Major FDOT Projects You Should Know About In North Florida

North Florida is in the middle of one of the most aggressive infrastructure pushes the region has seen in decades. Between Governor DeSantis’s Moving Florida Forward Infrastructure Initiative, the Florida Department of Transportation’s (FDOT) FY 2025/26 Work Program, and locally driven priorities funneled through metropolitan planning organizations, billions of dollars in road, bridge, port, and interchange work are underway from the St. Johns River to the Apalachicola.

For commercial property owners, developers, landlords, and small business operators in Jacksonville and Tallahassee, this matters for one practical reason: roads do not get built without land. When FDOT or a partner agency needs your land, your access, or a strip along your frontage, you are about to become a participant in Florida’s eminent domain process, whether you planned for it or not.

Below is a working summary of the major FDOT projects you should be tracking in 2026, what they mean for nearby property, and how Florida law protects you when the government comes knocking.

Why FDOT’s Footprint Is Growing Right Now

Florida funded a record $13.7 billion FY 2025/26 transportation work program, with major slices reserved for highway and interchange work in FDOT District 2 (Northeast Florida, including Jacksonville) and FDOT District 3 (Tallahassee and the Panhandle). Statewide, the Moving Florida Forward initiative pulled $4 billion from general revenue surplus and pairs it with leveraged financing, contracting, and design tools to accelerate roughly 20 priority projects. Several of those are in North Florida.

That funding velocity is the headline. The quieter story is what happens on the ground: right-of-way (ROW) acquisition, temporary construction easements, drainage takings, slope easements, and full-parcel condemnations. If your property sits along any of the corridors listed below, the negotiation cycle has likely already started or is close to it.

Jacksonville and Northeast Florida: Projects Worth Watching

1. First Coast Expressway (SR 23): Final Push Toward I-95

The First Coast Expressway is the single most ambitious roadway in northeast Florida right now. When the entire 46-mile, limited-access toll facility is completed, it will connect Duval, Clay, and St. Johns counties and provide a new hurricane evacuation corridor. Roughly 20 miles in Clay County opened ahead of schedule in 2025, and FDOT held a January 2026 open house on the final St. Johns County phase.

The remaining segments include a new bridge over the St. Johns River and a tie-in to I-95, with substantial completion targeted for 2030. For owners along the alignment, this is the active acquisition window. Strip takings, access modifications, and pre-suit appraisals are happening now.

2. I-95 / I-295 North Interchange (Duval County)

After multiple delays, the long-running reconstruction of the I-95/I-295 North interchange was pushed to a spring 2026 completion. This corridor sits at the spine of north Jacksonville logistics and warehouse activity, and the lane configurations and ramps coming online will reset traffic patterns for businesses near Pecan Park Road, Lem Turner, and Dunn Avenue.

3. I-95 Southside Widening: J.T. Butler to Atlantic

FDOT has advanced plans to widen I-95 from J. Turner Butler Boulevard to Atlantic Boulevard to five general use lanes plus auxiliary lanes, and to convert the Belfort/JTB and Emerson Street interchanges to diverging diamond configurations. This corridor runs through some of Jacksonville’s densest commercial real estate, including retail, office, and hospitality assets. Frontage roads, pylon signs, parking ratios, and access drives are all in play.

4. JTB / SR 202 at San Pablo Road

A landscaping and interchange improvement project at JTB and San Pablo Road is targeted for completion in summer 2026. Smaller scope, but for property near Mayo Clinic and the Beaches retail nodes, even minor takings can affect site circulation and signage rights.

5. I-10 / US 301 Interchange Reconstruction

Superior Construction is partnering with FDOT to reconstruct the I-10/US 301 interchange west of Jacksonville in Baldwin. This corridor is the gateway between Jacksonville’s industrial west side and the freight connection to I-75, and ROW activity is touching agricultural, industrial, and timber parcels.

6. North Florida TPO Priority Projects

The North Florida Transportation Planning Organization’s 2025 Priority Projects List and the Draft Transportation Improvement Program for FY 2025/26 to 2029/30 contain dozens of additional capacity, intersection, and bridge projects across Duval, Clay, Nassau, and St. Johns counties. If you own commercial property in northeast Florida, those two documents are the early-warning system you should be reading.

Tallahassee and the Big Bend: Projects Worth Watching

1. I-10 Widening Through Leon, Gadsden, and Jefferson Counties

FDOT is planning to widen I-10 from four to six lanes through the Big Bend, with an estimated $124 million phase covering roughly 4.2 miles from west of US 90 to west of Capital Circle NW (SR 263). For owners along the I-10 corridor, the issues to watch are interchange reconfigurations at US 90, SR 263, US 27, and Monroe Street, plus the ROW pinch points where the median or shoulder cannot absorb the new lanes without taking land.

2. Capital Circle Southwest (SR 263)

Capital Circle is being widened in phases. Phase One (Springhill Road to Orange Avenue) opened a year ahead of schedule, and FDOT now reports the $63.5 million Phase Two segment is also running ahead of schedule. Phase Two adds 2.2 miles of six-lane roadway, with completion expected in mid-2030. The final phase, from West Orange Avenue to Crawfordville Road, will add bike lanes, a multi-use trail, and sidewalks, all of which can require strip takings or easements along the corridor.

