The family that eventually buys the new house planned for 1390 Marechalneil St., as part of the city’s new home affordability program, will own the home. But they will not own the land where it will one day stand.
That distinction is at the heart of ABODE, the Orange Mound Community Land Trust led by the Memphis Division of Housing and Community Development, and what city officials hope will become a new way to increase homeownership in a historic Black neighborhood without pricing out future generations.
City officials, residents and development partners broke ground Sept. 8 on ABODE’s first demonstration home to be built on a vacant lot where another family once lived for several decades.
“Just last week, I met a young lady whose family’s home stood here on this ground, generation after generation,” said Felicia Harris, deputy director of programs for the city’s housing department. “That’s really what this effort is about — to make sure that for future years to come, we have generation after generation that will be able to live here and grow their families here.”
A neighborhood built on Black ownership
Orange Mound was established about five miles southeast of downtown Memphis in the late 19th century as a community where Black families could purchase land, build homes and create institutions of their own. More than a century later, city leaders say ABODE is intended to preserve that legacy while helping the neighborhood attract new housing and investment.
“Ownership is key,” said Rasheedah Jones, a member of the land trust advisory committee. “And in Orange Mound, that means something. This is a community with a history rooted in Black ownership.”
Jones said that ownership helped create household wealth, along with the identity and strength of Orange Mound itself.
City officials are using the land trust to prevent new investments from causing rapid gentrification, driving up property values and rental rates to levels that could displace current residents who would no longer be able to afford to live in Orange Mound.
“We all want to see investment in our neighborhoods,” Jones said. “We want vacant lots put back into productive use. We want quality housing. We want stronger commercial corridors and amenities.
“But investment should create opportunity for the people who are already connected to these communities.”
Owning the house, not the land
The central idea behind ABODE is relatively simple, even if the legal structure behind it is not.
A buyer would purchase the house by qualifying for a mortgage, buying the residential structure and then building equity over time without owning or having a claim to the land, which remains with the land trust.
ABODE uses a shared-equity ownership model, according to Harris, the housing department’s deputy director, which gives the homeowner a portion of the home’s appreciation when it is sold while resale restrictions such as owner-occupancy requirements and income limits are intended to keep the property affordable for the next qualifying buyer.
“So even if a person were to sell five or 10 years from now, they will take with them part of the equity,” Harris said. “Part of the equity will stay with the home … so that we can guarantee that it will be affordable for future generations to come.”
Building wealth without losing affordability
During the groundbreaking ceremony, city officials said the project also aims to create generational wealth.
The first homeowner gets the benefits of ownership — stability, equity and the opportunity to pass wealth forward — while a portion of the value of the public investment remains when the home is resold at unrestricted market prices.
City council member Jana Swearengen-Washington said the model is intended to preserve both sides of that equation.
“It gives families a chance to own a quality home at an affordable price,” Swearengen-Washington said. “It preserves the affordability for the next family. It allows us to grow without pushing people out who made Orange Mound special.”
ABODE was formed in early 2023 by the city with a $400,000 grant from Living Cities, a national community development foundation, to purchase 12 parcels of land. The demonstration home will be built on one parcel, while the remaining 11 sites are expected to be offered through a public solicitation for additional affordable homes. More properties could be added to the trust over time, city officials said.
The Marechalneil home will be the first and serve as the model. Plans call for a single-story house with three bedrooms and two full bathrooms, including one ADA-compliant bathroom. The design includes front and rear porches, an optional accessible entrance ramp, energy-efficient appliances, high-performance insulation and windows, water-saving fixtures, and adherence to MLGW EcoBUILD standards for 30% less energy usage compared with standard homes.
Jimmie Tucker, co-founder of Memphis-based Self+Tucker Architects, said his firm designed the house to fit Orange Mound rather than dropping a generic affordable-housing prototype onto the lot.
“We didn’t want to have a home that could just be designed and fit anywhere,” Tucker said. “It was important that this house and these other 11 homes all are very fitting for the Orange Mound community.”
For homebuilder Carlos Fifer, president and CEO of Fifer & Associates, the project is personal.
“We grew up a couple of blocks away from this location,” Fifer said. “So this is near and dear to our hearts to see our community grow, to see the opportunity of affordable homes, something new, something fresh in this area.”
Affordability in a changing market
According to Redfin, an online real estate brokerage, the median price for homes sold in Memphis was about $202,000 for the three months ending in July, up 2.5% for the same period in 2025.
But Orange Mound remains far less expensive. Redfin reported a neighborhood median sale price of about $75,000 at $62 per square foot for the same period, though these figures are based on relatively few sales and do not reflect the cost of newly built housing.
Real estate listings offer another view. In June, Realtor.com reported a median asking price of $114,000 at $103 per square foot in Orange Mound, up more than 14% from a year earlier. Median rent stood at $1,162 a month.
The mix of inexpensive older housing, rising asking prices and new investments is part of what makes Orange Mound a test case for the city.
A new, energy-efficient house such as the ABODE demonstration home is not directly comparable to the neighborhood’s older housing stock. At roughly 1,430 heated square feet, Orange Mound’s current $103 price per square foot would put the value of a similar house at roughly $147,000. New construction could command considerably more.
The challenge for Memphis is to encourage reinvestment without losing the affordability that has historically made neighborhoods such as Orange Mound accessible to working families.
Housing as a Memphis growth strategy
Mayor Paul Young tied the project to his administration’s broader goal of adding 10,000 housing units in the city’s core by 2030.
“One of the things that we’ve seen has been population loss in our community,” Young said. “And part of the reason that we’ve lost population is not because people were scared. It was because they couldn’t find the housing product they want right here in the heart of our community.”
Adding quality housing can help stabilize Memphis’ population and strengthen neighborhoods, Young said. But he also acknowledged the other side of reinvestment.
“As we think about investment coming back to our neighborhoods and the fears of gentrification, this is one of the tools that helps us prevent that and make sure that residents are able to stay here,” Young said.
He also said concentrated redevelopment can have an impact beyond the homes themselves, encouraging nearby owners to improve their properties and drawing development to other vacant parcels.
“We think that this is going to be a catalyst for more activity in this community,” Young said.
From one vacant lot to 11 more homes
The city’s housing department expects to issue a request for proposals in the coming weeks for development of the remaining 11 ABODE properties, Harris said. At least one is expected to be reserved for an emerging developer. The city also plans to hold a community meeting later this fall to share more details about the land trust.
For Orange Mound resident Lilli Jackson, however, the significance of Tuesday’s groundbreaking was less about housing policy than about who gets to remain part of the neighborhood.
“The Orange Mound Community Land Trust allows us to be good stewards and grow our neighborhoods without pushing people out,” Jackson said. “This is our neighborhood, our history, our future. And today we are building that future together.”
