Georgia Dome implosion date set

Recent progress on the construction of Mercedes-Benz Stadium has led officials to set a date for demolishing the Georgia Dome next door.

The Dome — the Falcons' home for the past 25 years — is now scheduled for implosion at 7:30 a.m. on Nov. 20, the team's parent company, AMB Group, said Friday.

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Mercedes-Benz Stadium, the Dome's successor, is slated to open Aug. 26 with a Falcons-Arizona Cardinals exhibition game.

The original plan was for the Dome to be imploded in July, but that plan was scrapped in April to keep the building in place as an insurance policy against further construction delays with the new stadium. Issues related to steel work on the retractable roof caused three previous delays in the opening date — first from March 1 to June 1, then to July 30, then to Aug. 26.

Update Aug. 4, 2017: Preparation work begins for Georgia Dome demolition

But stadium officials gained confidence in the late-August opening after the recent completion of structural steel work and the movement last weekend of the motorized roof from open to closed for the first time.

“Significant progress on Mercedes-Benz Stadium is achieved every day, and we’ve hit a few exciting milestones on the roof over the last week,” Steve Cannon, AMB Group’s CEO, said in a statement Friday. “With strong confidence, we’ve asked the contractors to move forward getting the Georgia Dome ready for implosion on Nov. 20.”

Decommissioning the Dome and preparing it for implosion — a time-consuming process that was put on hold in April — will restart “in earnest over the next two weeks,” according to AMB Group. That work will include removing the seats, video boards and extensive equipment.

The date set for implosion is the Monday before Thanksgiving. The Falcons play at Seattle that night on “Monday Night Football.”

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