Former Coca-Cola Museum in Atlanta demolished for parking

ATLANTA — Once a sanctuary for the world’s most popular soft drink, the building that housed the original World of Coca-Cola is crumbling at the hands of the Georgia state government.

Crews continued Friday to demolish the former Temple of Bubbly in downtown Atlanta, near the state capital, with plans to convert the site into a parking lot.

Since 2007, visitors have been taking a refreshing break downtown at a newer, larger Coca-Cola Co. Museum in Atlanta’s Centennial Olympic Park. The building is a testament to the Atlanta-based beverage titan’s marketing drive, compelling visitors to pay to see the company’s take on its history and taste its drinks.

The park has become the heart of the city’s tourism industry, surrounded by hotels and attractions including the Georgia Aquarium, College Football Hall of Fame, National Center for Civil and Human Rights, the State Farm Arena and the Georgia World Congress Center.

State government purchased the original three-story museum, 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.

Once Atlanta’s most visited indoor attraction, the building has been vacant since Coca-Cola moved out in 2007, Pilgrim said. He said state officials decided to demolish it because part of the existing surface parking lot at the Georgia Capitol complex was going to be taken up by a staging area for construction of a new legislative office building. The demolition would create a new parking lot adjoining a former rail freight depot that is a state-owned event space.

“With limited space around Capitol Hill, 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 dissent, to spend $392 million to build a new eight-story legislative office building on their own and to renovate the 1889 Capitol building. That project is expected to begin soon and s ‘complete by the end of 2026.

Pilgrim said the demolition will cost just under $1.3 million and should be completed by Aug. 1.