Kendall Parkway (SR 836 Southwest Extension): Eminent Domain Risks for West Miami-Dade Owners

If you own land, a home, a warehouse, a nursery, or a business west of SW 167th Avenue in Miami-Dade County, the Kendall Parkway sits somewhere between an abstraction and a live threat, and knowing which one matters. The proposed 14-mile corridor has not been cancelled. It has also not moved in more than two years.

The Greater Miami Expressway Agency has frozen land buying, has not spent its engineering money, and has not committed to building the road. That pause is exactly why this is the right time to understand your position, and the wrong time to panic.

Jimerson Birr represents Florida property and business owners against condemning authorities. If the corridor crosses or borders your parcel, our Florida eminent domain attorneys can tell you what the published alignment actually does to it.

Is the Kendall Parkway Actually Moving Forward Right Now?

No. The project is paused, and the agency behind it says so in plain terms.

According to reporting in the Miami Herald, GMX has about $6 million in engineering contracts for the extension and has spent none of it. The agency’s land acquisition program, known as the Willing Seller program under its predecessor MDX, was formally paused at the start of 2024. The last parcel was purchased on September 14, 2023. GMX reports it owns or controls roughly half of the 919 acres the project would require.

The financial picture explains the freeze. The road was originally budgeted near $1 billion and is now expected to cost closer to $3 billion. Florida’s 2026 budget allocated $100 million to the project, and that money remains untapped and under the control of the Florida Department of Transportation.

GMX Director Rafael Garcia put it directly: “We’ve stopped spending on the project until the board tells us to move forward. It is on pause.” He also said the agency has not said no, and that the open question is whether the parkway is still feasible against the needs of the four other toll roads GMX operates.

No landowner along this corridor should expect an acquisition offer in the near term, and any owner who receives one should treat it as newsworthy rather than routine.

What Is the Kendall Parkway and Where Would It Run?

It is a proposed north-south corridor west of SW 167th Avenue, running from the current end of SR 836 near NW 12th Street south to SW 136th Street.

According to the Greater Miami Expressway Agency, the project is planned as a multimodal facility: tolled travel lanes, express transit lanes for bus service, multimodal hubs near Kendall Executive Airport and Kendall Drive, and a 14-mile nature trail alongside the roadway. GMX lists it among its future projects. The Project Development and Environment study’s final public hearing was held in December 2018, and the corridor has not advanced to design or construction since.

Why a Linear Corridor Creates Unusual Risk If It Resumes

A 14-mile corridor does not take whole parcels in neat squares. It slices.

Most affected owners in West Kendall and West Dade would face a partial taking rather than a total one, which is the more complicated scenario legally and financially, and the one where owners most often leave money on the table. Our coverage of the Palmetto Expressway (SR 826) expansion and the Krome Avenue (SR 997) widening walks through the same dynamic in neighboring corridors, and our roundup of major FDOT projects in South Florida puts the Kendall Parkway in regional context.

Would the Government Have the Legal Right to Take My Property for This Project?

Yes, subject to constitutional and statutory limits, if and when the project resumes.

GMX is a state agency created by the Legislature, and Florida law expressly grants it “the power of eminent domain, including the procedural powers granted under chapters 73 and 74.” See section 348.0306(2)(i), Florida Statutes. That statute also allows the agency to acquire property by gift, purchase, lease, or condemnation.

Real constraints apply:

• The agency may not undertake construction inconsistent with both the metropolitan planning organization’s transportation improvement program and Miami-Dade County’s comprehensive plan.
• If a project conflicts with an affected municipality’s comprehensive plan, it cannot proceed without an administrative hearing at which regional interests are found to clearly override municipal interests.
• Condemned property generally cannot be handed to a private person or entity, although Florida law contains an express carve-out for roads and rights of way open to the public, whether at no charge or by toll.

Article X, section 6(a) of the Florida Constitution requires that no private property be taken except for a public purpose and with full compensation paid to each owner or secured by deposit in the court registry. “Full compensation” is a broader standard than the federal “just compensation” language, and Florida courts treat it as a mandate to make the owner whole.

If you believe the alignment conflicts with the county’s plan, the urban development boundary, or your municipality’s plan, that is a land use and zoning fight to raise while the project is dormant, not after title has vested.

The Urban Development Boundary Fight Is Live Even Though the Road Is Not

One active dispute is worth watching if you own in the corridor.

A proposed Kelly Tractor headquarters complex sits outside the county’s Urban Development Boundary, at the start of the planned extension. GMX has warned county commissioners that approving it would raise the price of land the agency would need. Counsel for the landowner responded that approval simply ensures the property’s value would be “measured fully and fairly, not artificially depressed by a regulatory denial.”

