May 9--It won't be called the Four Seasons, but Robin Brown promises it will be just as cool a place to hang out in Boston. 

Brown, who managed the five-star Four Seasons for 13 years, left in 2000 to try being a developer. 

Today, his proposed 168-room hotel project -- plus condos, apartments, and retail stores -- is expected to get city approval to be one of the last pieces of the 40-year-old Prudential Center development puzzle put into place. 

But it will be several months before a decision is made on the hotel flag. "Clearly, the idea is to do something spectacular," Brown said this week. "We want to do something unique." So there may be two Ritzes in town, but there won't be two Four Seasons. 

Two years ago, Brown joined up with mega-property-owner Stephen Weiner and Chestnut Hill Mall developer Julian Cohen to form CWB Boylston LLC, which is seeking to build 430,000 square feet of space on Boylston Street, where concrete and blacktop have prevailed along a gaping hole in the streetscape for decades. 

Brown said he expects to start construction in six to nine months. 

"We'll become a catalyst in filling in the cavity in the jaw," Brown said. "We're not missing one tooth, we're missing several." Between Lord & Taylor (at East Ring Road and Boylston) and the Boylston Street entrance to the Prudential Mall is about 500 feet of nothingness, despite an active commercial streetscape on the other side of Boylston and toward downtown. 

Set back along the street, which Mayor Thomas M. Menino and his Boston Redevelopment Authority want to turn into a boulevard -- this city's Madison Avenue -- are an old Star Market and the Boylston, one of the three high-rise residences in the Prudential complex. 

The Boylston, the Gloucester, and the Fairfield would all be neighbors of two new 13-floor buildings of light-colored stone designed by Childs Bertman Tseckares Inc. They would be stepped back on the upper floors, to allow a more open feeling on the street. 

"It's a contemporary building with nicely detailed stone, a quality that comes with some of these older buildings," said Richard Bertman, a partner in the architectural firm. 

The Star Market will close, and a new 57,000-square-foot Shaw's is already being built at the other end of the block, on Huntington Avenue. 

Many neighbors, having already been hammered by the supermarket construction, are skeptical, however. They're worried not only about almost two years of construction -- though Brown says no piles will be driven -- but about crowding. 

"We are still concerned about the height and density," said Nancy Sonnabend, president of the Prudential Center Residents Association. 

More specifically, residents worry that East Ring Road, which serves as entrance and exit for both new and older buildings in the area, can't handle all the traffic destined for it. "This north-south corridor between Boylston and Huntington is a nightmare," Sonnabend said. 

Brown, though, said that East Ring Road will be improved and is "underused." 

His team's project is a better one, he said, because of suggestions from skeptics and one-time opponents -- particularly the Prudential Project Advisory Committee, a coalition of 22 groups, including Sonnabend's. "The consensus of months of the PruPac traffic studies and subcommittee meetings is it is a substantial improvement," he said. 

The major change in the initial development proposal made in 2000 is that the hotel has been scaled back. "There was a definite concern to maximize the housing on the site," Brown said. 

Usually that pressure for housing comes from Menino. But this time, Brown said, it was equally the concern of the heavily residential community around the Prudential Center. 

With 168 rooms, the planned hotel could be considered "boutiquey." The rest of the two towers is to be given over to 48 condominiums, 58 rental units, and 51,000 square feet of first- and second-floor retail space along Boylston Street. 

Brown promises distinctive stores -- merchandise not otherwise available in Boston, he said, things you have to go to New York for. 

But, as with the hotel brand, he won't give up any names yet. 

The new complex -- estimated to cost $180 million -- would fill in the last empty part of the Prudential Center complex, which was once a railroad yard. 

A spot for one office building, where Boston's towering Christmas tree is usually raised, remains open, almost 40 years after the Back Bay's first high-rise went up. 

CWB Boylston's development would be tucked into the area with a "view corridor" of open space at the intersection of Boylston and Fairfield streets. The smaller building on the west, toward the Prudential Mall entrance, would house apartments and condos. The larger building, to the east of the Fairfield gap, would be the hotel, with additional condominiums above. Ten percent of the rental units would be offered at "affordable" rates. 

An arcade with shops on the second floor is designed to link the Lord & Taylor building, both of the new structures, and the Pru mall. Behind the hotel, a garden plaza is planned for the second floor. 

Brown said he isn't worried about financing -- even in the current tightfisted climate. It's the location that makes this special, he said: "It's an awesome spot. A handpicked juicy little spot for a great hotel." 

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(c) 2002, The Boston Globe. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News. MAY,