The Big Chicken in Marietta soon will stand in the shadow of another giant chicken currently under construction in rural South Georgia.
The 62-foot chicken in the small city of Fitzgerald will rise 6 feet taller than the longtime metro Atlanta landmark, where a Kentucky Fried Chicken has operated at Cobb Parkway and Roswell Road since 1956, and became famous for its 56-foot Big Chicken — built in 1963 to lure customers.
Unlike Marietta’s Big Chicken, though, the Fitzgerald chicken is not attached to a restaurant. It will serve as a towering topiary, meaning the chicken will feature living plants growing on its frame like a huge garden lattice.
The framework is already visible as it rises above nearby homes, reports say.
Plans call for an apartment-style room inside the base of the chicken that can be rented to visitors, and Mayor Jim Puckett says he’s heard from newlyweds interested in booking it for a honeymoon suite.
“This is not a model kit that you just snap together. No one’s ever built a 62-foot steel chicken before,” Puckett told WALB-TV. “This is going to be fantastic when it’s finished.”
Puckett said the coronavirus pandemic caused some construction delays, and the Tennessee-based artist known as Topiary Joe needed some downtime to recover from surgery.
City officials first announced the chicken sculpture in 2019 as a new landmark to bring tourism to the city of 9,000 people. The colossal assembly is taller than a Sauroposeidon — the world’s tallest dinosaur — and is being funded with a penny sales tax that was earmarked for tourism projects.
Information provided by The Associated Press was used to supplement this report.
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