Apparently, the Columbus Center is about $18 million short of the money needed before it can break ground.

The huge multi-use project, to rise at the corner of Columbus Ave and Clarendon Street, has been under intense scrutiny from just about the very beginning, about a decade ago.

It seems as though the day of reckoning is close. Will the developer go forward, and break ground next year? Is the developer doing it because he has so much invested, he has no other choice? Will the state kick in any more money? Will the developer ever cough up its lease payments (now deferred), or are they just delaying a day that will never come?

These questions and more, may someday be answered.

I'm for the project. I don't think getting loans from the state (at market-rate) and having to defer lease payments are necessarily a bad thing. If that's all that is standing between not doing the project and doing the project, let's do it.

One thing I wasn't aware of was this:

[Lease and loan payments] to the Turnpike and MassHousing would come from a resale fee that would be imposed on buyers of the project's condominium residences. It is currently set at 1 percent of the price of a unit. Under the accord now being negotiated, that fee would be increased to 1.5 percent or more, Trimarco said.

Whoa. That's a drag. Buyers will dread paying that ... unless the project is a complete success.

Complete story: Deal near to give Columbus Center plan a boost - By Thomas C. Palmer Jr., The Boston Globe