for housing?
In another twist, Kieffer said he was recently approached by officials with Beyond Housing, formerly the Bristol Redevelopment and Housing Authority, about the possibility of purchasing some properties along the site’s perimeter.
The agency is interested in a series of lots on the western side of the former campus from Moore Street down to Oakview Avenue, according to Kieffer.
Over the years, property owners who lived around the college often willed their property to the college, he said.
Beyond Housing commissioned a September study conducted by historic preservation consultant Whitney Manahan, who looked at the possibilities for the revitalization and reuse of the former Virginia Intermont property.
Her conclusion was that the remaining buildings should be preserved rather than demolished, and she suggested rehabilitating them into housing, which is needed in Bristol.
Lisa Porter, executive director of Beyond Housing, said Friday that the former college property and the adjacent historic Virginia Hill neighborhood were chosen for the study because they have a lot of distressed public housing,
“We’ve been working with a core group of partners, even before the fires, on different projects — not just for VI, but planning that we’ve done for the whole neighborhood as well,” she said.
The study notes the campus’ significance as a landmark for women’s education and underscores it as a “rare example” of women’s heritage in the region. The findings also stress the need to prioritize preservation, not demolition, as a path to economic revitalization, faster redevelopment and reinforced cultural identity for the city, according to a news release from Beyond Housing.
The report lists millions of dollars in tax incentives and tax credits that might be available for projects involving historical buildings. The college is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and the Virginia Landmarks Register.
Kieffer said he thinks Magis would consider selling the properties.
“Now, they don’t want to sell any of that property today, and I’ve not received any instructions to try to market that or anything else,” he said. “But I’ve advised them to remain flexible, and that’s maybe the current state of thinking is that we want to remain flexible, consider all feasible options and make the overall project work, which is, of course, to have a college.”