Saunders brokers $43 million Bluffs land deal

Dean Saunders, the managing director and founder of Lakeland-based SVN Saunders Ralston Dantzler Real Estate, last month negotiated the state’s largest purchase of conservation land in more than a decade.

Florida’s Department of Environmental Protection acquired the Bluffs of St. Teresa property for $43 million. The 17,080-acre tract on the Gulf of Mexico, in the state’s Panhandle, features 17 miles of waterfront land and borders the state-owned Bald Point State Park and Tate’s Hell State Forest.