ATLANTA — It was over in just a matter of seconds.
A once popular and busy hotel on Sullivan Road on the southwest side of Hartsfield-Jackson Airport came tumbling down Sunday morning in a hail of explosions.
“This is so exciting it was a perfect morning perfect execution of a well planned event. said Hartsfield-Jackson Airport G.M. Balram Bheodari. “And that’s the implosion of the former Sheraton hotel.”
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The 14-story tower of the old Sheraton Hotel and Conference Center had been a part of the property surrounding the airport for years, but has not been open or used since 2017.
It has been the site of numerous movie and television shoots, but those production companies will now have to find another location.
Hartsfield-Jackson officials purchased the property and several surrounding properties just outside the fence around the airport for what many believe could be an eventual sixth runway at the world’s “busiest airport”.
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Channel 2 Action News reporter Christian Jennings spoke to Mark Loizeaux who owns Controlled Demolition Inc. Loizeaux’s company does demolition work all over the world. Their project at the now former Airport Sheraton went off without a hitch.
“We were here about 3 weeks we drilled 671 holes in columns on 4 levels of the building,” Loizeaux said. “And in those holes we placed almost 900 pounds of dynamite.”
The entire demolition need almost 3/4 miles of detonating cord.
The hotel property was part of a 19 acre property purchase made by the airport in 2017. It includes the attached Convention Center which will be torn down by more traditional means this fall.
“We expect to spend roughly 9 million dollars in the demolition,” Behodari said. “And then we will be hauling off materials and preparing the site for future development.”
The airport says there are no specific plans yet for the site, the short term plan is for the property to be covered with soil and grass.
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