If you’re looking for a safe and fun place to watch implosion of the abandoned hotel Downtown, we got you! Join Macon-Bibb County, NewTown Macon, and other community partners at Coleman Hill for a viewing party beginning at 8:00 a.m. Bring your own chairs and blankets to watch the implosion at 9:00 a.m.
“We’ll have plenty of opportunities for you to see the building coming down online, but if you want to see it in person, the best place would be on Coleman Hill with us,” said Mayor Lester Miller. “We want you to stay safe and stay out of the exclusion area.”
On Thursday, December 19, Mayor Lester Miller signed an Executive Order, establishing the Exclusion Zone to begin at 6:00 a.m. and end at 11:00 a.m. on January 1. The Exclusion Zone is the area around the implosion that should not have anyone in it while it’s active.
You can view the map and read the executive order here.
On Thursday, Target Contractors also held a public forum for people to come out and ask questions. You can view the forum here. Representatives from Target Contractors began talking with the businesses closest to the hotel several weeks ago to introduce themselves, provide early information about the process, and see what questions they may have.
For more than a decade, the 16-story Macon hotel in the block bordered by Riverside Drive, First Street, and Walnut Street has been vacant…attracting theft and vandalism, filling with water in lower areas at times, growing mold, and causing other issues that are not part of a rejuvenating, strengthening, and thriving Downtown.
“It was time to recognize that, if that part of Downtown was to benefit as other areas have, we needed to rethink the area and take a more direct role in its future,” says Mayor Lester Miller.
Several groups have tried over the years to bring the property back to life and capitalize on the ongoing and increasing success of Downtown, but none of those plans have come to fruition. The current building has undergone multiple rounds of attempts to renovate it, but there are too many challenges in the outdated design and lack of meeting current fire and safety codes to make renovation viable. There’s also too much damage to the building itself from not being used for so long.
“The ceilings are too low for central heating and air to be installed, the parking deck underneath floods whenever it rains too much, there are large holes in sections of the roof, and so much more,” says Alex Morrison, Executive Director of the Urban Development Authority. “The best path forward is to clear the site and find a developer to build something that will truly move our Downtown forward.”
Target Contractors have been meeting with government and utility officials to begin planning for everything that needs to happen to implode the hotel. That includes plans for health and safety, site control, and access, fire safety, dust control, environmental protection, traffic control, site cleanup, debris removal, and noise, shockwave, and vibration control…and more…all to make it as safe as possible.
This demolition and future development are in addition to the future development of the property across Riverside Drive, as well as the Urban Development Authority acquiring the former Macon Health Club and other buildings down First Street. The latter was done for a similar reason as the acquisition of the old hotel: to take a more coordinated approach to rejuvenating several blocks of Downtown, bringing them all back to life. To read more about the future of the other buildings on First Street, including the former Macon Health Club, click here.