Photos by Justin Cook | The Roanoke Times

George Stanley (left) chats with Ed Walker at the former Virginia Mills Cotton Products building in Roanoke. Stanley's company is general contractor for several of Walker's projects. Stanley said Walker is "good at keeping his ego in check."

Danny George (from left), Scott Boswell, Ed Walker, Chris Hummel and George Stanley meet at the former Virginia Mills Cotton Products plant on Sixth Street in the West End of Roanoke. Walker is renovating the building, also known in city real estate records as the Cotton Mill, and plans turn the space into apartments and condos.

Stephanie Klein-Davis | The Roanoke Times

Ed Walker chats with Roanoke City Manager Darlene Burcham before a news conference to announce the opening of the Hancock Building (in the background), an apartment complex in downtown Roanoke that used to house Grand Piano & Furniture Co.

Ed Walker remembers vividly the 2003 evening.

As he sat his son Jackson in the bathtub, the 3-year-old struggled to breathe in the midst of an asthma attack.

"He looked up at me, and said, 'Daddy, please help me,' " Walker recalled.

In search of a warmer climate that would improve his son's condition, Walker and his wife, Katherine, drove south from Roanoke and eventually stayed a month in a coastal city in Mexico.

"We just really didn't care about the money and the disruption to our work," said Walker, who said he'd drop anything for his children.

But work would find him.

The family began visiting San Miguel de Allende. It is a city not unlike Roanoke -- with similar demographics and a thriving arts community. They would return for several straight winters.

While walking one day around San Miguel, he followed a stone wall, leading to a dilapidated hotel. From there, ideas blossomed.

Walker bought the property, demolished the hotel and sold it to a group of developers. Within two years, Rosewood Hotels & Resorts would open a five-star hotel there.

The project combined three of Walker's passions: family, arts and development.

And it's a combination that has repeated itself again and again in the past decade.

Walker has invested millions of dollars in the Roanoke Valley while building a reputation for uncovering opportunities in unlikely places.

His admirers call him a visionary, someone who pumps creative momentum into a slow-growth city. He said he wants to see the area thrive by salvaging storied structures that many believe lack potential.

Walker has reshaped some of downtown's most significant buildings, such as the 12-story former Colonial American Bank structure and the former Grand Piano & Furniture building.

But not everyone likes Walker's drive. Some see money as his primary motivator.

Making money is essential, Walker says, but his ultimate motivation is improving Roanoke.

Creative pursuits

Walker's path to rehab renown has taken a circuitous route.

The son of a Roanoke lawyer, he bought his first building as an investment in 2000, then a derelict gasoline station on Memorial Avenue in Grandin Village.

Now, it houses the Village Grill restaurant, a neighborhood gathering spot.

Walker invested in the structure while he was still practicing law, though "there was an entrepreneurial part of myself that I sensed was coming out," he said.

He was considering stepping out of law work.

He wanted to be able to finance a boarding school education for Jackson at his alma mater, Alexandria's Episcopal High School, where both his father and brother graduated.

Equity from real estate could help, he figured. So, he took out a loan to finance the $90,750 purchase of the Memorial Avenue building.

"There was no grand plan," Walker said. "I wanted it to pay for itself in 15 years."

It's not unusual for Walker to make decisions with his family at the forefront, said Katherine Walker, who described her husband as the better of the two at balancing family and work.

In 1985 Walker married the former Katherine Fralin, the daughter of Roanoke businessman William Heywood Fralin.

"He'll move meetings to be with the kids," said Katherine Walker, the founder of the Batten Leadership Institute at Hollins University.

Frank Rogers III, a Roanoke lawyer, said he sensed that Ed Walker felt "confined" while working as a lawyer. Walker's first job out of law school at Washington and Lee University was at Mundy, Rogers & Frith in Roanoke.

"Ed is more creative in his thinking than perhaps the law sometimes allows," Rogers said. "The law was almost too structured and analytical for him."

In 2002, Walker left law.

It wasn't the first time that he had stepped out on a whim to follow a creative intuition.

A few years after earning a history degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Walker traveled throughout central Europe as an art broker.

Soon after marrying Katherine, a friend asked for donations to a Charlottesville music center in lieu of wedding gifts. Walker got the idea for the Downtown Music Lab.

He founded this after-school haven in 1999 for teenagers to play and record music in Roanoke. The nonprofit lab still operates, with 360 members.

Walker's no longer involved with the lab, but music and the arts remain an important part of his life.

He spends his free time listening to live music and playing the guitar.

He takes weekly lessons from local musician Cyrus Pace. Pace said Walker approached him with one request: "I want to learn as much as I can in a year."

