Old Fourth Ward's, Masquerade Collapses This Morning

Construction Snafu Appears To Have Caused Collapse of Historic DuPre Excelsior Mill

Plans to preserve the historic DuPre Excelsior Mill structure as part of The Mill redevelopment project seem to have gone awry Friday.

anonymous witnessed the original stone and steel of the structure come crumbling down heading into the weekend.

“[Construction workers] were digging around the foundation today,” the reader wrote in the email to WNA alongside the above photograph.

“Must have gone too deep and caused the eastside to collapse.”

The building’s “breathtaking original stone” and “exposed timbers” were supposed to be incorporated into the under-construction mixed-use office project called The Mill.

The Old Fourth Ward building dates back to as early as 1890.

Most recently the historically-designated structure was home to The Masquerade music venue which has since relocated to Underground Atlanta.

In 1978, the Mill housed a pizzeria and barrio which featured everything from movies to bands to Shakespearean plays during its era of operation before becoming The Masquerade in ’89.

By the late 1960s, the buildings were used primarily as storage facilities.

It’s unclear if the DuPre Excelsior Mill can be saved or what developers plan to do moving forward.

Southeastern Capital and Coro Realty, the development firms rehabbing the more-than-a-century-old Excelsior Mill buildings into The Mill, did not immediately respond to WNA’s request for comment.

Developing…