What you're seeing here is a map of Stuart Street / Columbus Ave area between the Back Bay and the South End.

The city of Boston has put out a request for proposal for a consultant to prepare a study on the area - to "examine potential development opportunities, identify and define height, density, and use guidelines, and develop scenarios for future development in the area."

Notice that much of the area is already built upon ... including the Massachusetts Turnpike. That's the Columbus Center development, in blue. (The other blue building is the Clarendon, a condo project currently under construction where Stuart Street meets Clarendon Street, scheduled for completion in 2009.)

Whether or not Columbus Center will get built is an open question. The developer, Winn Companies, is still trying to arrange financing. The estimated cost of the project has gone from $400 million to $700 million, and the developer is trying to get the state (and federal?) government to kick in between $10 - $40 million.

I love the rendering. The tallest Columbus Center tower (which will be a hotel, as far as I know) casts a huge shadow right over the Albert Pope building, at 221 Columbus Ave (Mistral is on the first floor in the building).

This is why you've seen every top floor unit in the building come on the market over the past three years. Owners are getting out now, while they can.

I. Would. Be. Seething. In. Anger.