Pace, 35, said he's the one who is learning.

"If I didn't feel so self-conscious about it, I'd ask him 100 questions," he said. "He's obviously a knowledgeable guy. He knows a lot of stuff about a lot of things."

Walker also took an active role in salvaging the Grandin Theatre. He was general counsel and president of the foundation that raised funds to reopen the local community theater in 2002.

The theater anchors Grandin Village. Building up this Roanoke neighborhood has been Walker's aim.

He owns Memorial Avenue's Tarpley Park, also known as James Park, which is across from the No. 7 Fire Station and acts as a bookend to the village. Before he purchased the site, it was overgrown with weeds and littered with trash.

Walker cleaned it up, outfitting it with children's play equipment, including his sons' swing set.

The swing set that Walker placed at the park was planned for the yard of his family's new house in South Roanoke. But the house, which was the former home of a congressman, burned down in 2003 while it was being renovated. The Walker family had not yet moved in.

Walker said he and Katherine "were stunned" after the fire. So, they stayed in their Wasena home.

Something seemed to be pointing them toward downtown Roanoke.

One day as Walker strolled to his office in downtown, he contemplated the future of a stately former bank building on South Jefferson Street.

An unlikely idea hit him: "That building doesn't want to be offices."

It wants to be living space.

Building downtown's vibe

Fast forward five years to a sunny afternoon in late May.

Flanked by the Hancock Building, his newest redevelopment project housing 58 apartments, Walker delivered a convincing speech to city officials and others about his vision of drawing young professionals to downtown, shaping an energetic vibe.

Roanoke's downtown living movement has taken off in the past few years with a growing number of developers rehabbing historic spaces for condos and apartments.

"You will drive by one night, and you will see this building lit up with young people who are working here and spending money here," Walker told the group.

He has become an example of his own cause.

Walker, 40, and his family now live in a spacious condominium on the top floor of 204 Jefferson St., the former Colonial American Bank headquarters.

In 2003, he paid $1.4 million for the historic structure, one of his first significant investments in downtown.

He renovated 10 floors for upscale condos, ranging from 3,000 to 4,800 square feet each. The sale prices range from $350,000 to more than $500,000.

"We live the thing that we really believe in," Walker told the gatherers. "There's a group who think that living downtown is crazy. ... It is the only place we would care to live."

The Hancock apartments are crafted in the historic location of several well-known retailers, most recently Grand Piano & Furniture Co. Construction costs for that project are estimated at $9 million to $10 million.

In the past year, Walker and Scott Graeff, his business partner in the Hancock project, have had to defend city funding they will receive to help finance their endeavor.

The city is giving Walker and Graeff an $880,000 interest-free loan that will be funneled through the Roanoke Redevelopment and Housing Authority. If the units stay apartments for 10 years, the loan will be forgiven.

Members of the housing authority voted for the funding earlier this year, some of them reluctantly.

Then-City Councilman Brian Wishneff opposed it, arguing that the city should not provide grants to private developers.

During the loan debate, Wishneff questioned whether the discussion was affected by a Walker-financed trip to San Miguel in 2005 for Mayor Nelson Harris and local artists. Wishneff did not return calls for comment.

The point of the trip, Walker said, was to help Roanoke to build a relationship with San Miguel as a sister city and for Harris and artists to bring back ideas.

Harris has said he allowed Walker to pay for the trip instead of using taxpayer dollars.

Walker, who was not in San Miguel during that excursion, said the controversy "was politically motivated," and that his intentions were innocent.

Walker is organizing another "culture and commerce" trip to San Miguel this fall for city officials, artists and musicians.

Some say the Hancock deal is proof that Walker, like other developers, is focused only on making money.

"Of the developers I've worked with, the vast majority in the beginning want to improve their community, and then almost always the project degrades into dollars and cents," said Mark McConnel, a Roanoke architect who has worked with Walker in the past.

"It becomes their focus. I think the way he went after money in the city would indicate the economics, rather than the vision."

Walker sued McConnel this year for what he claims was negligent work by McConnel's former firm, related to the 204 Jefferson St. condo project.

"I have no relationship with Ed," McConnel said. "Ed is being Ed."

Walker admitted that money drives much of what he does, though what is good for the community is a large factor in his decisions, he said.

His projects in Roanoke and Mexico have earned millions of dollars in profits, though he would not disclose the exact amount.

Walker estimated that he has spent about $30 million in downtown Roanoke, but that does not include his upcoming investment in the former Virginia Mills Cotton Products plant, which is slated for apartments or condos.

"You always have to pay the bank or that will be the last project you do," Walker said.

