Downtown hotel set to be imploded on New Year’s Day has troublesome 50-year history of murder, foreclosures and international scandal

Macon-Bibb County plans to ring in the new year with more than just sparklers and fireworks: as we bid farewell to 2024, the county will implode a long-vacant 16-story hotel in downtown Macon at 9 a.m New Year’s Day.

The former hotel — a 200,000-square-foot building at First and Walnut streets — has loomed over downtown for 50 years.

A once-vibrant venue for conventions, parties and celebrity guests including Elvis Presley, its half-century lifespan also was marred by ownership changes, foreclosures and a gruesome murder case.

Construction of the Macon Hilton Hotel

The $7.5 million hotel was built in 1969 on 2.2 acres with nearly 300 rooms, 16 floors, a ballroom and a second floor swimming pool. Each room came complete with a color TV and amenities including free parking, laundry service and child care centers. The hotel, which boasted Italian marble flooring, crystal chandeliers and a fountain by its entrance, seemed a promising draw for a city on the rise.

Thirty prominent Macon businessmen invested in the venture and sold stock to about 200 others to finance the construction, but the building faced trouble before it was even completed. The rupturing of a drainage pipe and the construction superintendent suffering a heart attack delayed the project.

Despite those obstacles, then-mayor Ronnie Thompson celebrated the opening of the Macon Hilton Hotel in December 1970 as the first new hotel to be built downtown since 1913, according to Macon Telegraph archives.

The city saw a period of rapid growth and development during this era — Interstate 75 was completed. The Telegraph described the time as “Macon’s Face Changing” and “Skyline’s Going Big League.” The slogan “Macon On The Move” captured the city’s climb towards a bigger and better Macon.

A troubling financial history

By 1980 the hotel had already passed through the hands of failed ownership and subsequent bankruptcy. Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. bought the hotel for $3.1 million.

Metropolitan transformed the space into a Holiday Inn — a $5 million New Orleans inspired renovation project, partially funded with city-issued bonds. In March 1984, the newly renovated hotel opened once again before changing hands eight years later.

The early ‘90s ushered in more bad luck for the struggling hotel as it became a footnote in a much larger international banking scandal and the site of a tragic murder.

New hotel owner South Carolina-based Zurich Corp. financed the $5.8 million purchase of the hotel through the Bank of Credit and Commerce International. Months after the purchase, three Panamanians were arrested at the hotel on drug trafficking and money laundering charges — the tip of the iceberg in the bank’s larger scandals allegedly involving laundered drug money from Central America and the financing of Oliver North’s arms deals with Iran and Saddam Hussein’s hidden Iraqi oil profits.

The Hilton Corp. cut ties with the hotel in 1991 because Zurich had not made timely renovations. It was renamed the Macon Downtown Hotel. That same year, a hotel employee brutally raped, beat and strangled a Texas businesswoman staying as a guest in May.

The hotel started fresh once more in November with a new name: The Ramada Hotel and Conference Center.

The hotel changed hands and endured a series of name changes and rebrands over the more than two decades that followed, but such efforts never gained traction or saw lasting success.

More recently, a Toronto businessman purchased the hotel in 2014 with $8 million plans to turn the hotel into an upscale Wyndam, which never came to fruition.

Implosion plans

The county commission authorized the purchase of the property in January and, at a Nov. 19 meeting, the board approved $2.475 million for South Carolina-based Target Contractors LLC to carry out the demolition.

Chris Floore, Macon Bibb-County spokesperson, said the building, which has been vacant for over a decade, cannot be refurbished because of damage and the inability to bring former hotel rooms up to code.

It would be impossible to add central heating and air to these rooms or add new appliances, which are just some of the requirements needed to convert the hotel into proper housing, he said.

“Starting fresh on a big piece of property, we have a chance to have two big developments to aid the community and downtown area,” Floore said.

With no foreseeable revitalization for the existing building, the late NewTown Macon President and CEO Josh Rogers told The Melody in an interview last month that he was glad the county took the initiative on the project.

“There’s really nothing worse than an empty building,” he said. “It’s a terrible option to leave that giant building sitting there empty, especially when it’s in such a fantastic location.”

The vacant property could have passed through the hands of several owners and stalled in development if it weren’t for the county, he explained.
Given the property’s “strategic location,” Rogers expected it wouldn’t sit empty for long and would most likely be repurposed for the hospitality sector.

A 2019 study conducted by a third party hospitality analytical company reported that Macon’s core downtown area could sustain 500 more hotel rooms, Gary Wheat, president and CEO of VisitMacon, told The Melody.

That initial analysis contributed to the development of Hotel 45 and the Woodward Hotel downtown. Downtown currently has a little more than 100 hotel rooms, Wheat said.

A follow up analysis completed in recent weeks reaffirms the need for more hotel rooms, especially with the growth of downtown and the potential establishment of Georgia’s first national park in East Macon, Wheat said.

Not only did he believe the county made the best economic decision in giving the property a new beginning, but Rogers said the purchase and planned implosion of the abandoned building offers a spark of hope.

“The county’s betting on ourselves again. We know we can make this right,” he said. “Revitalizing downtown is something that Macon has done for Macon.”

The county has begun planning safety and cleanup with Target Contractors, and plans to release more details, such as how to watch and traffic impact, in the coming weeks.

Melody reporters Casey Choung and Laura Corley contributed to this story.