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The head of Portland’s economic development agency is stepping down.

Scott Andrews, the board chair of the Portland Development Commission, announced Thursday he will be leaving the commission at the end of his term this July. Andrews, the president of Melvin Mark Properties, joined the five-member commission in 2008, and became board chair a year later.

According to the PDC, Andrews is the second-longest serving board chair behind the PDC’s founding board chair, Ira Keller. During his tenure, Andrews oversaw the completion of numerous developments, including the redevelopment of the Globe Hotel in Old Town Chinatown for the Oregon College of Oriental Medicine, a project for the Portland office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the restart of development at the Burnside Bridgehead.

Other projects involved ongoing PDC initiatives such as the Portland Seed Fund, the Neighborhood Prosperity Initiative, the Metro Export Initiative, the Startup PDX Challenge and the Portland Main Streets Program – economic development strategies that offered a helping hand to many small businesses during the recession.

Andrews said he chose to announce his decision now in order to give the city adequate time to appoint a replacement. In the meantime he said he would remain committed to seeing the PDC’s ongoing budget process through to final approval. — Lee Fehrenbacher