Watch Crews Demolish CJ’s Lounge in Downtown Rochester

They may have had only four days left, but developers did indeed start demolishing buildings in 2016 to make way for a new development in downtown Rochester.

Crews began the final process of tearing down the building that formerly housed CJ's Midtown Lounge along South Broadway in Rochester on Wednesday. By late afternoon, pretty much the entire building had been reduced to a big pile of rubble.

The building is being razed to make way for the new, multi-million dollar 'Broadway At Center' project that will consist of a 19-story building. It's expected to become home to 254-room Hilton hotel, as well as change the skyline once again in downtown Rochester.

The Broadway At Center project, which had been stalled since earlier this year when a previous investor pulled out, is finally now underway-- and is expected to be finished in April of 2019. It was initially approved by the Rochester City Council back in 2014.

It's always amazing to me just how quickly a bulldozer can bring an entire building down. I grabbed these pictures while I was out running a few errands Wednesday. I took them from on top of the parking ramp across Broadway, and you could hear the crack of the lumber as the bulldozer did its work.

I certainly wasn't there when the building was first put up, but I always wonder if the builders and developers back in the day could have possibly envisioned how their building would meet its end here in 2016. It was once shiny and new (with that new building smell!) and now, it's all rubble. Sad, in a way, but that's progress, I guess.