The 1 Hotel + Residences, a luxury condo-hotel project in downtown Seattle, has stopped construction pending a redesign of the building that will scale down the number of condo units in the building, according to an article in the Seattle Times.

The $200 million project, which was the first condo-hotel project in Seattle, has sold only 21 of its 176 planned units. The redesign will reduce the number of condo-hotel units in the project to just 44, according to the newspaper. Construction may not begin again until late summer. The drastic shrinking in the number of units at the 23-story tower comes after slow sales which have in turn made construction financing harder to secure.

The developer reported that it had a large number of reservations for units, but that when it came time to put down deposits for the $500,000 condominiums, few buyers made the move. The Seattle Condo Blog, which tracks the status of condo projects throughout the city, also reported on the delay but noted that it was the second such redesign for the project. In fact, in September of last year the project actually went in the other direction and added 66 units because of the large number of reservations and anticipated popularity of the project. Now, many of those condo-hotel units are being replaced with traditional hotel rooms instead of individually owned units that will be rolled into the hotel rental pool when not in use by the buyer.

Construction delays are nothing new for large scale construction projects, but condo-hotel buyers seem particularly at risk these days. Before buying into a project look at how other condo-hotel projects are faring. Arguably this would be a tough proposition in Seattle, given that the 1 Hotel + Residences was the first project of its kind in the city. For buyers ready to plunk down a large deposit on a pre-construction project, be sure to look into ways you might be able to get that deposit back, not only if the project doesn’t go forward but if it faces construction delays that you deem too lengthy.

For a complete list of due diligence questions, read our Mini Guide to Condo-Hotels.