DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES — Downtown's most popular night is getting a change in leadership. After more than four years running the monthly Downtown Art Walk, gallery owner Bert Green will hand over the reins to Richard Schave. Schave will become the event's Executive Director, while Green will stay involved in the event's publicity.

Since its beginning in September of 2004, Downtown Art Walk has become one of Downtown's best-known cultural events, bringing several thousand people to the streets of Gallery Row on the second Thursday of each month.

Schave will be part of a team put together to run the Art Walk, according to Green. "Art Walk has grown so large that it's impossible for one person to manage it," he told blogdowntown today. Working with Schave and Green will be Kim Cooper and Josh Cain.

The move will allow the event to explore new ideas that Green had been unable to implement on his own, including an increased social media presence.

"We are going to foster the dual goals of Art Walk," says Schave, adding that the primary goal of the event is to offer support for the art galleries, and the secondary goal is the revitalizing of the neighborhood. "It is not immediate. We will start in June."

At a Wednesday night meeting of DLANC's Arts Committee, Schave will be introducing preliminary plans and beginning a discussion on how that committee might be involved in the event.

The husband and wife team of Schave and Cooper run Esotouric, offering bus adventures through Los Angeles' sites and history. They also currently operate the Art Walk shuttle known as The Hippodrome, a 1940s school bus with a funky paint scheme that serves as both performance space and public transportation.