Emily Robinson and Amari Peacock, 2, leave the plaza outside the original World of Coca-Cola museum in downtown Atlanta on March 2, 1999. (KeynoteUSA Photo/Ric Feld. File)
The building that housed the original World of Coca-Cola, once a shrine to the world’s most popular soft drink, is coming down at the hands of the Georgia state government.
Crews on Friday continued demolishing the former Temple of Effervescence in downtown Atlanta near the state Capitol, with plans to convert the site into a parking lot.
Visitors since 2007 have paused to cool off downtown at a newer, larger Coca-Cola Co. museum in Atlanta’s Centennial Olympic Park. The building is a testament to the marketing power of the Atlanta-based beverage titan, making visitors pay to see the company’s take on its history and sample its drinks.
The park has become the heart of the city’s tourism industry, surrounded by hotels and attractions such as the Georgia Aquarium, the College Football Hall of Fame, the National Center for Civil and Human Rights, the State Farm Arena and the convention hall of the Georgia World Congress Center.
The state government bought the original three-story museum, which opened in 1990, from Coca-Cola in 2005 for $1 million, said Gerald Pilgrim, deputy executive director of the Georgia Building Authority. The agency maintains and manages state properties.
The building, once Atlanta’s most visited indoor attraction, has been empty since Coca-Cola moved in in 2007, Pilgrim said. He said state officials decided to demolish it because part of the existing parking lot for the Georgia Capitol complex will be taken up by a staging area to build a new legislative office building. The demolition would create a new parking lot adjacent to a former railroad freight depot that is a state-owned event space.
“With limited space around the Capitol, it was necessary to replace public parking that was being lost due to the neighboring construction project,” Pilgrim wrote in an email Friday.
Lawmakers agreed this year, with little disagreement, to spend $392 million to build a new eight-story legislative office building for themselves and renovate the 1889 Capitol building. That project is supposed to start soon and be complete by the end of 2026.
Pilgrim said the demolition will cost just under $1.3 million and is expected to be completed by Aug. 1.
Workers are tearing down a former Coca-Cola Co. museum in downtown Atlanta on Friday to make way for a parking lot. (KeynoteUSA Photo/Jeff Amy)
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