Kenmore Square's new Hotel Commonwealth has gotten off to a bad start, the subject of laughter and derision. Too bad. Because the real story about the hotel is that it marks the first step in a grand effort to remake the square in a unique and exciting way.

To be sure, the hotel's developers deserve much of the disapprobation heaped upon them. Built at a cost of $72 million, the wraps came off a few months ago to collective dismay.

It's easy to see why. Knock on the building's walls. What's supposed to be stonework feels and sounds like vinyl siding, the kind you'd find in the most aesthetically challenged of suburban developments. And like vinyl siding, it's easy to tell it's not the real stuff. Far from appearing elegant, the Hotel Commonwealth looks like a Lego sculpture writ large.

Fifty days and $4 million from now, however, that problem will have been solved. After weeks of finger pointing, Boston University (one of the hotel's owners) has agreed to cough up the funds for a fix. Soon, the exterior should look first class.

And it deserves to. For inside, the just-opened hotel is a breathtaking place with luxurious treatments, large rooms and gracious amenities. Kenny Young, a long-time fixture of the Back Bay Ritz and once named Boston's Best Doorman, now runs the front door. Michael Schlow, the chef-owner of Radius, oversees a sophisticated new seafood restaurant. And Timothy Kirwan, an hotelier with a lustrous pedigree (including opening the Bostonian Hotel near Faneuil Hall), oversees the entire enterprise.

Kirwan figures the Hotel Commonwealth will become one of Boston's handful of four-star hotels - a notch below the Ritz and Four Seasons, perhaps, but above everyone else.

Draw a deep breath here. Is Kirwan crazy? After all, Kenmore Square is deeply problematic, a congested and drab intersection of several major roadways. Filled with empty storefronts and located right next to Fenway Park, it's overwhelmed by about 30,000 visitors 81 times a year, and is littered with low-end businesses - bars, pizza shops and fast-food restaurants - that have grown up to serve those crowds. The area's other principal activity is the often rowdy nightclub scene on Lansdowne Street.

How could a four-star hotel ever survive in such an environment?

The square's current state is a sad comedown from the past, says Prataap Patrose, director of urban design for the Boston Redevelopment Authority. Around 1900, in a world of horse-drawn carriages, Kenmore was the westernmost point of Boston, a gateway to outlying communities. It was a transportation hub, filled with grand hotels, a way station for travelers.

Some press accounts have billed the new hotel as an effort to restore those lost glories. But that won't happen; the car has made a revived transportation hub unnecessary.

Instead, the city's plans are much more ambitious: It wants Kenmore Square to become a ``new destination point,'' says Mayor Thomas Menino. The BRA's Patrose analogizes it to New York's Times Square. Kenmore Square, he says, could become ``a place where everyone has to go, a place that offers something for everyone.''

How so? Next year the MBTA breaks ground on a major rehabilitation of the bunker-like T stop that dominates the center of the square. The city is in the planning stages for a major face lift of the square's streetscape, designed to make the place greener and more pedestrian friendly. And several major developments over the adjacent Turnpike are in the works. Those should have the effect of upgrading and expanding the entertainment components of Lansdowne Street as well as possibly adding new housing.

Combine those projects with the ongoing renovations of Fenway Park by its new owners and the dramatic success of Landmark Center, the cinema and retail complex a short walk away on Brookline Avenue, and a critical mass begins to develop. Along with the hotel, it's enough to redefine the entire area. In the BRA's view, the square - already easy to find given the landmarked Citgo sign that shines over it - should be able to attract those from all walks of life with a dizzying array of choices (casual or sophisticated dining, baseball, movies, live music, dancing and shopping) available in no other single spot in the city.

Looking at the plastic walls of the new Hotel Commonwealth, this may be hard to imagine. Yet, those with long memories recall when the John Hancock Tower - after an embarrassing period when almost all of its windows fell out -was mocked as the world's largest plywood building. Like the Hancock, the hotel should survive its early missteps, becoming an anchor to what Patrose hopes will be ``the reinvention'' of Kenmore Square.

Talk back to Tom Keane at herald@tomkeane.com.