Corey Tower to be converted into mammoth digital billboard and could take Atlanta to the next level, owner says

• Joeff Davis/CL File
• A very nice person named Andisheh gazes at the Corey smokestack, on top of which U.S. Senate hopeful Dale Cardwell camped in 2008.

The glorious plan to transform the "Corey Tower," the former 300-foot smokestack that looms over the Downtown Connector near Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, into a giant and ever-so-subtle billboard appears to finally be underway.

Last August, Atlanta businessman Billy Corey, owner of Corey Cos. Inc. and U.S. Enterprises Inc., revealed that he would turn the smokestack into a 80-feet-by-25-feet digital sign. And, yes, he even promised at the time that the digital billboard would become both "a landmark for the city of Atlanta" and the "most visible object in the Southeast" once complete.

After month of delays, the Cabbagetown native, who purchased the smokestack back in the '90s, says that the billboard has finally arrived in Atlanta. Curbed Atlanta's Kimberly Turner offers a brief update on the project:

The project that owner Billy Corey says is destined to become Atlanta's version of the Statue of Liberty, St. Louis Arch or Space Needle is finally happening. The 300-foot smokestack with a giant LED billboard stuck to the side was initially supposed to be blinding drivers on the Connector by the end of last year but that failed to happen. The date was pushed back to January 1, 2014, then when last we checked in, pushed again to "we won't know until trucks are on the road hauling to Atlanta" territory. Just when it looked like the project might languish forever in the Purgatory Of Incomplete Atlanta Projects, trucks packed with giant shrink-wrapped LED pieces rolled in from Salt Lake City, where a Utah company responsible for several iconic Times Square and Las Vegas Strip billboards created the pieces for Atlanta's most glorious landmark. Crews started working earlier today and the 80-foot tall, 25-foot wide signage is being assembled as we speak.

Now that construction has begun on the tower, a Corey vice president says the billboard could be ready to gloriously display the company's logo sometime in the next three weeks. Watch out, Atlantans!