Housing

Quality Housing for Virginia Hill

The Housing goal of Choice Bristol is focused on ensuring that Virginia Hill becomes a place where everyone has access to a safe, quality home — whether they rent or own, and regardless of their income. This means not only planning for the redevelopment of distressed public housing into new mixed-income communities, but also developing strategies to address housing conditions across the entire neighborhood, including aging and deteriorating privately-owned properties, absentee landlords, and vacant lots. From site planning and financial strategy to home repair and beautification, Choice Bristol is working to build a comprehensive housing vision shaped by the people who know Virginia Hill best.

The Vision

Mixed-Income Redevelopment Goals

Public Housing

Replace distressed housing with high-quality, mixed-income homes while ensuring current residents are protected, supported, and meaningfully involved throughout the process..

Market-Rate Units

Attract quality market-rate housing development that strengthens the neighborhood, increases housing options for people at a range of income levels, and signals to the broader community that Virginia Hill is a place worth investing in.

Home Ownership

Support and expand homeownership opportunities in Virginia Hill, helping current homeowners maintain and improve their properties while creating pathways for new owners to put down roots in the neighborhood.

Current Housing Conditions

Housing conditions in Virginia Hill reflect decades of disinvestment and deferred maintenance. Beyond Housing owns and manages several public housing developments in the neighborhood — including Rice Terrace, Jones Manor, Stant Hall, Johnson Court, and Mosby Courtyard — many of which are aging and in need of significant repair or replacement. Privately owned housing in the neighborhood faces similar challenges, with a high proportion of older homes in poor condition, absentee landlords who have allowed properties to deteriorate, and a growing number of vacant lots and abandoned structures. At the same time, the neighborhood is home to many residents who take pride in their homes and their community, and pockets of well-maintained housing reflect the care and investment of longtime owners. Understanding the full picture of housing conditions across Virginia Hill — both the challenges and the assets — is a foundational part of the Choice Bristol planning process, and will inform the strategies developed to improve housing quality for everyone who lives here.

Virginia Intermont Campus

Virginia Intermont College — a historic women’s college founded in 1884 — was a defining institution in Bristol for 130 years before closing in 2014, leaving its roughly 20-acre campus in the heart of Virginia Hill vacant and deteriorating. In 2024, a series of devastating fires destroyed several of the campus’s most iconic buildings, leaving behind significant environmental challenges that will need to be addressed as part of any future redevelopment. At the same time, many historic structures remain standing, and preservation experts believe they represent a genuine opportunity for adaptive reuse rather than demolition. The future of the Virginia Intermont campus is one of the most important and complex questions facing Virginia Hill, and Choice Bristol hopes to bring residents, preservation experts, property owners, and other partners together to begin working toward a shared vision. That vision, shaped by the community, could eventually support new housing, economic activity, and neighborhood amenity — transforming a long-vacant site into one of Virginia Hill’s greatest assets.

Revitalizing Virginia Hill through community-led neighborhood transformation.