TAMPA, Fla. — For Ozzie Oliveira, Tuesday should have been a good day.
He was poised to make a sale at his used car lot — Ready 2 Go Motors — on North Florida Avenue in South Seminole Heights.
Instead, when he turned the corner to his small business Tuesday morning, he was greeted with a familiar, frustrating sight.
A construction crew had dug up West Crest Avenue to the point Oliveira could not access his business’ main entrance.
“It looks like a bomb went off,” he said.
The work is part of the City of Tampa’s Southeast Seminole Heights Flooding Relief Project. The city and its contractor, Nelson Construction, are installing new infrastructure throughout the neighborhood in an effort to reduce flooding in the area. The work is impacting streets like North Florida Avenue, West Crest Avenue, North Central Avenue, and East Caracas.
People like Oliveira feel the project, which started in late 2021, is taking too long after multiple delays and is majorly disruptive to both homeowners and business owners.
Oliveira, for instance, said his sales have dropped substantially since the work began. In a previous interview, he said he might be forced to close after losing almost 80% of his business.
Most frustrating to Oliveira has been what he perceives as a lack of quality communication about the project and its progress from the city and its partners. Tuesday, he got no advanced warning before the inconvenience that impacted his business.
“Not one phone call,” he said. “Not one email. No text. No nothing. Nothing.”
Frustrated by the disruption, Oliveira told his potential customer to return Wednesday.
That’s troubling to Tampa Councilman Guido Maniscalco.
“They have overhead. They have employees. They have rent. They have the electric payment to pay. Those bills don’t stop, but when you obstruct a business, their business stops,” he said. “The bills keep coming due, but the business isn’t coming in because people either can’t access the business or they think it’s closed, and that’s not right.”
The councilman said even though the project team is reachable and accessible each time he has reached out, he thinks the team should start over-communicating with neighbors and business owners like Oliveira.
Maniscalco also believes it might be time to bring the project team before City Council — as it did similarly last year — to hold its feet to the fire on delays, disruptions, and other issues.
“As long as I keep getting complaints — which they’re coming in on a regular basis — if not every day, every other day — we want to be responsive,” he said. “And if it takes welcoming and bringing the contractors to City Council again, that’s fine.”
Councilwoman Lynn Hurtak agrees.
“We keep asking for improved communication. It happens for a little while and then disappears again,” she wrote in part. “It shouldn’t take a business owner/resident calling me who calls the department head who calls the company. With this project, there is no such thing as over-communication.”
When asked about the Tuesday disruption at Oliveira’s car lot, a spokesperson for the project said that even though this business’s main entrance was blocked for several hours, another gate was not. As a result, Oliveira was not notified.
Oliveira, though, takes issue with that statement. He sent ABC Action News a screenshot that he said shows even that gate was hard for customers to access because of the active construction and a large mound of dirt placed near that alternate access point.
Regardless of what happened Tuesday, the project spokesperson said communication will be improved.
“They will be sure to notify the business if any entrance is affected when curb and asphalt are installed in the coming weeks,” the spokesperson wrote. “And as always, business owners and residents who have a concern like this can call the hotline for assistance: 813-580-5313.”
As for the project as a whole, according to the project’s website, construction is slated to end in late 2024.
Last week, ABC Action News sent the city a list of questions concerning recent delays, updated timelines, and how damage to sidewalks and driveways will be repaired. To see the project team’s answers, click here.
Additionally, neighbors and business owners are encouraged to keep tabs on the latest project alerts at this link.
Businesses that believe they have suffered financial losses because of the work can learn more about filing a claim at this link.
