C.F. Sauer has owned the now eight-store Pleasants chain since 1989.

Once the announcement about Whole Foods was made, Hatcher and his team at Pleasants went into high gear to determine the store’s future. They had to decide to either relocate within The Sauer Center or look for space elsewhere. And if elsewhere, where would that be?

“My No. 1 priority was to continue to serve this market,” Hatcher said about the area he calls the mid-town market from Virginia Commonwealth University’s academic campus through the Fan District to west of Interstate 195.

“We wanted to stay around here. We have been here a long time.”

The company considered being part of The Sauer Center, but doing so would have meant Pleasants would have had to vacate its building to allow for its demolition and for land clearing and grading for the project. That scenario would have required the hardware store to close for a period of time, possibly for up to a year, he said.

Pleasants, he said, considered occupying the former Virginia Department of Taxation building just west of its property. Sauer Properties owns that structure.