Judge Orders Tampa to Turn Over 38 Records in SoHo Business Alliance Lawsuit Over South Howard Flood Project

A Hillsborough County judge has ordered the City of Tampa to turn over 38 outstanding public records tied to its $100.4 million South Howard Flood Relief Project, siding with the SoHo Business Alliance in a lawsuit that accused the city of stalling on requests for engineering models, cost estimates and internal communications. The final judgment by Circuit Judge Mark Wolfe, entered Nov. 2, gives the city until Dec. 2 to produce the records.

The ruling does not stop or change the flood project, which the Tampa City Council approved in a 4-3 vote in September. But it hands a win to the South Howard Avenue business owners who have fought the plan for months, and it requires the city to account under oath for records the alliance says it should have received long ago.

What the judge ordered

Wolfe's order details how long the requests sat, according to WTSP 10 Tampa Bay, which reviewed the judgment. The alliance submitted two records requests on Feb. 2 and a third on March 26. As of Oct. 26, the city had finished producing records in 70 of 93 requested categories, leaving 23 incomplete. Because some records fell into more than one category, the judge identified 38 distinct records still outstanding.

Records in the completed categories took between 145 and 263 days to produce, the judge found, and the remaining categories had been pending for 214 to 266 days as of Oct. 26, WTSP reported.

The judgment sets a compliance schedule. The city has five days to contact its project contractors and direct them to gather responsive records from subcontractors and subconsultants, including engineering firm AtkinsRéalis. It must produce the records by Dec. 2, then has five more days to certify to the court that it has complied, according to WFLA.

The order also requires Tampa to:

• Organize the records by the numbers assigned in the judgment and provide them in the format requested, including native electronic files and metadata where the city keeps records that way.
• Identify any records it withholds or redacts and state the legal basis.
• Take steps to recover records that may have been deleted or destroyed, including through backups, archives or forensic recovery when necessary.
• Withdraw directives requiring the alliance to pay contractors Kimmins Contracting Corp. and AtkinsRéalis directly for records, and impose no additional special service charges for the outstanding records.

The court will keep the case open to monitor compliance. The alliance filed a motion for attorney fees and costs on Nov. 10, and the judge has reserved a decision on whether it is entitled to them and, if so, how much, WTSP reported. No fee award has been made.

What records the alliance wants

The outstanding records go to the heart of the dispute over the project's design. According to WTSP, they include calibration files for flood models, earlier versions of engineering designs, simulations involving Hurricane Milton and Hurricane Helene, cost estimates for alternatives the alliance proposed, and analyses of the project's benefits and costs.

Other items include presentations and notes from project meetings, communications between the city and the Tampa-Hillsborough Expressway Authority, correspondence among project consultants and contractors, text messages and other communications on city devices and accounts, missing attachments to emails already produced, preliminary design sheets and the city's March 2026 funding plan.

How the lawsuit unfolded

The alliance sued in June, claiming the city intentionally delayed producing records to keep them from public scrutiny before the City Council's vote, according to the Tampa Bay Times. The group said it paid thousands of dollars in up-front costs for the requests; it previously told WUSF it had paid $27,000.

In its response, filed by City Attorney Scott Steady, the city did not dispute that the alliance was entitled to the nonexempt records or that some remained outstanding, but argued the requests were broad and complex and that its response time was not unjustified, according to the Times and WTSP. In June, the court ordered the city to either turn over the records or explain within 20 days why it should not have to, WFLA reported at the time.

"Public records belong to the public," Edward P. de la Parte Jr., who represents the alliance, said in a statement Tuesday. "All of this could have been avoided had the City simply followed the law from the start." City spokesperson Adam Smith declined to comment, the Times reported. The city has consistently said it does not comment on pending litigation.

The project at the center of the fight

The plan would install box culverts under stretches of South Howard and West Swann avenues to carry stormwater from Parkland Estates, Palma Ceia Pines and surrounding neighborhoods toward Hillsborough Bay. City engineers say the area is shaped like a bowl, collecting water that small, aging pipes cannot drain. When finished, the system would move stormwater through 6,500 feet of culverts, according to WUSF.

The city traces the effort to 2015, when heavy rain flooded homes in Parkland Estates, and included $64.5 million for it in the fiscal 2022 budget, according to project background materials cited by WTSP. Tampa selected Kimmins as its design-build contractor in 2023, and the council approved a $7.7 million design contract in November 2024. Hurricane Milton's flooding in October 2024 added urgency. In September, the council approved the project 4-3, including a construction contract with Kimmins worth about $92.7 million.

Business owners along the SoHo corridor say they support flood relief but question the route, the cost and the effect of years of periodic street closures on restaurants and shops. "We want a flood plan that works, that allows business to continue," alliance spokesperson Lisa Brock told WTSP. The alliance has pushed alternatives involving stormwater ponds and pumping; the city says it evaluated roughly two dozen options and chose the most practical one.

Two more lawsuits pending

The records case is separate from two class-action lawsuits filed in October by Bern's Steak House and other South Howard property owners, also represented by de la Parte. One argues the city's plan to excavate beneath South Howard goes beyond its public easement and intrudes on private land. The other contends the city changed the project's scope and cost without properly notifying property owners about the use of stormwater assessment money, according to WUSF. That complaint says the project described in 2023 bond documents was estimated at $76 million. The suits name the city, Mayor Jane Castor, Kimmins and AtkinsRéalis as defendants.

What's next

Tampa must deliver the 38 records by Dec. 2 and certify compliance within five days after that, and Wolfe will then take up the alliance's request for attorney fees. The order does not decide whether the city's engineering plan is the best solution, WTSP noted, and the city's project timeline is unchanged: construction could begin as early as May 2027, according to WFLA. The two class-action suits remain pending.