UrbanizeAtlNewsBot@yall.theatl.social

UrbanizeAtlNewsBot@yall.theatl.social

Pricey Gold Dome expansion project roars ahead downtown Josh Green Fri, 09/20/2024 - 14:03 Scaffolding and major demolition work around Georgia’s famed Gold Dome signal the beginnings of a large-scale expansion project that state lawmakers have called long overdue downtown.

The cost of the Georgia Capitol redo and a new legislative building will be $392 million, as paid for with the $36 billion in state revenue lawmakers approved for this fiscal year.

State lawmakers have said they’re bursting at the seams of Georgia’s historic 1889 Capitol and an adjacent office building, necessitating the Gold Dome overhaul and expansion that will see a rare new office building erected from the ground up downtown.

The budget will also cover safety and security upgrades at the Capitol Hill complex, in addition to $83 million channeled toward preserving the historical integrity of the Gold Dome.

A fresh, thin layer of actual gold is being applied to the Capitol dome as part of updates.

Just north of the Capitol, across Martin Luther King Jr. Drive toward the high-rise heart of downtown, an eight-story legislative office building is planned to replace two partially vacant, state-owned buildings.

Demolition work to bring down those structures recently kicked off, as is visible along Piedmont Avenue.

Demolition progress this week at a state-owned building where Georgia Office of the Child Advocate for the Protection of Children was housed. Contributed

The site in relation to the Gold Dome (background), looking south. Contributed

That 260,000-square-foot office project would also include a new parking garage with 500 spaces, all linked via a skybridge to the Gold Dome, as lawmakers revealed in February.

The new structure will replace a dated, 1980s office building just south of the Capitol that houses most legislative offices and committee rooms today but is in need of upgrades such as new mechanical and heating systems and lacks sufficient meeting rooms.

Project leaders have said new construction around the Capitol should be finished by the end of 2026.

The downtown block Georgia lawmakers have targeted for a new office building. Google Maps

Another aspect of the work will be the restoration of a grand Capitol library that’s been obscured and sectioned into offices under the Gold Dome. Other offices built into the building’s original mezzanines will be purged, opening those formerly grand spaces back up, too, as the Associated Press previously reported.

An earlier, $208 million proposal to renovate the Coverdell Legislative Office Building on the south side of the Capitol as an overcrowding solution would have created less space—leaving fewer dollars for Gold Dome upgrades—and required that lawmakers work from portable trailers for two years, officials have said.

The 1880s building’s frontage on Capitol Avenue. Shutterstock

In other recent demolition news from the area, Georgia state government in June demolished the original World of Coca-Cola (vacant since 2007) to make way for a new surface parking lot next to another state-owned building, the Georgia Railroad Freight Depot events space.

That will replace some parking being lost to staging areas for construction crews during the Gold Dome expansion.

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