Developer John B. Hynes III has begun shopping a taller, cheaper plan for One Franklin St. in Boston’s Downtown Crossing, re-incorporating residential development and halving the proposed office space in what is now the third iteration of the stalled project’s design.

The latest version of One Franklin is a 38-story mixed-use tower, Hynes told Banker & Tradesman. That’s taller than the 32 stories Hynes and his development partner, Vornado Realty Trust, proposed in December, and just shy of the 39 stories for which the tower was originally permitted.

The new version also puts residential back in play. It slices the project’s office space component in half, to 300,000 square feet from 600,000, replacing the lost office space with 250 luxury residential units. Most of those units will be rental, Hynes said, though a few will be condominiums.

The new plans have yet to be filed with the Boston Redevelopment Authority. But Hynes believes that this version of the One Franklin tower will be able to attract the financing that has eluded his team since last fall.

Hynes had previously jettisoned the project’s residential component. He said that large national banks were refusing to lend to any residential project, and that residential was making the project virtually un-financeable.

Two things have made the residential turnaround possible. The tower now calls for a majority of rental units, which are more attractive to banks than condominiums. Secondly, Hynes said banks are beginning to realize that, once the economy begins climbing upward, the current construction freeze may leave many markets with a shortage of residential units.

Despite the building’s height, smaller floor plates and plummeting construction costs mean that this new proposal carries the lightest price tag – $450 million – than either of the previous two proposals. The first two clocked in at $700 million and $525 million, respectively. The project’s retail and hotel uses have remained unchanged since the fall.