TAMPA, Fla. — Anyone who happened to be near the former DoubleTree Hotel in Tampa late Tuesday night might have heard the sounds of a thunderstorm, but it had nothing to do with the weather.
The Florida Department of Transportation used controlled explosives around 1:30 a.m. on Wednesday to demolish the 10-story tower located at 4500 W. Cypress St.
The Tampa Police Department set up an exclusion zone around the work site to prevent pedestrians from getting too close. Traffic on local and nearby streets closed for several hours, while traffic on Interstate 275 was shut down immediately before the demolition.
Officials say the destruction of the building is to use the property as part of the Westshore Interchange construction project, which is expected to start in late 2024.
The project will completely reconstruct Tampa's Westshore Interchange of I-275 and State Road 60 with a modern design and add more general and express lanes, FDOT wrote on its website. The new design will also have flyover ramps to provide better traffic operation by replacing the current loop ramp from westbound SR-60 to northbound I-275.
After the project is finished, the new express lanes will give drivers reliable travel times across the Tampa Bay area and the Veterans Expressway.
The construction project will cost $10 million.
To learn more about the Westshore Interchange construction project, click here.