Purple acid phosphatases (PAPs) are a group of metallohydrolases that contain a dinuclear Fe(III)M(II) center (M(II) = Fe, Mn, Zn) in the active site and are able to catalyze the hydrolysis of a variety of phosphoric acid esters. The dinuclear complex [(H(2)O)Fe(III)(μ-OH)Zn(II)(L-H)](ClO(4))(2) (2) with the ligand 2-[N-bis(2-pyridylmethyl)aminomethyl]-4-methyl-6-[N'-(2-pyridylmethyl)(2-hydroxybenzyl) aminomethyl]phenol (H(2)L-H) has recently been prepared and is found to closely mimic the coordination environment of the Fe(III)Zn(II) active site found in red kidney bean PAP (Neves et al. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2007, 129, 7486). The biomimetic shows significant catalytic activity in hydrolytic reactions. By using a variety of structural, spectroscopic, and computational techniques the electronic structure of the Fe(III) center of this biomimetic complex was determined. In the solid state the electronic ground state reflects the rhombically distorted Fe(III)N(2)O(4) octahedron with a dominant tetragonal compression aligned along the μ-OH-Fe-O(phenolate) direction. To probe the role of the Fe-O(phenolate) bond, the phenolate moiety was modified to contain electron-donating or -withdrawing groups (-CH(3), -H, -Br, -NO(2)) in the 5-position. The effects of the substituents on the electronic properties of the biomimetic complexes were studied with a range of experimental and computational techniques. This study establishes benchmarks against accurate crystallographic structural information using spectroscopic techniques that are not restricted to single crystals. Kinetic studies on the hydrolysis reaction revealed that the phosphodiesterase activity increases in the order -NO(2) ←Br ←H ←CH(3) when 2,4-bis(dinitrophenyl)phosphate (2,4-bdnpp) was used as substrate, and a linear free energy relationship is found when log(k(cat)/k(0)) is plotted against the Hammett parameter σ. However, nuclease activity measurements in the cleavage of double stranded DNA showed that the complexes containing the electron-withdrawing -NO(2) and electron-donating -CH(3) groups are the most active while the cytotoxic activity of the biomimetics on leukemia and lung tumoral cells is highest for complexes with electron-donating groups.