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 has already changed shape. FDOT bought the land it needed years ago. What is live now is construction impact on the property you kept, plus a separate acquisition wave coming to the segment immediately east of you.
Jimerson Birr represents Florida property and business owners against condemning authorities statewide. Our Florida eminent domain attorneys can tell you which situation you are in, and what it is worth.
Is FDOT Still Acquiring Property at the Westshore Interchange?
No. The acquisition phase is complete, and FDOT’s own federal filings say the project needs no more land.
In the reevaluation signed June 17, 2025 for the construction phases, FDOT and the Federal Highway Administration answered the two questions that matter: “Are there changes in right-of-way needs? No” and “Is there a change in anticipated relocation(s)? No.” The 2024 construction authorization reevaluation says the same.
If a right-of-way agent has not contacted you about this interchange by now, you are not in the acquisition set, and your value question is what construction does to the property you still own.
That is a different case, not a smaller one, and its deadlines are just as unforgiving.
What the Project Is Building, and Where
The work zone is defined. 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. FDOT’s Tampa Bay Next materials put the full reconstruction at roughly $1 billion, an estimate dated September 2021.
Project limits and Priority 1A scope:
- 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, but Priority 1A builds the northbound side.
- New 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.
For how these programs unfold regionally, see our overview of major FDOT projects in Central Florida.
Which Westshore Owners Still Have a Claim?
Two groups, and they need opposite advice.
Owners Inside the Interchange Footprint
Your exposure is construction impact, not a first offer. FDOT has already 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.
Hotels, office parks, restaurants, dealerships, and airport-adjacent retail feel this first, because their value runs on visibility and access rather than acreage. In the Westshore district, the driveway is often worth more than the dirt.
Owners Between Lois Avenue and Howard Avenue
You are the group with a taking ahead of you. FDOT’s work program carries a right-of-way phase in fiscal year 2030 for I-275 from north of Lois Avenue to north of Howard Avenue, the Westshore to Downtown segment beginning where this project ends.
That lines up with FDOT’s statement that future phases are funded in 2030 and 2032. Fiscal 2030 sounds distant. It is not.
Can You Be Paid If FDOT Never Takes Your Land?
Sometimes, and this is where footprint owners leave money behind.
Florida law recognizes that a property 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 distinction is factual and expert-driven, which is why it should not be conceded in a phone call with a right-of-way agent.
Three situations to watch:
- Temporary construction easement. FDOT occupies part of your property for a defined period. Owners routinely undervalue these. Our guide to temporary construction easements explains why.
- Access modification. No land changes hands, but your median, turn lane, or curb cut does. See our discussion of 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.
Remainder damages are where these cases are won: lost parking count, a truck route that no longer works, a setback that now violates code, a sign that no longer reads from the interstate. Cost-to-cure items belong in the claim too, from rebuilding a drive aisle to moving a monument sign.
One statutory wrinkle matters along a corridor this public. Under section 73.071(5), any change in value occurring after the project’s scope becomes known in the market, and 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.
For more, see what is just compensation and our practice page on eminent domain and condemnation issues.
Do Westshore Businesses Get Paid for Lost Profits?
Yes, but the statute is narrower than most owners assume, and the limits decide cases.
Section 73.071(3)(b) allows recovery of business damages, meaning the probable damages the denial of the use of the property taken may reasonably cause. Four conditions:
- The taking must be partial. Business damages are a component of remainder damages and are unavailable when the entire parcel is acquired.
- The action must be by FDOT, a county, municipality, board, district, or other public body for the condemnation of a right-of-way.
- The business must be an established business of more than five years’ standing for takings on or after January 1, 2005.
- The business must be owned by the party whose land is taken and located on adjoining lands owned or held by that party, and pleaded in the owner’s written defenses.
For a Westshore hotel, restaurant, or dealership that loses ingress, egress, parking, or interstate visibility, business damages can dwarf the land value, which is why condemnors litigate these four conditions hard.
Our three-part series covers the mechanics: an introduction, calculating and proving, and resolving business damage claims.
The 180-Day Deadline, and the Second Window Most Owners Miss
This is the most dangerous date in a Florida condemnation file, and it has a safety valve almost nobody uses.
Under section 73.015(2)(c), Florida Statutes, a qualifying business that intends to claim business damages must submit a good faith written offer, supported by business records, by certified mail within 180 days after receiving the statutory business-owner notice, or by a later date the parties agree to. Absent a showing of good faith justification, the court must strike the claim.
Here is the part the panic usually skips: if the court does find a good faith justification, it grants the owner up to 180 additional days to submit the offer.
Under section 73.015(2)(d), the authority then has 120 days after receiving the offer and the supporting records to accept, reject, or counter. Silence or rejection is deemed a counteroffer of zero dollars, which sets the baseline for calculating fees on the business damage recovery.
If a notice has landed on your desk, contact our eminent domain team so a business damage expert can be engaged while the records still tell the story.
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 legal ceiling.
Under section 73.015(1), the authority must negotiate in good faith before suit, and must tell you that your property is needed, the nature of the project, and the parcel designation. The notice and offer go by certified mail or personal delivery, and a return as undeliverable counts as compliance. You get at least 30 days after receiving the notice to respond.
On request, within 15 business days, it 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. Additional plan sheets follow within 15 days.
Rejecting the offer moves the case toward circuit court, where a jury decides compensation. FDOT can also take possession first under chapter 74, Florida Statutes, 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 amount, and on the common mistakes business owners make before they get there.
Who Pays Your Attorney in a Florida Eminent Domain Case?
In most cases, the condemning authority does. Under section 73.092(1)(c), Florida Statutes, fees in a condemnation proceeding are awarded on the benefits achieved for the owner: 33 percent of any benefit up to $250,000, plus 25 percent of any benefit between $250,000 and $1 million, plus 20 percent above $1 million.
Under section 73.092(1)(a), “benefits” means the difference, exclusive of interest, between the final judgment or settlement and the last written offer the authority made before you hired an attorney. If it made no written offer before then, benefits run from the first written offer after you hired counsel. Business damages are measured separately, against the authority’s counteroffer.
The authority also pays reasonable costs of defense in circuit court, including appraisal fees and, where business damages are compensable, an accountant’s fee. Other expert costs can be recovered, but the court must make specific findings that each fee is reasonable.
Because the fee award is measured from the offer on the table before you hire counsel, waiting to retain an attorney does not save money, it shrinks the number the fee is calculated from.
What Westshore Owners Should Do Right Now
Inside the interchange footprint:
- Document conditions before the next closure. Traffic counts, parking utilization, signage sightlines, and delivery patterns become evidence.
- Do not concede access. Informal agreements about driveways, easements, and construction entry are hard to unwind.
- Get the construction plans for your frontage, and price any temporary occupation of your land.
Between Lois Avenue and Howard Avenue:
- Start preserving five years of business records now. Tax returns, sales tax filings, profit and loss statements, and balance sheets are the currency of a business damage claim, and a fiscal 2030 acquisition means the qualifying period is running today.
- Check your lease. Condemnation clauses allocate award proceeds between landlord and tenant. See our commercial leasing practice.
- Retain counsel and experts before the first 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 now in construction through Citrus County, another corridor where acquisition closed before most owners realized it had opened. We also counsel owners through our real estate development and construction practice and our real estate transactions and disputes group.
For more, see the eminent domain process for Florida commercial property owners and our Florida commercial real estate and land use law blog.
The rebuild will run for years, and the next acquisition wave is already programmed. If you have received a notice, an offer, or even a phone call from a right-of-way agent, talk to Jimerson Birr’s Florida eminent domain attorneys before you respond.