“It’s like a ghost town,” said Hatch, the mayor of Knoxville. But unlike relics of the old West with a few hollowed-out buildings decaying on the prairie, this ghost town has 39 buildings that until 2009 operated as a separate city. One stumbling block was that any purchaser would need to invest heavily to connect the campus to city utilities. In a statement, the federal agency said it disposes of more than 100 properties a year, though most are single buildings. Hatch, the mayor, said the VA campus is integral to Knoxville’s history, but he and other city officials think it would be too expensive to save the buildings.

Source: National Post March 30, 2019 15:22 UTC