About three years ago Wendell Payton started trying to sell the home that his father built off Dallas Street next door to the Orange Mound Community Center.

At the time, he said the home was worth just around $19,000. Today, the home is still on the market but the value has plummeted. It's worth about $11,000 now, he said.

As of Wednesday morning, property records show that the three-bedroom, one-bathroom home and the land under it is worth $10,600.

"The value of the house is dropping faster than I can get it sold," Payton said. "They are dropping the value of this house every day."

He isn't the only one to see property values decline in recent years in the historically black neighborhood. Over the past decade, property values in Orange Mound have slipped by 26%, according to data analyzed by the Shelby County Property Assessor's office.

At the same time, values have steadily increased in surrounding neighborhoods.

"Orange Mound is surrounded by communities that have increased in value," Shelby County Assessor Melvin Burgess said at a Wednesday morning press conference flanked by Payton and about a dozen other community members. "Chickasaw Gardens, Cooper-Young, University of Memphis — these are areas that are thriving, all growing while the values in Orange Mound are steadily declining. It is like an economic wall has been placed cutting Orange Mound off from any financial growth."

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The decline Burgess' office found is in line with a 2018 study from the Brookings Institution that found homes in predominately black neighborhoods are valued as much as 50% less than comparable homes in neighborhoods that are majority white.

"There is an economic barrier that is surrounding Orange Mound, and it's approaching a point of no return," Burgess said in a written statement.

Burgess' office began to analyze Orange Mound's property data after he heard a presentation from the Brookings Institution and decided to use the neighborhood with the largest black population outside of Harlem as a case study.

While studying the data, Burgess found that about 10% of all property in Orange Mound is either vacant or blighted. About 70% of the vacant residential lots are owned by the local government and sits undeveloped in the Shelby County land bank.

Burgess wants city and county officials to form a task force to find solutions that will reverse the decline.

"Since our county owns most of the vacant lots here, this is a tremendous opportunity to make awesome change in this Orange Mound community," he said.

The first step, Burgess says, is to stop demolishing buildings in Orange Mound and instead find ways to redevelop the ones that can be salvaged. From there, Burgess hopes to see ideas that will lift values come from the task force.

Former Melrose High School Principal LaVaughn Bridges said he supports the task force as long as Orange Mound community members have a strong voice on its direction.

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"When you think about a task force, you're going to have to get people on the committee that are stakeholders," he said. "We cannot make decisions without people from the Orange Mound Community being part of it. As long as we do that, we're going to do great things."

Burgess has also planned a day-long economic empowerment summit for Oct. 8 at the Shelby County Schools Teaching and Learning Academy at 2485 Union Ave. The summit will begin at 9 a.m. and run until 4:30 p.m.

Community members, city and county officials, nonprofit leaders focused on first-time home buyers, bankers and other members of the private sector have been invited.

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Desiree Stennett covers economic development and business at The Commercial Appeal. She can be reached at desiree.stennett@commercialappeal.com, 901-529-2738 or on Twitter: @desi_stennett.