"The Pru is as appropriate as any place in the city for height"

Residents of Trinity Place join forces with the Neighborhood of Back Bay.

According to Steve Baily of The Boston Globe, "Pity the poor urban millionaires of Trinity Place. Things have gotten so bad over at the swank Copley Square condo tower that the owner of the double penthouse unit, priced at $15 million, the highest in Boston condo history, had to take it off the market after it sat there, unwanted, for six months. Instead, reports the Boston Condo Blog, the owner is offering one of the units - 11 rooms, five full baths, two fireplaces - at the bargain price of $7 million.

Tough times at the seven-year-old Trinity Place, indeed. But it gets worse, much worse.

Now Boston Properties wants to build an ugly 30-story apartment building at the Prudential Center that will block the views and cast shadows over their ugly 18-story Trinity Place. The urban millionaires are beside themselves.

"To approve their project as is would be nothing short of criminal to those of us who live in this neighborhood," William F. Thompson, a founder of Boston Ventures, fumed in a letter to the Boston Redevelopment Authority. Wrote Davida Stocklan, whose husband, Martin, is a Smith Barney executive: "It should not be difficult to understand that residents of Trinity Place are not interested in having the basic nature of their investments destroyed by diminished light and obstructed views."

And on and on. The Trinity millionaires have launched a letter-writing campaign in hopes of blocking Boston Properties' proposed 200-unit apartment building on Exeter Street over the Prudential garage and just beside the Lenox Hotel. They worry about traffic. They worry about shadows and wind. They worry about their property values. They worry about the character of their neighborhood.

"I am very concerned with the overdevelopment of the Back Bay," wrote Khalid Nooruddin. "This building will no doubt not only be an eyesore, but will also present major traffic problems, unwanted additional shading and dangerous wind tunnels."

In addition to the apartment building, Boston Properties wants to build a glass office building at the Boylston Street entrance to Pru Center. Together with the Mandarin Oriental Hotel and Residences, now nearing completion though tens of millions over budget, the construction would finally "complete" the Pru Center, or so says Boston Properties.

The company has approval to build an 11-story office building, but now insists it needs 19 stories. It is just getting started on the process for the apartment building. The two projects are drawing heavy fire from many of the usual suspects in the Back Bay who are ever vigilant - and appropriately so - about their neighborhood.

Tom Menino never met a big building he didn't like. The mayor's reasoning is straightforward enough: Big buildings pay more taxes than small buildings. Menino has spent years systematically killing the character that makes Boston so special by planting big, ugly buildings everywhere. Now there is a "shooting" in their own neighborhood, and the good people of Trinity Place are shocked. What a shock.

The Pru is as appropriate as any place in the city for height, and there remains ample room for compromise on both buildings. Should the apartment building be 30 stories? Or would 20 stories be better, given its historic neighbors, the Lenox and the Boston Public Library? One plus: Boston Properties promises 25 percent of the units will be set aside as affordable in the building or elsewhere at the Pru. At Trinity, "affordable" means a one-bedroom condo listed at $750,000. ttp://www.boston.com/business/globe/articles/2007/11/23/trouble_in_paradise/