A vacant 16-story building in downtown Macon, Georgia, will be the center of a New Year’s Eve celebration in 2025.
The former hotel is blown up as the clock strikes midnight.
“We acquired this property to blow it up,” Macon Mayor Lester Miller said in a news release.
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The hotel was bought by Macon Bibb County for $4.5 million in federal bankruptcy proceedings and the county is prepared to spend up to $2.6 million hiring a demolition company to blow up the building, the Associated Press (AP) reported.
A vacant 16-story hotel in Macon, Georgia, was purchased by city officials and will be blown up on New Year’s Eve to ring in 2025. (Grant Blankenship/Georgia Public Broadcasting via AP)
“The way you start your new year is how you spend the whole year, so we’re doing it big and demolishing a blighted building, making way for economic and community development and bringing people together to remember our past and celebrate our future .all at once,” Miller added in the release.
The hotel originally opened in 1970 and is known as a host Elvis Presley before it was seized by the New York Banking Department in 1991 because it was an asset involved in a fraud case, according to the AP.
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The last operating company to occupy the building was in 2017, the Ramada Plaza.
“We acquired this property to blow it up,” the city’s mayor said of the vacant hotel. (iStock)
“Several groups have attempted over the years to bring the property back to life and capitalize on Downtown’s continued and increasing success, but none of these plans have come to fruition,” according to the Macon-Bib County government news release.
The release further said, “The current building has undergone multiple attempts to renovate it, but there are too many challenges in its outdated design and lack of meeting current fire and safety codes to make renovations feasible.”
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A neighboring church has expressed concern about the possible damage the explosion could have on the historic shrine.
The building was last occupied in 2017. (Grant Blankenship/Georgia Public Broadcasting via AP)
Russ Henry, a member of the vestry that oversees Christ Episcopal Church, told the AP that the church would like officials to be more careful with their plan.
“It’s an eyesore for the whole community, we’d like to have something else… We just want to make sure our church doesn’t get blown up during our bicentennial,” he said.
Fox News Digital has reached out to Macon-Bibb County government for comment.
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The Associated Press contributed to this report.
