According to the Knoxville News Sentinel, Knoxville College officials were forced to leave early last year due to the HBCU being deemed unsafe. The only two buildings in use at the time, Alumni Library and the historic McMillan Chapel were not up to code per city officials and the entire campus was shut down until it adhered to said code. 

"They would have to get an architect, they would have to get a contractor, they would have to get all the inspections done," Knoxville public works director, David Brace had said in February 2017. "They're commercial buildings, so they'd have to have full design documents done."

“The Stewart Science Building is a very dangerous place,” said Dan Hawkins, who oversees remediation at the Environmental Protection Agency's Knoxville office, at the public hearing in May. “We were over there every couple of weeks and secured the building, but it would get broken into and they (vagrants) were taking stuff out of it. A lot of that stuff is probably contaminated with mercury, and they’re taking it out in public.” The city decided to close the other 14 campus buildings during the hearing, which brought up the campus' environmental issues. 

Knoxville College has a rich history, including being the location of a sit-in during the Civil Rights movement and hosting Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as a commencement speaker in 1961. The HBCU had seen some struggles after losing its accreditation in 1997 and ceased all classes after the 2015 spring semester. After losing accreditation, the school also lost major funding and resources.

According to the Associated Press, Knoxville College president Keith Lindsey confirmed that the school was granted conditional authorization to run in 2018, but will wait to start recruiting new students.