Advice based on success and failures, a great free lesson for all BPers.With all factors considered, is there a middle ground that can be negotiated here to make a deal out of the given scenario? 

I want to develop a small commercial building on the ground floor and put apartments on the second and third floor of the land that he owns.  

If it hasn't burned to the ground, you can get the local fire department to do a training burn and take it down to ashes for FREE.

Is it NNN,NN,ground lease,ZCF?

Well I have been lurking in the forums for the past month and decided to upgrade my account to pro. I figured I should learn to start analyzing properties with the tools biggerpockets provides before I actually start ...

The first year managing the place, we hauled out a little over 100 tons of garbage that was inside/underneath/all around abandoned homes and scattered all over the grounds.  

Looking for people that I can trust on the ground 

As long as you have all the receipts and documentation to support your claims I would simply move to evict this tenant if you have grounds otherwise wait to non renew his lease.

We hope to post my first success story this year in the Success Stories Forum.We are still in the research phase but we know we are interested in the BRRRR method to start out. 

. $5,356 / $68k = 7.9% yield on costsIf cap rates on similar product in the area are equal to your yield then you didn't create any value for the effort and risk it took to develop from ground up.