Millennium Partners earlier this year received permission to reduce the count of condo units – now apartments – and the size of one of its proposed Winthrop Center towers.

Boston’s Winthrop Center skyscraper project will shrink to help developer Millennium Partners obtain construction financing in what is suddenly a challenging climate for large-scale luxury residential projects.

Boston Planning & Development Agency’s directors today approved a change that shrinks the number of housing units from 387 to 321 and markets them as apartments rather than condominiums.

“With concerns over hygiene and cleanliness of large residential buildings and the pre-COVID slowing of the high-end market, lenders are not financing high-end condominium developments currently and in the near term,” consultants Ernst & Young stated in a report submitted to the BPDA.

Millennium Partners began excavation and site work on the 1-acre property at 115 Federal St. in November 2018 and recently started vertical construction, but recently notified the BPDA that it’s unable to obtain financing for the project originally estimated at $1.3 billion without changes to the development plan.

Millennium Principal Joseph Larkin said an $800 million construction loan was set to close prior to the pandemic, forcing the developers to redesign the structure to cut costs.

Median sales for high-end condos in Boston plunged 24 percent between the fourth quarter of 2019 and first quarter of 2020, Ernst & Young reported, citing data from brokerage Douglas Elliman.

The changes drew a premonitory rebuke from City Councilor Michelle Wu, who has previously called for abolition of the quasi-independent BPDA and its replacement with a city-run planning agency.

“It is inexcusable & a terrible failure of competence that city govt allowed this project to break ground w/out financing secured… WHEN WE HAD A HOLE AT FILENE’S FOR LITERALLY THIS EXACT REASON!” Wu posted on Twitter prior to today’s vote. “Fool us twice, shame on BPDA.”

The vote also changes the developers’ obligations to pay for affordable housing under the city’s inclusionary development policy, since they opted not to include affordable units onsite. The payment would have supported a mixed-use redevelopment in Chinatown being led by the Boston-based Asian Community Development Corp., including 168 affordable condos and apartments.

Under the new IDP agreement, Millennium can spread the $22 million contribution over seven years in $3.1 million installments.

“There’s a number of challenges over there with our partners. We feel within a year we can figure out what the obstacles are so we can move forward,” Larkin said.

The board decision reduces the square-footage of the tower by 99,000 square feet, eliminating condos on the upper floors of the east tower. No reduction was sought for the 772,422-square-foot office component which will occupy the lower levels of the building, built on a former municipal garage property in the Financial District.

According to the Ernst & Young study, office space faces significant uncertainty because of COVID-19 but “trophy assets with class-leading amenities and cutting-edge environmentally sustainable design and operations remain attractive to lenders.”

Millennium Partners originally proposed 500 luxury condos on the upper levels of the T-shaped structure, with a glass-wrapped sky bridge connecting upper levels of the two towers. It submitted an updated plan for 387 condos last fall, citing a softening high-end condo market.