That exchange is a preview of the core valuation fight in this corridor: whether regulatory decisions made while the road is paused will be allowed to suppress what owners are eventually paid.

What Compensation Categories Would Matter Most Here?

The biggest risk in any corridor taking is accepting a number that only pays for dirt.

Severance Damages to the Land You Keep

When less than the whole parcel is taken, Florida law requires compensation for what is taken plus damages to the remainder. A strip acquisition can leave a remainder that is oddly shaped, undersized for its permitted use, cut off from a road, stripped of parking, or newly burdened by drainage and noise. Our deep dive on severance damages in Florida explains how those damages get proven.

Watch the offset rule. Florida law allows the condemnor to offset enhancement in the value of your remaining adjoining property against remainder damages in a right-of-way case. That enhancement cannot be offset against the value of the property actually taken, and if enhancement exceeds damages, the agency recovers nothing from you for the excess.

Loss of Access, Parking, Signage, and Visibility

A limited-access parkway changes traffic patterns and can cut a business off from customers who used to find it. These are among the most valuable and most frequently undercompensated elements of a corridor taking. See our discussion of what happens to access, parking, and other business-critical features in a taking.

Temporary Construction Easements

Building 14 miles of roadway would require staging areas, equipment access, and grading rights on land the agency does not intend to keep. Those easements are separately compensable and are routinely signed away for less than they are worth. Read our guidance on navigating temporary construction easements, and note that permanent utility, drainage, or slope easements raise related questions under our easements and restrictive covenants practice.

Business Damages for Lost Income

Florida is one of a small number of states that pays business damages in condemnation. Under section 73.071(3)(b), in right-of-way condemnations brought by the Department of Transportation, a county, a municipality, a board, a district, or another public body, the owner of an established business of more than five years’ standing on adjoining land the owner owns or holds may recover probable damages to that business caused by denial of the use of the property taken. Our primer on business damages under Florida Statute 73.071 explains the elements and the proof.

Tenant and Leasehold Interests

If you lease space in the corridor, you may hold a compensable interest even without owning the land. Condemnation clauses in commercial leases frequently allocate the award in ways tenants never negotiated. See do tenants get compensated when the government takes property by eminent domain, and have your lease reviewed by counsel who handles commercial landlord and tenant leasing.

The Project Influence Rule Can Freeze Your Value

Section 73.071(5) provides that any increase or decrease in value occurring after the scope of the project is known in the market, resulting solely from knowledge of the project location, is not considered in valuing the property taken. The statute presumes the scope is known on or after the condemnor executes a resolution depicting the project location.

Translation: appreciation driven by the highway itself does not get paid to you, and the clock starts with an agency resolution rather than a construction contract. On a corridor that has been publicly mapped since 2018 and paused since 2024, documenting your property’s condition, income, and market position now is worth more than it would be on a fast-moving project.

What Would Happen Before a Condemnation Lawsuit Is Filed?

Before filing under Chapter 73 or Chapter 74, the condemning authority must attempt to negotiate in good faith, provide the fee owner a written offer, and provide the supporting appraisal on request. Section 73.015 sets out that presuit process and gives owners leverage most never use.

You Are Entitled to the Appraisal, Right-of-Way Maps, and Construction Plans

Within 15 business days of your request, the agency must provide the appraisal report, right-of-way maps, and construction plans, including plan, profile, cross-section, drainage, pavement marking, and driveway connection details. Those plans show whether your driveway survives, where the new grade sits relative to your slab, and how stormwater will be routed. Agency appraisals also contain recurring errors, as we catalog in common deficiencies in eminent domain real estate appraisals.

The Response Windows Are Short Once They Start

The owner must receive at least 30 days after the presuit notice to respond before the agency files. A business owner claiming damages under section 73.071(3)(b) must submit a good faith written settlement offer within 180 days, supported by five years of business records. If that deadline passes without good faith justification, the court must strike the claim. The agency then has 120 days to accept, reject, or counter, and failure to respond is deemed a counteroffer of zero.

Those clocks do not start until the agency acts, which on this corridor it currently is not. The value of the pause is that it gives you time to build records that would otherwise have to be assembled in 180 days.

How Fast Could the Government Take Title Under Florida’s Quick-Take Statute?

Faster than most owners expect, once a project resumes.

Chapter 73 governs eminent domain and Chapter 74 governs proceedings supplemental, commonly called quick-take. Chapter 74 lets the state, FDOT, counties, municipalities, school boards, expressway authorities, and other listed entities take possession and title in advance of final judgment. Our explainer on the quick-take process under Chapter 74 tracks each deadline, and our piece on how to read an FDOT order of taking shows what the document says.

