Curbed Cup 1st round: (3) Bulfinch Triangle/Government Center vs. (14) Quincy Center

It’s time—time to pick the Boston area’s neighborhood of the year!

Here’s how the annual Curbed Cup works: We present two matchups a day during the first round. Polls stay open 24 hours for each one. The biggest vote-getter in each matchup advances to the second round.

We start with 16, and we whittle it down to one.

Got it? Good. Go!

(3) Bulfinch Triangle/Government Center

HYM Investment Group

Few would have pegged this slice of downtown Boston between Beacon Hill, the North End, Downtown Crossing, and the West End as a prime Curbed Cup contender.

Until fairly recently, it was known mostly for the hulking Government Center Garage, Boston’s love-to-hate City Hall and its surrounding plaza, and a handful of tourism sites.

Nowadays, though, Bulfinch Triangle and Government Center are alive with activity.

For one thing, there’s the ongoing redevelopment of that Government Center Garage into a mixed-use wonderland of 812 housing units, 196 hotel rooms, 1.15 million square feet of office space, and 85,000 square feet of retail. What’s been dubbed Bulfinch Crossing is supposed to wrap in 2020.

The area also got a swanky new T station at the end of last year, and even City Hall Plaza could see a renaissance of sorts soon.

(14) Quincy Center

Brian Cribb/Flickr

Elected officials and private developers are betting that the Red Line stop in Quincy Center will fuel demand for a whole lot of development planned, underway, or recently completed.

The biggest new arrival is 602 apartments slated for atop and around Quincy Center Station itself. That project is also due to include retail and office space; a new bus terminal; and the restoration of some 600 parking spaces.

Then there’s the gradual rolling out of a major development set to add hundreds of apartments and condos to the neighborhood—the 169-unit West of Chestnut apartment complex, part of that development, opened in October 2016—and a 171-key hotel at 1500 Hancock Street.

For now, Quincy Center remains one of the more affordable areas off the Red. That could change, though, because of the new construction.

• Curbed Awards 2016: Best opening [Curbed Boston]
• Bulfinch Crossing flipping some rentals to condos amid changing market [Curbed Boston]
• Boston searching for design and construction firm for City Hall Plaza revamp [Curbed Boston]
• Boston's ugliest buildings, mapped [Curbed Boston]
• Quincy Center Station development wins key approval [Curbed Boston]
• Quincy’s West of Chestnut apartment complex to officially open [Curbed Boston]
• Quincy Center hotel would join booming area just off Red Line [Curbed Boston]
• Red Line stations’ major construction—the big projects, mapped [Curbed Boston]
• Boston rent comparisons: What $2,500/month gets along the Red Line [Curbed Boston]