LAUDERHILL, FL-An affiliate of locally based Southern Facilities Development forsakes a potential long-term gain of about $30 million in a deal to sell a 96-acre tract for $15 million to a county-run conservation trust.

MIAMI-The locally based investment banking and real estate business firm and a majority shareholder close the sale of its securities broker-dealer operations in a cash-stock deal valued at an estimated $75 million.

MIAMI-Mark Griffith will also handle the company's Puerto Rico operations as the company refocuses on the Florida and Caribbean markets where it manages nine million sf of office, industrial and retail product.

MIAMI-The homebuilder's South Florida operation is gearing up for another battle in a five-year-old bid to build a major mixed-use residential development in the Everglades buffer zone.

MIAMI-Nearly $400 million in commercial developments are either planned or proposed along a 5.5-mile stretch of the river in anticipation of an $80-million plan to readjust the depth of the main channel and abate environmental contamination.

MIAMI-The Florida Legislature closes the 2001 law-making session without final debate on two proposals to financing construction of a new $350 million baseball park with rebated sales taxes and parking surcharge fees.

PALM BEACH GARDENS, FL-WPTV-Channel 5, a Scripps Howard Broadcasting Co. station, had leased the 65,000-sf build-to-suit offices since March from locally based Catalfumo Construction & Development Inc.

MIAMI-Miami-Dade Empowerment Trust Inc. expects the newly formed EZ Funding Association Inc. to offer a more efficient way to finance local development of neglected properties in communities throughout the area.