Valley Bank, headquartered in downtown Roanoke, has financed many of Walker's projects through loans. Last year, the bank asked Walker to join its board of directors.

"We saw him as one of the younger, more dynamic movers and shakers," said Ellis Gutshall, president and chief executive officer of Valley Bank.

Many projects include city cooperation

The Walkers have not gotten very involved with local politics (he says he has no interest in running for office), but have contributed to several Roanoke City Council members.

For the most recent election, according to the Virginia Public Access Project, Ed Walker contributed this year a total of $3,501 to the winning ticket of Anita Price, Court Rosen and Sherman Lea.

In previous election cycles, Ed Walker contributed to David Trinkle and former councilman Alfred Dowe. Katherine Walker also has contributed to Trinkle.

It also has been Walker's work that has sparked attention from city officials.

Brian Townsend, assistant city manager, said "I'd love to have 100 Ed Walkers."

He described Walker as a long-term investor, who "sees the bones of a building."

Walker calls Townsend often to bounce off ideas. But his persistence is alarming at times, Townsend said.

"I need a meeting. I need to talk," Townsend said, quickly, imitating Walker's pleas for guidance.

"Sometimes he's a little anxious. I think Ed has a lot of passion for his projects."

And Walker's ideas don't always jibe with city officials', Townsend said, though he would not disclose specific disagreements.

Last month, Walker and city officials disagreed over Roanoke's downtown parking policy, according to an e-mail obtained by The Roanoke Times.

Before city council voted to end free parking for city residents, Walker sent an impassioned e-mail on June 6 to several city council members and officials, asking them to exempt residents of 204 Jefferson St. from the policy.

Claiming that he has invested millions in the city and led to millions more of economic development, Walker wrote: "My ability and confidence to continue in these capacities will be absolutely devastated if the simple parking concessions, which are the hinge upon which 204 swings, are not honored."

But Townsend responded by e-mail three days later, saying 204 Jefferson St. would not be treated differently from other residential developments. City council voted June 16 to end free parking for downtown residents by mid-2011.

"He has very strong opinions, and Darlene [Burcham] and I have strong opinions, and we have a public process we have to abide by," Townsend said. "The frank discussion leads to identification of other ways of doing things."

Walker enters limelight

Walker shapes his ideas by talking with people.

On a recent June day, George Stanley, a Richmond resident whose company is the general contractor for some Walker projects, met with the developer at a local coffee shop for more than four hours.

Stanley said he's spent 100 hours with Walker discussing plans for the Hancock apartments.

"He and I spent more time together than I've ever spent with an owner," said Stanley, who has worked in Richmond redevelopment and shifted his efforts to Roanoke in 2004. "At this point, we're really good friends."

"He's not a nuts-and-bolts person," Stanley said. Walker leaves the details to others.

"Ed is very good at keeping his ego in check and realizing that he doesn't have to control," Stanley said. "He's definitely not a control freak."

In fact, Walker prefers to stay out of the limelight. Until recently, he declined to speak with the media for articles.

Graeff often acted as a spokesman for the Hancock project because Walker didn't want his name used in print.

"He rightfully sees that anytime someone's in the public eye, there's a buildup and a tear down," Katherine Walker said. "His greatest strength presents a challenge. If you look at the world differently ... that will create a little resistance."

Walker's latest sights are aimed at downtown's Sixth Street corridor, which is peppered with run-down and vacant buildings.

He owns much of this city block, including the 106,000-square-foot Virginia Mills Cotton Products plant. He's planning to renovate it for 108 apartments or condos.

When complete, it will house the largest number of living spaces under one roof in downtown.

By purchasing the Virginia Mills building and other surrounding properties, such as the former Gary's Bar & Grill and a structure beside the Virginia Mills that is planned for art studios, Walker said he wants to transform this area.

Renovations are starting in all of these spaces.

Trinkle has signed a lease to open a restaurant at the former Gary's space at 551 Marshall Ave. Trinkle owns Fork in the Alley, a South Roanoke restaurant.

His new eatery on Marshall Avenue, which Trinkle expects to open late this year or in early 2009, will have similar menu selections and live music. This location was attractive because it is off the beaten path, he said.

Reflecting on plans in this part of downtown, Walker said, "It's going to be unbelievable."

He also has purchased the former Ice House building in Wasena, though his plans aren't completed there.

"The fun of this work is to find anomalies that are hidden in plain view," Walker said.

Asked how he can tell what structures, such as the Mexico hotel, dilapidated Roanoke buildings and many others, could become, he paused.

It's like one of those "wacky pictures" that appear two-dimensional, Walker said.

If you stare long enough, the image within becomes clear.