Sean Luther knows that the office chair he will soon occupy at Downtown Roanoke Inc. will feel occasionally like a hot seat.

He starts work Oct. 26 as the new president of DRI, a nonprofit downtown development organization. Interim President Doug Waters has led DRI since March. He expressed confidence Monday in Luther's hiring by the organization's board of directors.

"For a relatively young guy, he has quite a lot of experience in working with downtown projects," Waters said. "He brings a lot of personality and enthusiasm to the position also."

Luther, 27, leaves the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership, where, among other tasks during his two years there, he helped spearhead a $5 million "reactivation" of Pittsburgh's historic Market Square. That work began Aug. 16 after a few years of discussion, planning and design.

He takes the DRI job at a time when the Roanoke City Market is awash in proposals or plans for big changes.

They include a major makeover of the Roanoke City Market Building; renovation of Center in the Square; an altered public square; and an amphitheater envisioned for Elmwood Park.

Luther said his work toward revitalizing Pittsburgh's Market Square taught him that people, especially key stakeholders, deserve to be heard.

"I was responsible for establishing a forum for property and business owners to become engaged in the process and recommend action for future efforts," he said.

Michael Edwards, president and chief executive officer of the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership, said Luther, a native of Pittsburgh, "is very good at building consensus."

Edwards said that during the years leading up to the Market Square makeover in Pittsburgh, there was not a lot of significant resistance.

The Project for Public Spaces submitted a "vision and action plan" in November 2006 to Pittsburgh officials for the Market Square revitalization. In 2008, PPS put together a proposal for the renovation of the Roanoke City Market Building.

DRI's board of directors announced Monday that its members had voted unanimously to hire Luther after a search process that began after former President Bill Carder left DRI in March. Neither DRI nor Carder has commented about his abrupt departure.

According to DRI, Luther earned a bachelor's degree in political science and a master's degree in real estate development from Clemson University and received certification as an economic development specialist from the National Development Council.

Luther's salary was not disclosed.

At DRI, Luther will manage, at full staffing, people in three and a half positions. He acknowledged Monday that he has not had experience managing people directly.

Waters said the board weighed that specific inexperience when considering Luther's candidacy.

"It's something we looked at pretty closely and concluded that with a strong and engaged board and a good team already together at DRI that it was not a large issue," Waters said.

Luther said he'd never visited Roanoke before his two job interviews this year. He said he was impressed by the vibrancy of the farmers market, which DRI manages.

"It's such an amazing amenity that cities much larger than Roanoke would love to have downtown," he said.

Meanwhile, in hiring Luther, DRI's board has nailed something economic developers in the region consistently hammer. It recruited a young professional.

Luther said he's ready for a smaller city.

"I wouldn't have accepted the job if I didn't feel like Roanoke was going to be a good place to live," he said.