Columbus Center is a massive, multi-use development proposed for the corner of Clarendon Street and Columbus Ave, where the South End meets the Back Bay.

The project, if built, will rise above the Massachusetts Turnpike, and include condos, apartments, retail & restaurants, and a hotel.

Some of the opposition comes from local residents, mad that their quality of life will be adversely affected (sounds like a legitimate concern, wouldn't you say?). Others have reservations (me, included) because the developer, Winn Companies, is getting a lot of handouts (in the form of loans, mostly) from the local, state, and federal governments in order to build the project, and it seems to many that the private developer should cover its costs, without depending on money from taxpayers (i.e., me and you).

The Architectural Boston Forum has been pretty comprehensive in their coverage of the development.

On July 20th, one of the posters left this comment:

While the $10 MM subsidy is certainly open to question on grounds that Ron has articulated well (i.e., other neighborhoods and cities more deserving of scarce resources), the whole notion that Columbus Center is being further subsidized by "below market" cost of the air rights to the developer is a complete figment of Ned Flaherty's and Marty Walz's imagination, and sadly echoed in the Herald editorial this morning.

The lack of sophistication in the economic thinking in this city is sometimes amazing.

To state the obvious, for something to be "below market" implies that there is a market to compare. But there are so few air rights projects (and in such different locations) it is difficult to establish their value. And because it will clearly cost tens of millions to build the deck (a poster above suggested $100 MM, which is plausible), the value of air rights parcels is a tiny fraction of the value of parcels on solid ground of similar size.

Flaherty is a garden variety NIMBY who lives in 75 Clarendon and would just as soon the Pike be left untouched, so his intellectual dishonesty isn't hard to understand. (The most rabid opposition to CC has always been from residents of 75 Clarendon and the Pope building whose views would be compromised - they LIKE the trench). Walz, however, is an elected representative and a lawyer of some academic distinction. Is she being disingenuous, or is she really this dumb?

Marty Walz is a state representative for parts of the Back Bay, and she's been against the project, from the beginning. (In fact, she's against any project, regardless of location or size - which makes her the perfect elected official for its residents, right?)

Ned Flanders Flaherty is a resident in the condo building at 75 Clarendon Street, in the South End.

He is pretty much the face (and voice) of the anti-Columbus Center movement.

Apparently, he found the thread on the ArchBoston forum, because he responded to the criticism, today:

&8212;&8211; No NIMBYs found - Forum member InTheHood was all wrong to write on 20 July: “Flaherty is a garden variety NIMBY who lives at 75 Clarendon and would just as soon the Pike be left untouched” and “the most rabid opposition to CC has always been from residents of 75 Clarendon and the Pope building whose views would be compromised - they LIKE the trench.”

&8212;&8211; Everyone wants air rights developed. But no responsible citizen wants non-competitive awards, to unaudited developers, who increase air pollution instead of filtering it, who privatize or delete required public parks, for a project where the former owners promised zero subsidies to get their approvals, and new owners now demand that the public fund their costs, their profits, and even their bribes.

More: Columbus Center - Architectural Boston Forum (page 16)