Georgia Dome, former home of Atlanta Football Classic, demolished

The Georgia Dome – former home of the Atlanta Football Classic – was imploded at 7:30 a.m. Eastern Standard Time yesterday. Between 1998 and 2012, the Atlanta Football Classic featured Florida A&M University. The Rattlers played Tennessee State University for the first 12 years and then Southern University and A&M College during their final two years of participation.

Taking a mere 12 seconds to flatten the building’s approximate 250,000 cubic yards of concrete, the implosion utilized more than 10,000 man-hours of preparation, 4,800 total pounds of strategically placed explosives, and approximately 6 miles of detonating cord and 1 mile of electrical wire connections.

The Dome’s calling card was its versatility. It was the only venue to ever host the Olympics, the Super Bowl, and the NCCA Men’s Final Four. The Georgia Dome hosted its final public event, Monster Jam, on March 5, 2017.

Built for $214 million by the State of Georgia and operated by the Georgia World Congress Center Authority (GWCCA), the Georgia Dome opened in 1992 and served as home to the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons for 25 years prior to the team’s move next door to state-of-the-art Mercedes-Benz Stadium, also on the GWCCA campus. More than 1,400 events took place at the Georgia Dome, drawing 37 million guests and generating more than $7 billion in economic impact.

Cleanup is expected to take approximately three months, laying groundwork for a 1,010 –room luxury convention center hotel serving the adjacent Georgia World Congress Center. Ground breaking is scheduled for early 2019. The site also will include a new 600-space parking deck and The Home Depot Backyard, a 13-acre greenspace designed for game day tailgating at Mercedes-Benz Stadium and community programming on non-event days.