HCI’s corporate headquarters was acquired by the Florida Department of Transportation as part of its 1.4 Billion Dollar Westshore Interchange Project. The taking was initially designed as a partial taking of a 125,000 square foot office building. Due to the extent of the taking and the severity of the severance damages, we successfully negotiated a total taking of the property at the HCI’s request. The FDOT initially offered HCI $28,000,000 for the total taking. We successfully negotiated a settlement of $47,500,000, making it the largest settlement in FDOT District VII history.

We truly enjoyed representing drag racing legend “Big Daddy” Don Garlits in an inverse condemnation case involving especially egregious facts.

Don owned property that was adversely affected by the Florida Department of Transportation’s I-275 reconstruction project. As part of the project, the FDOT cut off access to Don’s commercial property from the abutting road, and physically appropriated portions of the property that were not formally taken by eminent domain. The FDOT then reconstructed Don’s driveway at a grade too steep to be functional. As a result of the FDOT’s actions, Don lost all of his tenants in his buildings, including Silk Gardens, which was leasing a significant portion of the property.

Don was referred to our firm after other attorneys were unable to help him. After meeting with Don at the site, we filed an inverse condemnation lawsuit against the FDOT for the unlawful appropriation of his property and for damages. The FDOT vigorously defended the suit. FDOT was ultimately forced to reconstruct Don’s parking lot, regrade and reconstruct the driveway that was constructed too steeply, and to build him an additional driveway that FDOT previously refused to allow. Additionally, the FDOT paid Don over three hundred thousand dollars in compensation arising from the takings.

In appreciation of the results we obtained for him, Don treated us to a private tour of his incredible drag racing museum in Ocala, FL. As an added bonus, he gave us officially autographed posters which are prominently displayed in our office on the wall of fame!! Thanks Don! You’ll always be one of our favorite clients!

Calvary Catholic Cemetery is the regional cemetery for the Diocese of St. Petersburg. The taking involved the destruction of a mature wall of oak trees which buffered the grave sites from the abutting highway and provided a pastoral setting. FDOT’s initial offer was $7,112,000 which failed to adequately address the adverse impacts to the cemetery. Our claim in response included an extensive remediation plan to restore the cemetery’s tranquil setting. We were able to settle the case at mediation for over $14,000,000.

Collier County took a 9,387 sf strip of land from the CVS Drugstore located at the corner of State Road 951/Collier Blvd. and U.S. 41. The taking went through eleven of the drugstore’s primary front parking spaces, and adversely affected several other spaces in front of the store.

The loss of the parking spaces dropped the total number of parking spaces below the number of spaces required by the CVS lease, and substantially reduced the amount of convenient parking on the site.

The County’s case was based on the premise that six of the lost parking spaces could be replaced at the rear of the property. The County also claimed that the CVS entrance could be relocated from the front to the side of the building where more spaces existed compared to those that remained in the front of the store after the taking. At trial, the County presented extensive expert testimony on these issues, including the value of land taken, improvements taken, severance damages to the remainder, and cost to cure, i.e. cost to relocate the parking and move the door.

In Contrast to the County’s position, Helinger DeYoung presented evidence and expert testimony that the County’s position was oversimplified in that the actual cost of relocating the door exceeded the County’s estimate by nearly $1,000,000, including necessary reconfiguring of the interior of the store, which was not considered by the County. Likewise, Helinger DeYoung presented testimony and evidence from the property owner, the CVS director of real estate for Florida, an engineer, and a real estate appraiser that the rear parking was not feasible nor desirable as replacement parking for that which was taken. We presented the property owner’s claim of full compensation in the amount of $3,992,100 to the jury; Collier County’s testimony of full compensation was $519,000.

After a week of testimony and evidence, the jury returned its verdict in the amount of $3,483,000.