Terrazzo Restoration in Town 'n' Country

Town ‘n’ Country’s early streets are among the places where Hillsborough County records show the most terrazzo, and after Helene plenty of it is no longer under carpet. Restoration here typically runs $5 to $9 per square foot for the grind, hone and polish, $2 to $3 per square foot for any carpet and glue still down, and $75 to $250 per patch for tack-strip and plumbing holes. Send a photo of a corner and we will tell you what we see.

How Town ‘n’ Country was built

Before the 1950s this was cattle land and open country. In 1958 the LaMonte-Shimberg Corporation bought a 525-acre dairy farm from the Webb family near the Hillsborough Avenue and Memorial Highway intersection and started Town ‘n’ Country Park, one of Tampa’s first suburban communities. By the time it built its last house the development covered more than 2,000 acres, from Memorial Highway north past Waters Avenue, and nearly 8,000 single-family homes and townhouses had gone up between 1958 and 1978.

Twenty years of building means two different kinds of floor. The houses from the first decade, poured while terrazzo was still standard in Florida block houses, are the ones to check. The later units mostly are not terrazzo at all. In our pull of 1,103 county property records, no house built in 1973 or later anywhere in the county listed terrazzo.

What the county records show here

The Hillsborough County Property Appraiser lists an Interior Flooring value for every house. On the streets we pulled:

The houses that do not list terrazzo mostly list carpet or tile, and that line only records what the appraiser has on file. Our property-record guide explains how to read your own.

Helene

On the night of September 26, 2024, WUSF reported 7 feet of storm surge pushed through Town ‘n’ Country streets and into homes, and Hillsborough County Fire Rescue said more than 500 people were rescued overnight across the county’s hardest-hit areas. The community’s listed elevation is about 10 feet above sea level, and its western edge is the Pinellas County line at Oldsmar. The National Weather Service measured record water levels at its East Bay and Old Port Tampa gauges that night, and 5 to 8 feet above the normal high-tide line elsewhere along the county’s coast.

Inside the houses, the coverings went first. Carpet, pad and vinyl that sat in salty, muddy water had to come out. Under them, 1960s cement terrazzo stays bonded to the slab. If yours is bare now, the order is: rinse the salt and silt out properly, let the slab dry, test moisture, then restore. Sealing a damp slab traps the moisture. That whole sequence is on our flood-damaged terrazzo page, and the paperwork side matters here: the unincorporated county asks for a Substantial Damage Packet for cosmetic repairs on homes in a Special Flood Hazard Area.

Milton followed two weeks later with 10 to 15 inches of rain over most of the county and an isolated 18.82 inches near Westchase, next door to the north.

What Town ‘n’ Country floors usually need

• Rinsing and salt removal on any floor that was under surge water, before anything else. See salt and silt residue.
• Tack-strip holes and rust around every room that was carpeted. The rust tends to grind out; the holes get filled. Tack-strip holes covers it.
• Tile removal in kitchens and baths, where tile was set straight onto the terrazzo in later remodels. Typically $4 to $6 per square foot, plus pits to fill.
• Deeper rust where tack strip sat in floodwater. Most comes out; some may only lighten.

Getting a number

Send three photos through the form: a corner where the terrazzo shows, the worst spot with a coin beside it, and a wide shot of the room, plus the rough square footage. If the floor flooded, tell us when and whether the coverings are already out. You get a range from the pricing page. Nearby, we also cover Carrollwood and Forest Hills.