Efforts to make Boston’s Downtown Crossing into a 24-hour neighborhood got a setback this weekend when the developer of the former Filene’s property announced the elimination of 166 condos (and seven floors) from the building slated to replace an embarrassing hole in the ground. From the Boston Globe‘s Casey Ross:

The new plan, filed yesterday by developers Gale International LLC and Vornado Realty Trust of New York, calls for a more slender design and drops the tower to 32 stories from an initial proposal for 39. It also converts several residential floors into offices, increasing the amount of commercial space to 595,000 square feet from 100,000 square feet, according to filings with the city….

The changes come after developers failed to obtain loans and stopped work in November following months of battling for financing in extremely tight credit markets.

But Boston isn’t the only city with recession-related development blues. The Wall Street Journal reports that the project to build on the site of the former World Trade Center may not meet its 2013 deadline:

The rebuilding of the trade center, destroyed in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, has been hampered by delays, infighting and cost overruns. Work is under way on the project — which includes five office towers, a memorial and museum, a shopping mall and a transit hub — but most of the attention is now focused on the memorial and below-ground infrastructure, which are years behind schedule…

“We definitely have challenges on the commercial side of the project about timing and raising capital. Those are the things we are talking to Silverstein about,” said Port Authority Chairman Anthony Coscia.

Unfortunately, America’s urban landscape is likely to feature quite a few noticable gaps over the next few years.