Trapped between two public projects, Biloxi homeowners fight for fair price
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Biloxi and the MS Coast Coliseum have bought homes for public projects.
- Some property owners believe the coliseum is offering too little for houses.
- The coliseum wants to pay about $100 a square foot, saying public money is being spent.
One by one, the houses on Oakmont Place in Biloxi are crashing down under the maws of heavy machinery.
Twenty eight modest homes, built in the 1950s and 60s, once lined Oakmont. Wooded lots insulated residents from traffic at the foot of the street on U.S. 90, a commercial strip of the beach highway. The Mississippi Coast Coliseum and Convention Center opened on the east side of Oakmont in 1977 and has been expanding ever since.
Oakmont is known as Miracle Street because, even though the beach is a short walk away, the homes survived all hurricanes that hit — even Katrina in 2005.
But today, Biloxi commerce and the coliseum are closing in on Oakmont Place.
The city has bought and demolished 10 houses in the subdivision at a cost of more than $1.8 million. The coliseum has followed suit, so far buying nine houses for about $1.5 million, which Executive Director Matt McDonnell said includes closing costs and demolition.
The coliseum wants to buy the remaining eight properties on the street. But some of the last homeowners feel like the coliseum is trying to take advantage of them and pay far less for their homes than they are worth. Their neighborhood is, after all, now torn asunder.
“Over the years, it has become apparent that, even though Oakmont was able to survive the wrath of Katrina, it will not survive as a neighborhood and it is now in its last days,” former resident Debbie Kelner said two years ago during a meeting of the coliseum’s board of commissioners. “Oakmont was once a great place to live, but that has all changed.”
Biloxi neighborhood disappearing
Kelner’s parents built a home on Oakmont in 1965. She remembers exploring the woods on three sides of the property, walking to the mall with friends and playing on the beach. Her grandmother eventually moved onto the street, too. And she met her future husband on Oakmont, where his family also lived.
The Kelners knew by the mid-1990s that the city wanted to extend Popp’s Ferry Road south and Oakmont might be in the path. Still, they remained on the street until 2008, when they moved to Stone County. Their two Oakmont houses brought in rental income.
Debbie Kelner was never sure whether the city or the coliseum would come calling for their property. But the city finished its acquisitions on Oakmont by the end of 2021.
A real estate agent for the coliseum sent a letter to Kelner and other homeowners in April 2022, saying, in part, “The commission is ready to purchase and is willing to pay appraised value for the property.”
The Kelners got an appraisal in August 2023. Their two homes were valued at $428,000. The coliseum refused to pay the appraised value, Kelner said. A few months later, the Kelners offered to sell for $400,000. The coliseum rejected the offer.
Around this same time, Debbie Kelner requested a copy of the coliseum commission meeting minutes to see what might have been discussed about their Oakmont properties. She was charged $50 for 13 pages sent to her electronically. There was no mention of her homes in the minutes.
The Kelners finally sold their homes in July 2024 for what the coliseum was offering: for both houses: $343,000, Kelner said. She and her husband have since moved to North Carolina, where they are retired and no longer enjoy the rental income from the Oakmont properties.
“When they bought my houses, the bulldozers were there the next day,” she said. “ . . . We were just tired of dealing with them. We had been dealing with this for well over 20 years.”
Coliseum offering market value
The coliseum wound up paying a little more than $100 a square foot for the Kelners’ homes. That’s what they are worth, says the Coliseum’s McDonnell.
“We’re spending public money,” McDonnell said. “I’m not here to give away money. I’m here to pay what the property’s worth.”
Jan and Floyd G. “Phil” Phillips are holding out for what they believe their two homes on Oakmont are worth. They moved into the neighborhood in 2000 after getting married. Jan Phillips has fond memories of the street, where she met her two best friends.
After Katrina, the Phillipses bought a hurricane-damaged house on Oakmont. They put on a new roof and gutted the house, restoring it as a rental.
The Phillipses endured demolition of other homes on the street, including the one next door. Jan Phillips said the demolition crew showed up at night, disturbing their rest. The elderly couple finally moved into a new home a year ago.
A sign over the back door of their old home, the last one on the east side of Oakmont, says, “Paradise,” although the street is hardly that anymore, with most lots empty and others being transformed for Popp’s Ferry Road.
Jan Phillips says the coliseum’s last offer for their properties, in February, was $100,000 short of appraised value.
“We need to get the value out of our property,” she said. “That’s all my husband and I wanted. We just want appraised value.”
She said coliseum personnel told her at one point, “Well, we’re not interested in your property. Why don’t you just sell it?”
Standing outside her former home, she asked, “Sell it to who? Who wants to buy this?”
Realtor Ken Harshbarger has been working with the Phillipses, as he did with the Kelners.
He doesn’t feel the coliseum has treated them fairly.
“Basically, the coliseum was saying, “We’re not going to pay more than $100 a square foot, even after they offered to pay appraised value.
“I don’t even care if I make any money at this point. I just don’t want to see them done dirty. I want to see them get a fair shake.”
This story was originally published November 11, 2025 at 9:58 AM.
