Harvard's petition for demolition permits for the two buildings, submitted in December, will come before the historical commission at its meeting in February, but Sullivan said Harvard officials told him they plan to substitute a modified design for that request.
If Harvard decides on the "minimum guarantee" option, the historical commission, which may only prevent the demolition of historically significant structures, would be forced to accept the proposal.
But Tudor G. Ingersoll, local residents' chief negotiator with Harvard, said the "minimum guarantee" revision is unacceptable to neighbors who want to see both buildings preserved at their current locations.
"We believe that their [Harvard's] little college try isn't big enough to satisfy what the neighborhood is entitled to," Ingersoll said. "We believe that Harvard could do better" and preserve both buildings at their present sites "if they were relieved of the January deadlines," he added.
While originally designing University Place, "Harvard just totally ignored the historical significance of those two buildings," Ingersoll said. But, he added, "The fact that they did not know does not absolve them of responsibility."
Harvard's mistake in not anticipating conflict with the historical commission developed because "we viewed the [University Place] site as a parking lot, an empty site," O'Neill said.
O'Neill added that although she is optimistic that a satisfactory "last-minute" solution can be arranged, "no matter what the option is you have to balance the trade-offs."
The minimum guarantee option, for instance, would force the elimination of a small park designed to cushion the neighborhood from the project and would generate considerable extra traffic along Revere St. because of the loss of a major access road to the condominiums, O'Neill said.
But Ingersoll said residents should not be saddled with a less than ideal neighbor in University Place because of Harvard's mistake in failing to consider the historically significant buildings.
He speculated that of five options Harvard has outlined for relocating the 3 Mt. Auburn Place building, the University will most likely choose the plan that would move the structure to the southwest corner of the University Place site.
The four other alternatives would entail an additional purchase of land by the University, Ingersoll said.
Until the historical commission intervened in the University Place plan, there had been little significant neighborhood opposition to the project. For the past year Harvard officials have reviewed the construction design with a community advisory group in order to address the concerns of local residents.
In December Harvard's proposal for about 85 condominiums and about 200,000 square feet of office space was also criticized by area businessmen who say the project would aggravate an already severe parking shortage in Harvard Square.
At the Mt. Auburn St. site the 350 parking spaces currently available to shoppers and workers would be reduced after University Place is completed to only about 110 unrestricted spaces