Developer Don Chiofaro says his escalating battle with City Hall is not about his proposed waterfront towers, but about the future of the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway.

At a press conference today at International Place, Chiofaro said tearing down the Harbor Garage and erecting towers full of offices, condos, and hotel rooms in its place would bring population density to the area and pump energy into the Greenway.

“All we’re trying to do is energize the edges of the Greenway,” Chiofaro said, adding that the garage and other sites along the parkway will never be redeveloped if city officials insist on a height limit of 200 feet. He says his studies show towers of at least 520 feet are needed to make any redevelopment of the garage economically feasible.

Chiofaro said his project would bring the city thousands of jobs and a bounty of tax revenue, but he also made the case that it would breathe new life into the moribund Greenway. He read from an April 25 article by The Boston Globe’s architectural critic, Robert Campbell, who called the Greenway a “design disaster” and a “placeless desert” that desperately needs more abutting residents, as well as restaurants and buildings on the parkland itself.

“The public sector has had its chance [with the Greenway], and what have we got?” Chiofaro asked. “There’s no place there. There’s no there there.”

In response to a question from someone opposed to his towers, Chiofaro seemed to warm to the notion that, in his own way, he could do for the Greenway what developer Norman Leventhal did for the very successful park in Post Office Square.

But the image of Chiofaro as a latter-day Leventhal doesn’t sit well at City Hall, where officials view the silver-haired Chiofaro as a greedy developer who paid way too much for the Harbor Garage and now needs a series of city approvals to build towers that would make his investment pay off.

The officials noted that the height limits on the garage site were 150 feet when Chiofaro bought it three years ago for $155 million. They also point out that the commercial office space market in Boston is overbuilt, and rents are too low to support buildings the size Chiofaro is proposing.

“It’s a lot of noise,” Menino said during an interview at City Hall. “It isn’t about making money. It’s about how it affects the city. We have rules and regulations for the Greenway, and one person can’t change those rules and regulations.”

Menino also said he doesn’t share the view that the Greenway is a disappointment. “It’s still only three years old,” Menino said. “It hasn’t matured yet.”

Linda Gottlieb, a resident of Harbor Towers who showed up at Chiofaro’s press conference, said she opposes the construction of two tall towers on the garage site because of the traffic and congestion they will bring to the area. “We’re concerned, and it isn’t because we don’t want anything built,” she said.

Chiofaro said he believes he can address any traffic concerns and says the timing for his towers couldn’t be better. He said a rebound in the commercial office market is coming and added that his garage site “is the finest hotel site on the East Coast, maybe the United States.” All he needs, he says, is someone at City Hall who will sit down and talk with him.

“All we want to do is engage in a constructive dialogue,” he said. “We are very flexible.”