CKE said in April it was considering moving Hardee’s to Nashville. The company’s 10-year lease at 100 North Broadway expires in 2017. Hardee’s occupies floors 11 and 12 of the 22-story building.

Hardee’s moved to St. Louis in 2001, when Puzder pulled the burger chain’s headquarters out of Rocky Mount, N.C. Puzder, a lawyer from St. Louis, said then the move was intended to provide better access to CKE’s headquarters in California and boost the company’s ability to recruit management talent. In St. Louis, Hardee’s initially occupied two floors of what was then the Firstar building, now the US Bank tower.

In 2013, Puzder told the Wall Street Journal he had considered moving CKE’s corporate headquarters to Texas, which has no income tax, but was eyeing Nashville, which is in another state without such a tax.

The Nashville Business Journal has reported that at least six of nine members of CKE’s management team have already bought residences in the Nashville area. They include Puzder, who in 2015 bought a $1.53 million home in Franklin, Tenn., the newspaper reported.

CKE officials did not respond to requests to disclose how many people work at Hardee’s St. Louis headquarters. Mayor Francis Slay’s office did not reply to a request for comment about the burger chain’s departure.

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