FDOT Hosts Open House for People Who are Going to Lose Their Houses

The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) will be hosting a community open house at the Hillsborough Bar Association, Chester H. Ferguson Law Center on Thursday, March 7 at 5pm to discuss the ever-ongoing construction project at the I-275 and I-4 interchange and its impact on the nearby neighborhoods.

“Since nobody wants to even have a conversation about transportation alternatives, we’re just going to keep adding lanes to these congested roadways,” said FDOT spokesperson Melinda Mergeworthy. “And that means eventually, maybe not right away but pretty soon, we will need to tear down these people’s homes.”

“So we figured the least, and I mean the very least, we can do is have these folks over to tell them about it over cookies and coffee,” she added. 

Current estimates have the project expanding the two highways to approximately 22 lanes in each direction right around the time when anticipated need will be for 30 lanes in each direction.

“We’ll tear down those homes when we come to them but we’ll have cookies again before that happens,” she said.