Tennis stadium that cost £16m and hosted Davis Cup was left abandoned | Tennis | Sport
A once-popular tennis stadium that hosted the Olympic and Paralympic Games has been demolished. The Stone Mountain tennis centre, based in Georgia in the United States, was originally built in 1996 and could seat up to 12,000.
Building the stadium cost £16.3million ($22m) and was the main tennis venue for the 1996 Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games. The entire complex included a 50,000-square-foot plaza area, plus 15 additional outer courts for practice games away from the main playing surface. Andre Agassi and Lindsay Davenport both won gold in the men’s and women’s singles on this iconic court.
Mark Woodforde and Todd Woodbridge of Australia took gold in the men’s doubles, with Mary Joe Fernandez and Gigi Fernandez scooping the women’s doubles top prize for America. The Netherlands scooped the men’s and women’s singles titles at the Paralympics, with Ricky Molier and Maaike Smit winning gold in wheelchair tennis.
The Dutch also claimed the women’s doubles gold, while the Americans won the men’s doubles. Following the two major sporting events, the Stone Mountain venue was reconfigured into three separate courts, each seating 7,200, 4,000, and 2,000 spectators.
The 1997 US Women’s Hard Court Championships and the 1998 Davis Cup were held in Georgia afterwards. The international team event was won by the Americans, defeating Russia in the final.
After the various tennis events, ownership of the stadium was given first to the State of Georgia’s Stone Mountain Memorial Association, then to Gwinnett County in 2016. The centre shut down in 2007 and was demolished in 2018, 22 years after it hosted two of the biggest major tournaments on the sporting calendar.
New reports from Wabe state that the area is now being used to construct a mixed-use development area that will focus on Costco as its main tenant. The project, dubbed Mountain Marketplace, will also include a Chick-fil-A, a bank, Whataburger and a community park spread across 31.1 acres.
A 248-unit residential development will also be built on the grounds that once hosted Olympians and Paralympians, including former men’s world No.1 Agassi.
