Westshore Interchange Eminent Domain: What Tampa Owners Face Now That Construction Has Started

If you own property, run a business, or hold a lease near I-275 and SR 60 in Tampa, the Westshore Interchange eminent domain question is live, not historical. FDOT’s work program adopted July 1, 2026, funds nearly $6 million to buy land at this interchange in the current fiscal year, including money budgeted for relocation. Fiscal 2027 is the last year that funding appears.

Jimerson Birr represents Florida property and business owners against condemning authorities statewide. Our Florida eminent domain attorneys can tell you what your position is worth before you respond to anyone.

Is FDOT Still Acquiring Property at the Westshore Interchange?

Yes. Item 412531-2 carries $5,986,448 of right-of-way funding in fiscal 2027, which makes it the largest funded acquisition in Hillsborough County.

The work program adopted July 1, 2026, breaks that figure into $3,304,037 for land purchase, $1,630,952 for right-of-way services, and $1,051,459 in the relocation phase. The item’s status line still reads “ROW ACQUISITION BEG.”

FDOT describes its relocation assistance program as serving “all households and businesses occupying the property being acquired for a transportation project” (FDOT, Relocation Assistance). If your parcel is in that phase, ask FDOT directly, because the answer changes what you are owed.

Fiscal 2027 is the last year this project carries right-of-way money. Nothing is programmed beyond it. That cuts both ways: the window is open now, and it is not scheduled to reopen.

Why This Money Is Invisible if You Search the Wrong Number

Here is the trap, and it catches professionals.

The Westshore Interchange construction work sits under project number 447107. If you look up 447107, you will find no right-of-way money at all, because FDOT funds this corridor’s acquisition under a different project number, 412531. Two numbers, one interchange, and only one of them shows the land money.

An owner who checks the construction number and sees no acquisition funding will conclude, reasonably and wrongly, that nothing is coming. When you call FDOT, ask which project number carries the right-of-way phase for your parcel, not what the construction project is doing.

What the Project Is Building, and Where

The interchange is in construction. According to FDOT’s District Seven project page, the project start was January 2026, the Priority 1A construction cost is $653.3 million, the contractor is the Superior-Lane Joint Venture, and future phases are scheduled for funding in 2030 and 2032.

• Limits: I-275 from the Howard Frankland Bridge to east of Lois Avenue, and SR 60 from I-275 to north of Spruce Street.
• Express lanes: northbound I-275 from the Howard Frankland Bridge to the future Reo Street Bridge. The ultimate design adds two express lanes each direction; Priority 1A builds the northbound side.
• Structures and streets: a flyover replacing the eastbound SR 60 loop ramp to northbound I-275, a flyover from the Howard Frankland Bridge to SR 60 and the airport, reconstructed general use lanes, a widened SR 60, local street reconnections at Reo, Occident, and Trask, and a Reo Street on-ramp to southbound I-275.

FDOT has also imposed long-duration frontage road closures, including a 24-hour lane closure from Cypress Street to Cypress Center Drive through late 2026 and a continuous closure from Cypress Street to Lemon Street through January 2027.

For the regional picture, see our overview of major FDOT projects in Central Florida.

Who Is Most Exposed?

Hotels, office parks, restaurants, dealerships, and airport-adjacent retail on the frontage roads, because their value runs on visibility and access rather than acreage. In the Westshore district, the driveway is often worth more than the dirt.

Can You Be Paid If FDOT Never Takes Your Land?

Sometimes, and this is where owners outside the acquisition leave money behind.

Florida law recognizes that an owner holds a right of reasonable access to the abutting road, and a substantial, permanent impairment of that access can be compensable even without a transfer of title. General inconvenience, longer travel routes, and temporary construction disruption usually are not. The line is factual and expert-driven, which is why it should not be conceded in a phone call.

• Temporary construction easement. FDOT occupies part of your property for a defined period. Owners routinely undervalue these. See our guide to temporary construction easements and maximizing compensation for them.
• Access modification. No land changes hands, but your median, turn lane, or curb cut does. See easements and access rights.
• Drainage and grade changes. Stormwater work next door can push water, or a retaining wall, onto your site.

What Does Florida’s Full Compensation Standard Cover?

Under section 73.071(3)(a) and (b), Florida Statutes, a jury awards the value of the property taken plus, where less than the whole parcel is taken, damages to the remainder caused by the taking. That reaches lost parking count, a truck route that no longer works, a setback that now violates code, and a sign that no longer reads from the interstate. See what just compensation covers and severance damages.

Here is the counterweight most owners are never told about. Under section 73.071(4), where the action is by FDOT, a county, a municipality, a board, a district, or another public body for a road, canal, levee, or water control facility right of way, any enhancement in the value of your remaining adjoining land caused by the improvement is offset against your remainder damages. The offset has limits: it applies only to remainder damages, never against the value of the land actually taken, and the condemnor cannot collect from you if enhancement exceeds damages. On a project that adds express lanes and a new airport flyover, expect FDOT’s appraiser to argue enhancement.

Cost-to-cure items belong in the claim too, from rebuilding a drive aisle to moving a monument sign. See common deficiencies in eminent domain appraisals.

Under section 73.071(5), a change in value occurring after the project’s scope becomes known in the market, resulting solely from knowledge of the project location, is excluded in arriving at the value of the property acquired. The statute presumes the scope is known once the condemnor executes a resolution depicting the project location.

Do Westshore Businesses Get Paid for Lost Profits?

