“These projects are not for the faint of heart. These buildings have been vacant for as long as they have for a reason,” said Dottie Gallagher-Cohen, the president of the Buffalo Niagara Partnership and an IDA board member.

It won’t be easy to bring a more affordable element to the city’s downtown housing revival. One approach the IDA has sometimes taken has been to require one or two units in buildings receiving tax breaks to be more affordably priced, although that also can skew a project’s economics.

The city’s Office of Strategic Planning is working on a downtown housing study that is expected to provide better data to help shape what likely will be a growing discussion of the need for more affordable housing. That study is expected to be done by June.

The IDA’s staff also is reviewing the roughly 50 adaptive use projects to help the agency assess the impact of its policy aimed at encouraging the redevelopment of old buildings. That policy, initially targeted toward business and commercial use, also has opened the door for developers to receive tax breaks on downtown housing projects.

“I think we need to reconsider the adaptive reuse policy,” said Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz, who has an influential role in shaping the agency’s incentive guidelines.