A once trash-filled parcel of land in Midtown aims to become a community model to drive population growth in Memphis and create a close-knit neighborhood for middle-income residents to call home.
City officials and housing development leaders gathered Wednesday, June 24, for a ribbon cutting to celebrate the completion of the first phase of BelleMont, a new 23-unit cottage court community, situated on 2.5 acres near the Crosstown cultural district, for households earning about $52,000 a year. Instead of big apartment complexes and sprawling suburban-style subdivisions, BelleMont was built one front porch at a time.
The new development, located at 281 N. Montgomery St. in the Medical District, is the first completed project under the city’s Middle-Income Housing Pilot Program, or MI-Pilot. It features one-bedroom and two-bedroom rental homes built around shared green space, and includes front porches, grilling areas, a firepit and room for a community garden.
The development’s name, a nod to its location between Bellevue Boulevard and Montgomery Street, is a shortened portmanteau of the two routes.
The missing middle
For city leaders, BelleMont represents more than new rental units. It embodies the type of development the MI-Pilot program was conceived to support and is an example of “missing middle” housing, such as cottages, duplexes, quadplexes and townhomes that can fit into existing neighborhoods, providing options for teachers, nurses, first responders, young professionals and working families, “the people who keep our city running,” said Young.
“They earned too much to qualify for traditional housing assistance, but not enough to comfortably afford many of the housing options that were out there on the market,” said Young. “They deserve the opportunity to live comfortably in the communities where they actually serve.”
The city’s Division of Housing and Community Development launched the MI-Pilot program to support developers building or rehabilitating attainable housing for households earning 80% to 120% of the city’s median household income, which is $51,736, a 2024 Census report shows.
The idea for middle-income housing grew out of conversations among members of the community development department about a gap in the local market, said Ashley Cash, the director of the department, which has contributed $500,000 in grants and loans to the BelleMont project, and will support its next phase.
“What this represents is an opportunity in our market for working-class families, individuals, people just like you and me who are trying to live,” said Cash.
The pilot behind the project
The first round of funding for the city’s MI-Pilot program invested $1 million across three developments expected to offer attainable housing units. In addition to BelleMont, the program includes the Leath Quad Community on North Parkway near Crosstown Concourse and Barton Row in South Memphis. These housing developments are part of a broader plan announced earlier this year to create 10,000 new units in Memphis by 2030, said Young.
“Many of you may know that over the past 25 years, we’ve lost about 35,000 people, in terms of our population,” said Young. “Part of our strategy to grow our population is to ensure that we have a diverse range of housing options available for people.”
After the ribbon cutting, Young said the city’s housing strategy must include smaller projects like BelleMont to develop vacant or underutilized land in populated areas.
“As we look at large projects that provide hundreds of units, we also want to look at those small infill redevelopment projects,” Young said. “What we know is that it’s going to mean more people occupying our neighborhoods, which will strengthen our commercial corridors, like Jackson Avenue, Park Avenue — many of the major thoroughfares where we have a number of small businesses. So our housing goal actually helps to boost our economy.”
From trash to transformation
For the Downtown Memphis Commission, the city’s economic development agency for its central business district, the BelleMont project also demonstrates how public incentives can help draw developers to urban projects.
Chandell Ryan, the commission’s president and CEO, said the site was transformed from underused land into a neighborhood asset. Before work began, Ryan said the debris removal team hauled away two dump trucks full of trash from the site.
BelleMont is the kind of dense, high-quality development the downtown commission wants to replicate across the city’s core, she said. She also credits the payment-in-lieu-of-taxes program, or PILOT, for helping to make the project feasible.
“This property proves that when we back visionaries, our neighborhoods thrive,” said Ryan. “The PILOT program is a powerful tool to bridge financial gaps. It makes complex, urban infill projects viable in shifting economic markets.”
Introducing BelleMont
KPS Development Partners, led by builder Scott Kern, used a mix of public incentives, private investment, loans from a community development financial institution, or CDFI, and crowdfunding to finance construction of the project.
Phase 1 of the BelleMont development includes 19 one-bedroom units and four two-bedroom units on one acre, said Kern. Construction of phase two is expected to begin later this year, and phase three will likely follow 12 months later, on the remaining 1.5 acres, he said.
“The neighbors have embraced us,” said Kern.
According to BelleMont’s website, livebellemont.com, one-bedroom units with one bath start at $1,000 a month for 448 square feet. A 640-square-foot, one-bedroom unit with one bath starts at $1,250 a month. Rent starts at $1,575 a month for two bedrooms and two baths in 1,152 square feet.
The new cottage court neighborhood features modern finishes, open-concept living areas and shared outdoor amenities, according to the builder.
Kern: ‘Community building is ministry work’
For Kern, the most important decision for his team centered around building a new complex that fit the existing neighborhood. That meant smaller homes, front porches and a courtyard layout that is intended to increase opportunities for residents to interact with one another.
“We could have done two- or three-story walk-up apartments. This felt more contextual, more respectful of the neighbors, as opposed to dropping a big building in their neighborhood,” said Kern. “I get real philosophical with things, and sometimes it gets a little frustrating when I’m talking to people, (and they’re) like, ‘Yeah, but what’s your return?’”
BelleMont has to work financially, Kern said, but the project also carries a larger purpose inspired by the mayor’s remarks at a 2025 housing summit about the mission of public service.
“Real estate development is more than numbers and buildings,” Kern said. “It is ministry work. Community building is ministry work.”