3. Blueprint Intergovernmental Agency Coordination

Capital Circle SW is run jointly with Blueprint Intergovernmental Agency, and several of its other Tallahassee-area projects, including Northeast Connector and Welaunee Boulevard, will require local condemnation actions. Owners often assume the rules differ from FDOT acquisitions. They do not, in any meaningful way, when it comes to your right to full compensation.

4. Tallahassee International Airport / Bobby Bowden Field

FDOT’s aviation program funds a slice of the work at Bobby Bowden-Tallahassee International Airport. Avigation easements and aviation-related ROW actions follow a slightly different procedural track, but the underlying compensation principles still flow from Florida’s eminent domain statutes.

What “Eminent Domain” Actually Means When FDOT Calls You

Most property owners learn the eminent domain process in real time, after a letter shows up on letterhead. A couple of Florida-specific points should anchor your thinking before you negotiate anything.

Florida Constitutional Floor: “Full” Compensation, Not Just “Just” Compensation

The federal Fifth Amendment guarantees “just compensation,” but Article X, Section 6 of the Florida Constitution requires full compensation. That distinction is not academic. Full compensation in Florida is broader than federal fair market value and is meant to make the owner whole. Our prior post on Florida’s eminent domain process for commercial property owners walks through what that includes in practice.

The Statutes That Drive the Process

Two chapters of the Florida Statutes drive almost every FDOT acquisition:

• Chapter 73 (general eminent domain procedures, jury trial rights, business damages, and attorney’s fees).
• Chapter 74 (the “quick take” process FDOT typically uses, which lets the agency take possession before a final compensation amount is set).

Within Chapter 73, the workhorse provisions are Section 73.071 (jury determinations of value, severance damages, and business damages) and Section 73.092 (attorney’s fees, calculated on the benefits achieved over the agency’s initial offer).

Pre-Suit Negotiation Is Mandatory

Before FDOT or any condemning authority files a lawsuit, Florida law requires a written offer and a copy of the supporting appraisal. We covered the practical mechanics in Florida’s New Eminent Domain Rules: What Business Owners Need to Know. The takeaway: do not respond to the first offer in a vacuum. The first offer sets the floor for your attorney’s fees and the benchmark against which your damages are measured.

Business Damages: The Florida Advantage

If you operate an established business on the property and the taking is partial, Section 73.071(3)(b) lets you recover business damages, which can include lost profits, increased operating expenses, and goodwill impacts. Most states do not allow this. We unpack it in two pieces:

• Florida Eminent Domain: An Introduction to Business Damages (Part 1)
• Florida Eminent Domain: Calculating and Proving Business Damages (Part 2)

Attorney’s Fees and Costs: The Government Pays

Under Section 73.092, the condemning authority pays your reasonable attorney’s fees, calculated on the benefits achieved over the initial offer, plus reasonable appraisal, expert, and accounting fees. That fee-shifting structure is a core reason Florida property owners are not stuck choosing between fighting back and going broke.

Inverse Condemnation: When the Government Takes Without Filing

Sometimes the “taking” is functional, not formal. Drainage that floods your land, an access closure that strands your retail center, or a permanent change in elevation that destroys frontage all can support an inverse condemnation claim, even when no condemnation petition has ever been filed. We have written on the boundary between regulation and a taking for years, and FDOT corridor projects produce some of the cleanest fact patterns.

Practical Checklist: If You Own Property Along an FDOT Corridor

1. Confirm the project number. FDOT projects are tracked by Financial Project Identification (FPID) numbers. The NFLRoads.com project list and NWFLRoads.com show schedules, scopes, and contacts.
2. Pull the design plans before you negotiate. The pre-suit offer is built on a design package. You cannot meaningfully evaluate severance damages, boundary line impacts, or access changes without it.
3. Order your own appraisal. The agency’s appraisal is one data point. A second appraisal that captures business damages, complex real property improvement issues, and lease impacts is what moves numbers.
4. Loop in counsel before the order of taking. Once a quick-take order issues under Chapter 74, the agency owns the property, and the fight shifts to dollars, not access. Most leverage exists earlier, in pre-suit and at the order of taking hearing.
5. Coordinate with tenants. Commercial leases often include condemnation clauses that allocate proceeds and termination rights. Review them before responding to the agency’s offer.
6. Watch for public-private partnership layers. Some of these corridors involve P3 design-build-finance teams, which changes who is across the table during ROW negotiations.
7. Track governmental rule changes. The Legislature has tinkered with eminent domain procedure in several recent sessions. Knowing the current version matters.
8. Document your business operations. If you operate on-site, contemporaneous financial records are the difference between a strong business damages claim and a weak one.

For the broader procedural map, our Florida Eminent Domain blog archive is the most comprehensive resource we maintain.

A Word On Construction Disruption (Even If You Are Not “Taken”)

Owners who are not in the direct path still feel the effects. Detours redirect traffic away from retail. Utility relocations create temporary construction law issues. Drainage changes can create new flowage. Where the impacts cross from “inconvenience” to a compensable taking is fact-specific and turns on Florida case law that has been refined over decades.
If your property is in any of the corridors above, the right next step is usually a quiet conversation with experienced counsel before you sign anything FDOT or a Blueprint contractor sends over. We help property owners in Jacksonville, Tallahassee, and across Florida navigate these acquisitions through pre-suit negotiation, order-of-taking hearings, mediation, trial, and appeal. Visit our Florida Eminent Domain practice area page to learn more, or reach out directly through our contact page.