The cry from the development community was deafening and the hard facts daunting.

If projects were going to move forward in Buffalo - and, more specifically, in the central business district and other hot spots such as Larkinville - then the city was going to need a more streamlined process. The current system, which on its best days is considered confusing and on other days called far worse, isn't working.

Confusion was the byword as developers were never sure what agency to start with when  presenting their projects and which person should get the initial visit.

This comes against a backdrop of concern about the future of One HSBC Center and the likely negative impact on downtown when the 38-story tower loses its main anchor tenants in the next 24 months. That means an 850,000-square-foot building will be close to 80 percent vacant.

That's why, to his credit, Mayor Byron Brown reached out to the Buffalo Niagara Partnership to look at the city's development process and see how it can be streamlined and made more efficient.

After spending a year looking at the development process through an intense microscope, the Partnership team - with volunteers from the public and private sectors, including most of the major development firms - came up with a new blueprint.

"We need an even faster process when it comes to downtown development projects," Brown said bluntly.

Much like the Queen City Hub plan that laid a foundation for the wave of adaptive reuse of structures a decade ago, the Buffalo Building Reuse Project has identified ways that development downtown - and elsewhere in the city - can move forward.

"It begins with having a delivery system that is customer-friendly and developer-savvy," said Andrew Rudnick, Buffalo Niagara Partnership president and chief executive. "But this also has to be a market-based plan that makes sense from the investor point of view. One thing we learned from past experiences is that the private sector has to feel comfortable working with the public sector."

In a nutshell, the report recommends that Buffalo Urban Development Corp. serve as the go-to agency and that seed money from both public and private sources is needed for critical gap financing. BUDC has a proven track record and savvy public-sector development technicians in Peter Cammarata and David Stebbins. Developers want those two to shepherd their projects.

Brown is anteing up $11.25 million in seed money, but there's also outreach to local foundations and businesses to help support the effort. A $5 million annual seed pool is the initial goal.

"As a developer, you want to see things be more convenient." said Ben Obletz, president, First Amherst Development Group. "That would make it easier for outside development to happen."

The focus will be on development opportunities in older buildings - the historic "B-" and "C-"type structures that are ripe for new investment.

Developers such as Rocco Termini made a career out of bringing new life to downtown buildings that many considered eyesores. He viewed them as perfect candidates for adaptive reuse.

The development of B and C space offers the most opportunity.

According to a just-released market survey by CBRE/Buffalo, downtown has a generally healthy 8.77 percent vacancy rate, down slightly from 9.69 percent one year ago.

While Class A space has a healthy 4.37 percent vacancy rate - one that will balloon in the next few years after Phillips Lytle and HSBC Bank leave One HSBC Center - B space has a rate of 12.85 percent.

Those numbers are down from the 14.53 percent rate that CBRE/Buffalo reported  in its 2010 survey.

A bit of caution here - The ripple effect of what happens at One HSBC Center and as Mark Croce attempts to bring floors of the Statler City project online, the B space rate will likely spike.

According to Rudnick, the older B space and C space buildings are easier to adapt and reuse for residential projects.

Downtown is amassing a healthy track record of that happening, something that was predicted in the Queen City Hub plan championed by former Mayor Anthony Masiello.

"Buffalo needs the right development in the right places," said Laura St. Pierre Smith, Partnership vice president.

Consider  the Buffalo Building Reuse Project a version 2 update of the Queen City Hub plan.

"We have to build on our strengths," said Robert Shibley, dean of the University at Buffalo School of Architecture and Planning.

He's also co-chairman of the project's planning committee.

Said Shibley: "There's something else Buffalo needs - predictability."

Obletz, speaking on behalf of the private sector, agrees.

"We need a constant," he said. "We need to know what it takes to make a project happen."