Hotel tied to Elvis and Saddam Hussein to be blown up in New Year’s celebration
A landmark US hotel where Elvis stayed and with ties to the controversial Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein is set to be imploded to ring in the new year.
The 16-story former Ramada Plaza hotel in Macon, Georgia, has been vacant since 2017. It sits on the northern section of the downtown one block from the Ocmulgee River.
It was designed by famed architect Morris Lapidus, who is also behind the Fountainebleau and other iconic Miami hotels, and opened in 1970.
The hotel had high notes like housing American singer and actor Elvis Presley, but was also accused of helping Hussein hide Iraqi oil profits.
In 1991, the New York Banking Department seized the building, alleging that it was an asset in a Bank of Credit and Commerce International money-laundering and fraud scheme.
Amid its ups and downs, the hotel never performed well financially.
In 2023, Macon-Bibb County bought the building for $4.5million as part of a federal bankruptcy process. And late last month, the city-county approved a plan to hire a demolition firm to destroy it for another $2.6million.
The hotel will explode in a fiery spectacular on January 1 at 9am.
‘We acquired this property to blow it up,’ Macon Mayor Lester Miller told WMAZ-TV.
‘We’re gonna spend a little money to tear that thing down.
‘But what you’ll see that’s replacing that will be 100 times of what it’s doing right now.’
What will go in the hotel’s place has not yet been determined, the mayor said, but it will most likely be aimed at redeveloping the city’s riverfront and making it more vibrant.
But not everyone is excited about the upcoming demolition.
‘It’s an eyesore to the whole community, we would love to have something else there,’ said Russ Henry, a vestry member overseeing Christ Episcopal Church less than two blocks away.
‘We just want to make sure that our church doesn’t get blown up on our bicentennial.’
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