Downtown Group Gets New Leader

Michael Edwards, the former head of a Buffalo, N.Y., down town development organization, has been hired as the next president of the Downtown Spokane Partnership.

Edwards, who starts Oct. 5, will succeed Karen Valvano, the founding president of the partnership who left in July for North Carolina.

Currently a principal with The Saratoga Associates, a private downtown consulting firm, Edwards is former executive director of Buffalo Place Business Improvement District, an organization similar to Spokane’s Business Improvement District.

After 18 months with Saratoga, Edwards, 38, said he was eager to return to development.

“I always wanted to do some consulting, but I felt somewhat removed from the action,” he said from his home in Buffalo. “It’s nice to make recommendations, but I felt I was too distant.”

Edwards was selected after a national search that began in April, when Valvano announced her resignation. His background is well-suited for the evolution of Spokane’s downtown, said Judy Cole, chair of the BID advisory board and of the three-person search committee.

“He is ideal for us,” said Cole. “We have almost completed our downtown plan. What we need is someone to implement it.”

The Downtown Spokane Partnership, founded in 1995, carries out the services and policies of the Business Improvement District.

Edwards said he had few immediate plans for Spokane, but thought security, maintenance and marketing were areas that would need to be bolstered as Spokane’s downtown grows.

Edwards and his wife, Mary, an attorney, have two young girls who were significant factors in the family’s decision to move to the Northwest, for its quality of life.