Service of the summons to show cause must occur not less than 20 days before the date specified for the order of taking petition. Under section 74.051(1), a defendant who fails to file a request for hearing waives the right to object, and title vests upon deposit, with the deposit date becoming the valuation date. Do nothing for 20 days and you have surrendered your best procedural challenge and locked in a valuation date you did not choose.

Immediately upon deposit, title vests in the petitioner and the right to compensation vests in the owner. Interest runs at the circuit court judgment rate from surrender of possession to payment on the amount by which the verdict exceeds the declaration estimate.

Should I Accept an Offer If One Eventually Comes?

Almost never without independent review.

An agency’s first written offer is prepared by an appraiser it retained, using its assumptions about what your remainder is worth after the corridor is built. It is a starting position, not a valuation ceiling. Our article on what landowners need to know before accepting an offer walks through the review checklist.

There is a related trap for owners who decide to sell privately to get ahead of a project. Florida law addresses whether a seller must disclose a potential condemnation that is not readily observable, and getting that wrong can turn a clean exit into litigation. See do homeowners have a duty to disclose potential eminent domain proceedings when selling their property. A paused corridor is precisely the situation that disclosure question was written for.

Who Pays Attorney’s Fees and Costs in a Florida Eminent Domain Case?

The condemning authority does, in most circumstances, within a filed condemnation proceeding.

Section 73.091 provides that the petitioner pays attorney’s fees as provided in section 73.092, plus reasonable costs incurred in defense of the proceedings in circuit court, including appraisal fees and, where business damages are compensable, a reasonable accountant’s fee. Section 73.092 ties fees to the benefit your lawyer produces, measured against the last written offer made before you hired an attorney, at 33 percent of any benefit up to $250,000, plus 25 percent between $250,000 and $1 million, plus 20 percent above $1 million.

One important limit: this fee-shifting operates inside an eminent domain case. A purely negotiated sale that never becomes a condemnation proceeding does not carry the same statutory entitlement. Our explainer on recovery of attorney fees in Florida eminent domain cases covers the details.

Florida’s fee-shifting scheme was designed so owners could afford to test the government’s number once a case is filed. Speak with Jimerson Birr’s eminent domain team about your parcel.

Can You Fight Eminent Domain in Florida?

Sometimes you can defeat a taking, and often you can reshape it.

Challenges fall into four buckets: the agency’s authority and public purpose, the necessity and scope of the acquisition, procedural compliance, and the amount of compensation. Early intervention makes the first three viable, as we explain in how early legal action can prevent or limit a Florida eminent domain taking.

If a project damages your property without taking it, you may be looking at inverse condemnation or a Bert Harris Act claim instead. See inverse condemnation claims in Florida and our analysis of changes to the Bert Harris Act.

What Should Corridor Owners Do While the Project Is Paused?

Use the time. Owners who prepare during a dormant period are in a materially better position than owners who start when notice arrives.

1. Locate your parcel against the corridor. Pull the published alignment and compare it to your survey and legal description.
2. Document current condition and income. Photographs, surveys, site plans, rent rolls, and five years of financial statements. Business damages claims are won and lost on records, and the 180-day deadline is far easier to meet with records already assembled.
3. Preserve your entitlements. Confirm zoning, permitted density, and vested rights now. Value follows entitlement, and our land use and zoning team can confirm what your parcel is legally allowed to become.
4. Read your lease or your tenants’ leases. Find the condemnation clause before anyone else does.
5. Watch the GMX board. The project resumes or dies by board decision, and that decision is public.
6. Do not sign anything, including an access permission form, without counsel. Consent forms and easement grants routinely waive compensation you were entitled to.
7. Check your assessed value after any partial taking. A smaller, less usable parcel should not carry the old tax bill, which is a property tax disputes issue.

Why West Miami-Dade Owners Call Jimerson Birr

Jimerson Birr is a Florida business law firm representing owners, developers, landlords, and operators against condemning authorities statewide, including from our Miami office. We handle the full arc of a taking: presuit strategy, appraisal and business damage development, order of taking hearings, valuation trials, apportionment, and appeals. We also handle the surrounding problems a corridor creates, from real estate litigation and eminent domain and condemnation issues to the development and permitting questions our real estate development and construction team handles daily.

If the Kendall Parkway is built, it will be built on property that belongs to somebody. Whether it gets built is a question GMX has not answered. Either way, the owner who understands the corridor before the agency moves is the owner who negotiates from strength.

Request an eminent domain consultation to review how the published alignment affects your parcel.