Atlanta Falcons: New stadium ready, Georgia Dome demo begins
By Randy Gurzi
With the beautiful new Mercedes-Benz Stadium ready to go, the Atlanta Falcons old home — the Georgia Dome — is being demolished
The Atlanta Falcons are just weeks away from kicking off their time in their new home — Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Right next to that beautiful new building is their previous home, the Georgia Dome. With it now retired, workers have began the process of tearing it down, and the pictures available from the Atlanta Journal-Constitutional are worth a look.
It’s a bitter sweet thing for the sentimental types, as the dome has been an integral part to the city of Atlanta since 1992 when it first opened. Back in March, the Twitter account for the venue said their goodbyes following a monster truck show and added thank you to their fans for making their time there so great.
They sent a note the following day detailing how more than 39 million fans watched some 1,400 events and generated more than $7 billion.
From 1992-2017 the Dome hosted over 39 million fans at over 1400 events that meant over $7.4 BILLION in economic impact to the State of Ga
— Georgia Dome (@GeorgiaDome) March 6, 2017
Of course that revenue had a lot to do with why the city was comfortable making an upgrade to the new stadium. Construction crews broke ground back in 2014 on the estimated $1.6 billion venue, which holds between 71,000 to 83,000 fans at football games. The stadium will also be home to Atlanta United FC of Major League Soccer.
The first preseason game the Falcons will play in the state of the art stadium will be on August 26 against the Arizona Cardinals. They will finish off their exhibition games at home as well against the Jacksonville Jaguars.
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After starting the regular season on the road in Week 1, they will host the Green Bay Packers on Sunday Night Football to christen their new home in their Week 2 matchup on September 17.