Just to get it to the point of submitting for approvals requires purchasing the land, and having large sums of money be paid out for engineering, environmental reports, soils testing, etc., without any guarantee it will be approved.

Just think of how much liability can be created if all the properties are owned by one entity and there was a catastrophic environmental problem!

For instance: Title lien, First mortgage (or other), HOA, Mechanics lien, Gov’t lien, IRS lien, Environmental lien, utility lien, code enforcement lien, child support lien

Also be sure to get an inspection and a Pase 1 environmental. 

Any issues with the property, i.e. environmental, approvals contingency, lease review, etc.?

Your permits, environmental, zoning, other legal documents will be asked during the funding process.A bridge loan would allow you to do this with interest only payments during the terms period and then before/once the term is over you'll need to refinance the bridge financing to pay off the bridge loan.Bridge seems the way to go.

You may want to check and make sure the total includes city and county taxes and no pending fines for grass or environmental court.

The largest local grocery store has attempted three times to lease option the land from seller but deal fell through because of the main and only hiccup--failure to do required environmental testing (soil and water) , and have dep of eco issue a letter of no further action.Seller is desperate to sell, they started the testing process about a year ago (dep of eco requires about 12-18 months of testing period) Borrower needed 250 K to paid the seller's lender off, then do a OWR promissory note for 250K with the seller.

One very important inspection I didn't mention specifically, but should not be forgotten, is obtaining a Phase 1 environmental report. 

Yes, there are variances as to which material type is used to accommodate differing environmental conditions, but things don't vary too much.What this means is that before you zero in on specifics, you should learn the fundamentals.