Yes, and on a corridor like this one, business damages can dwarf the land value. Section 73.071(3)(b) requires all four of these:

1. The taking is partial, not the whole parcel.
2. The condemnor is FDOT, a county, a municipality, a board, a district, or another public body, acquiring a right of way.
3. The business has more than five years’ standing for takings on or after January 1, 2005.
4. The business is owned by the party whose land is taken and sits on adjoining land that party owns or holds.

The deadline is what actually kills these claims. Under section 73.015(2)(c), Florida Statutes, a qualifying business must submit a good faith written business damage offer, supported by business records and prepared by the owner, a CPA, or a business damage expert familiar with the operations of the business, by certified mail within 180 days after receiving the statutory notice or after the notice is returned undeliverable, or by a later date the parties agree to. Absent a showing of good faith justification, the court must strike the claim. If you do make that showing, the court must grant up to 180 more days.

Our series covers the mechanics: an introduction, calculating and proving, and resolving business damage claims.

What a Proper FDOT Notice Has to Contain

You can refuse the first offer, and refusing it is normal. FDOT’s opening number is a position based on its own appraisal, not a ceiling.

Under section 73.015(1), the authority must negotiate in good faith before suit and tell you that your property is needed, the nature of the project, and the parcel designation. You get at least 30 days after receiving the notice to respond. Read that carefully, because the clock can run even if the letter never reaches you. If certified mail to your address on the county tax roll comes back undeliverable, that counts as compliance and the 30 days run anyway. Much Westshore property is held by entities with off-site addresses, so confirm what the Hillsborough County tax roll shows for you.

On request, within 15 business days, the authority must produce the appraisal report the offer rests on, plus, to the extent prepared, right-of-way maps and construction plans showing what will be built on the property taken and adjacent to your remainder, with additional plan sheets within 15 days.

FDOT can also take possession before the value fight ends by filing a declaration of taking with a good faith estimate of value and depositing it with the court. You keep the right to be heard on that deposit. See the quick-take process and how to read an order of taking.

Who Pays Your Attorney?

The condemning authority does, and it does not require a lawsuit. Under section 73.091(1) the petitioner pays your attorney’s fees as provided in section 73.092. Under section 73.015(4), an owner who settles presuit in lieu of condemnation also recovers fees, calculated under section 73.092(1) unless the parties agree otherwise, and recovers costs after submitting the appraisals, business damage reports, and other work product claimed and upon closing, payment, or final judgment.

Under section 73.092(1)(c), and except as otherwise provided in that section and in section 73.015, fees are awarded on the benefit achieved: 33 percent of any benefit up to $250,000, plus 25 percent between $250,000 and $1 million, plus 20 percent above $1 million. Section 73.092(1)(a) defines that benefit as the difference, exclusive of interest, between the final judgment or settlement and the last written offer made before you hired an attorney.

Two qualifications matter, and both turn on details owners rarely track.

Business damages are measured differently, and only if you produced records. Under section 73.092(1)(a)1., where ordinary-course business records were provided to substantiate the section 73.015(2)(c) offer, the benefit on business damages runs from the authority’s written counteroffer under section 73.015(2)(d), and under that subsection a rejection or non-response is deemed a counteroffer of zero. Where those records were not provided and are later deemed material, section 73.092(1)(a)2. measures the benefit from the first counteroffer made within 90 days after the authority receives them.

The percentage schedule does not govern everything. Section 73.092(2) applies a different multi-factor test to fees for defeating an order of taking, for apportionment, or for other supplemental proceedings, when not otherwise provided for.

Because the baseline is the last written offer made before you retain counsel, every additional offer you field alone raises that baseline, shrinking the statutory benefit your fee award is calculated from. See attorney fee recovery and how early legal action can limit a taking.

If the government damages your property without filing anything, see inverse condemnation claims.

What Westshore Owners Should Do Right Now

1. Ask which project number carries the right-of-way phase for your parcel. On this interchange, the answer is 412531, not the construction number.
2. Ask whether your parcel is in the relocation phase. Over a million dollars is budgeted there this fiscal year.
3. Do not concede access. Informal agreements about driveways, easements, and construction entry are hard to unwind.
4. Confirm your address on the Hillsborough County tax roll, because an undeliverable notice still starts your 30 days.
5. Calendar the 180-day business damage deadline the day a notice arrives. Nothing else on this list can extinguish a claim outright.
6. Document conditions now. Traffic counts, parking utilization, signage sightlines, and delivery patterns become evidence.
7. Check your lease, since condemnation clauses allocate proceeds between landlord and tenant. See our commercial leasing practice.
8. Retain counsel and independent experts before the next written offer. FDOT’s appraiser works for FDOT.

Why Owners Along the Westshore Interchange Choose Jimerson Birr

We handle condemnation as a valuation fight, not a form letter exchange, and we assemble independent appraisers, engineers, planners, and accountants to prove the number.

We publish corridor-specific guidance statewide, including the I-4 Beyond the Ultimate program in Polk and Osceola counties and the Suncoast Parkway extension in Citrus County. We also counsel owners through our real estate development and real estate transactions and disputes practices. For more, see the eminent domain process for Florida commercial property owners.

Fiscal 2027 is the last year FDOT has money programmed to buy land at this interchange. If you have received a notice, an offer, or a phone call from a right-of-way agent, talk to Jimerson Birr’s Florida eminent domain attorneys before you respond.