I'd greatly appreciate any recommendations for a reliable property manager in the area.

I am online daily looking for properties.  

You will want an attorney and try and get it through federal court as district court will take 3+years (if you are near the city expect 5 years then several years to evict)Through federal court you may be able to get it done in 2-3 years.I strongly recommend you offer a nice cash for keys package.

Unknown Did you work with any real estate professionals (agents, lenders, etc.) that you'd recommend to others?

We were able to produce a high ROI!

You can just buy the stuff on your own ours were stuck in Port Charlotte county in FL and doing everything myself through lienhub.com.....and i did my research online prior but found no warning if i had seen anything i would've stopped.

Bigger Pockets is a great place for education and networking and is full of great content.I recommend that you check out the following resources:1.

Any ideas or tips on how to get the ball rolling.

I'd certainly recommend doing some kind of environmental study given the chemicals and such that could have been used there but more-so I'd be curious if the city wouldn't have a testing requirement to redevelop. 

Thank you for the information and recommendations.