The Lincoln Properties/Equity Residential Trust team’s $23 million bid to develop Boston’s Hayward Place (left) was tops among the eight received, but the Boston Redevelopment Authority last week indicated four bidders are still in the running and will meet with residents from nearby Chinatown. Lincoln/Equity proposes to build a 342-unit, 15-story apartment building (right) at the Downtown Crossing site.

With a bid of $23 million, they were the clear winner, but nearly a year after topping seven competitors for the right to develop Boston’s Hayward Place, the joint venture team of Lincoln Properties and Equity Residential Trust has yet to claim its prize.

“We’ve been waiting over a year to make a $100 million investment in downtown Boston,” Lincoln principal John Noone said last week. “But as of right now, it looks like there’s no end to the process.”

Efforts to upgrade the 38,000-square-foot parcel did indeed take another step back last week when Boston Redevelopment Authority staffers informed Lincoln/Equity officials and three other teams still vying for the site that they will have to meet with residents of the adjacent Chinatown community to gauge interest on the various proposals. The competitors were among eight groups that responded to a BRA request for proposals on the development rights that ended last summer with Lincoln/Equity as high bidder. Millennium Partners’ $20.5 million offer ranked second.

Although Noone insists his group is more than willing to meet later this month with the residents, he expressed frustration that developers with lesser offers than Lincoln/Equity are still involved. Coupled with the $23 million bid, the 342-unit apartment building proposal seemed to present little downside when it was submitted last year, Noone maintained. The 15-story building fit within the 155-foot height limit, he noted, and features a design “dream team” of Finegold Alexander + Assoc. architects and Halverson Corp., the landscape architects who created the award-winning Park at Post Office Square in Boston’s Financial District.

“We believed we brought all the right ingredients to the table to [ensure] a timely selection,” Noone said. “We were the high bidder, we proposed the residential use which the BRA has been requesting, and we were well-capitalized and committed to seeing the project through … It just doesn’t make any sense.”

The BRA has yet to offer an explanation why the other teams were placed on a short list earlier this year, Noone said after meeting with BRA Director Mark Maloney last week. Other developers vying for the right to build on the parcel include Millennium Partners, AvalonBay Communities and a partnership between the New Development Capital and Keen Development Corp. In an unusual move, the BRA earlier this year allowed the other developers to increase their bid to $23 million to match the Lincoln/Equity offer. Proceeds from the sale of the BRA-owned lot are targeted for a new public school for Chinatown and to build affordable housing.

According to BRA spokeswoman Meredith Baumann, the RFP instructions did advise that the selection would be determined by several factors, including design elements of the plan, the ability to pay the disposition price in a timely manner and the developer’s management and operation capabilities.

“There’s a whole range of criteria,” Baumann said. “We are looking at a lot more than just the money.”

Baumann said developers were also informed up front of the possibility of a short list, as well as the potential need to submit additional materials down the road.

“We tried to be as clear as we could in laying out the ground rules at the beginning,” she said.

Compounding Lincoln/Equity’s discontent is the recent selection of the Asian Community Development Corp. to join the NDC/Keen proposal. Although suitors moving to the short list were supposed to be able to tweak their initial proposals, Noone said the involvement of the ACDC would seem to be “a major difference.”

“The [ACDC] has a great reputation, and we would be more than happy to have a relationship with them, but we are obviously concerned that they have joined another team at this late stage of the game,” Noone said. “It’s a pretty significant adjustment.”

Bauman acknowledged that the ACDC has been added as a “community partner” to the Keen/NDC team, but declined to discuss that situation, calling it “premature” to determine how that will affect the selection, if at all.

Efforts to contact Keen and NDC officials were unsuccessful. ACDC Executive Director Marilyn Lee Tom said her group’s role will be to “maximize community benefits” of the project. The ACDC is seeking a level of affordable housing and up to 20,000 square feet of community retail space, she said. All four teams are slated to gather for the community meeting at 6:30 p.m. on June 19 in Posner Hall at Tufts University.

For his part, Noone said he believed a better approach would be to have the BRA designate a developer and then have the team work with Chinatown to make any needed revisions.

‘Firm’ Commitment

The Lincoln/Equity concept would appear to meet the BRA’s push for adding new residential development in downtown Boston, one that is currently leading to new zoning rules to encourage such usage of land. Meanwhile, Lincoln and Equity are a safe bet to be able to finance their venture, with the two firms owning hundreds of thousands of apartment units across the country. The prospects of building office space, meanwhile, would seem less certain given the current downturn in that sector, said Noone. Two of the four bids still being considered are primarily office space, with only AvalonBay also proposing a residential concept.

One former BRA staffer who now provides advice on permitting and zoning in the city said the Hayward Place situation offers a cautionary tale to developers that when it comes to the selection process in the Hub, “It ain’t over ’til it’s over.” For one thing, the consultant said, the value of a bid can often be open to interpretation, and staffers must also consider issues such as traffic and neighborhood impact from a given project. The source also said city planners are particularly sensitive to how development impacts Chinatown’s future.

Still, the consultant added that a poorly defined approval map can be frustrating for developers, and could ultimately serve to discourage national players such as Equity and Lincoln from pursuing deals in the city. “Lincoln has a right to be miffed,” said the source, who requested anonymity.

“It happens all the time, and I really don’t know what the people in city hall are thinking,” said the source. “The developer does not have endless pockets of cash to spend on a project, and if they are using it all up on the process, the quality of the project could be [adversely affected] … It’s a very valid issue.”

Meanwhile, Hayward Place continues to be operated as a surface parking lot, representing one of the last remaining development opportunities in the city’s Downtown Crossing district. The current imbroglio is just the latest delay, with previous efforts to improve the site dating back more than a decade. Earlier attempts were thwarted by the recession of 1990-91 and a subsequent lack of developer interest in 1996, when an RFP yielded no bids. Such disinterest no longer seems to be the roadblock, however.

Noone, for his part, said the Lincoln/Equity partnership is eager to move forward, and informed Maloney as much in last week’s meeting.

“We did express our commitment to proceed expeditiously and to ensure the BRA that our $23 million offer is just as firm as it was a year ago,” Noone said. “We’re anxious to get moving on it.”