Richmond’s West Broad corridor just west of VCU is about to keep growing. Sauer Properties, the family-owned company that has quietly reshaped this stretch of Broad Street for more than 130 years, has brought in a national development partner to carry The Sauer Center into its next chapter: Hoffman & Associates, the Washington, D.C. firm behind The Wharf on the Potomac River. Trevor Dickerson of RVAHub reported the news in August, and it caps a partnership that has been building for more than a year.
What Phase I Already Changed
The first phase of the Sauer Center is the part most Richmonders already know: the Whole Foods and CarMax buildings facing Broad Street, plus older office space converted for smaller tenants. Richmond BizSense first reported Hoffman’s involvement back in August 2025, when the firm was signed on only as a consultant. In the year since, Sauer built a new office building that filled quickly with tenants including PwC and JPMorgan Chase, and the Hoffman relationship deepened into the full development partnership announced this year.
That matters for anyone watching this part of the city, because it signals the next phase isn’t just a plan sitting in a drawer. Pre-development work is already underway, with a groundbreaking targeted for late 2027.
What Phase II Is Supposed to Look Like
The next leg spans nearly 40 acres around Hermitage Road, West Broad Street and Leigh Street. By BizSense’s count from the original 2023 master plan, it calls for more than 2 million square feet of residential, commercial and hospitality space, including a planned 12-story Art Deco tower. RVAHub’s more recent reporting describes housing, offices and retail with active ground-floor spaces, plus green space and pedestrian connections meant to tie the district into the surrounding neighborhood rather than treating it as self-contained.
Hoffman isn’t new to Richmond. The firm was a finalist to lead the Diamond District project, and it’s already building 3200 W Moore in Scott’s Addition: roughly 400,000 square feet bringing more than 360 residential units and 18,000-plus square feet of retail, plus pool decks and courtyards. That project previews what Hoffman tends to build, and it’s now stepping into a bigger role on Sauer’s home turf.
Why This Matters Beyond Broad Street
Two large Hoffman projects within a mile of each other, at 3200 W Moore and now Sauer Center, signal this corridor is being treated as one continuous growth area rather than separate sites. For homeowners and buyers in The Fan and the Museum District, both a short walk or a quick Pulse ride from Sauer Center, that generally means more nearby retail, more rental competition from new mid-rise buildings, and more construction-period pressure on parking and traffic along Broad Street. It’s also the kind of project that tends to draw renters first and buyers later, once the retail mix and street life settle in.
None of that is a promise about what happens to home values on any particular block. It’s the same pattern this blog has covered before with Scott’s Addition’s restaurant scene and with how the Pulse corridor shapes which neighborhoods are easiest to get around without a car: large, well-capitalized projects tend to arrive in clusters once a corridor proves itself, and Broad Street west of downtown is now doing that on a scale most of the city hasn’t seen outside downtown itself.
What We Don’t Know Yet
Sauer Properties did not return requests for additional comment, and neither company has released a construction timeline beyond the late-2027 groundbreaking target. It’s also unclear whether the final building mix will match the 2023 master plan exactly, since the original phase was led by a Sauer executive who has since left the company. We’ll follow up as specifics on unit counts, retail tenants and phasing become public. If you already own nearby and are curious what all this might eventually mean for your own home’s value, our team can run a free home valuation anytime, construction news or not.
Curious what’s for sale near Scott’s Addition, the Fan or the Museum District while this corridor keeps building out?
Frequently Asked Questions
What is The Sauer Center?
The Sauer Center is a mixed-use redevelopment of roughly 37 to 40 acres of land along West Broad Street, Hermitage Road and Leigh Street, just west of VCU, owned by Sauer Properties, the Richmond company behind the historic Sauer’s spice factory on Broad Street.
What has already been built at Sauer Center?
Phase I includes the Whole Foods and CarMax buildings facing Broad Street, renovated older office space, and a newly built office building whose tenants now include PwC and JPMorgan Chase.
Who is Hoffman & Associates?
Hoffman & Associates is a Washington, D.C.-based developer best known for The Wharf, a multibillion-dollar mixed-use development along the Potomac River. It signed on as a consultant to Sauer Center in mid-2025 and has since taken on a larger role as a development partner for the project’s next phase.
What will Phase II of Sauer Center include?
Public reporting describes a mix of housing, office and retail space, ground-floor retail meant to draw foot traffic, and green space and pedestrian connections into the surrounding neighborhood. Earlier plans described more than 2 million square feet of new construction, including a 12-story Art Deco tower, though the exact final mix has not been confirmed publicly.
When will construction start?
Pre-development work is already underway as of late 2026, with a groundbreaking targeted for late 2027. No public completion date has been announced.
Is this connected to the Scott’s Addition project at 3200 W Moore?
Both are Hoffman & Associates projects within about a mile of each other along the Broad Street corridor. 3200 W Moore is a separate project already under construction in Scott’s Addition, while the Sauer Center phase is a distinct, larger development on Sauer Properties’ own land.
How would a project this size affect nearby home values?
Large mixed-use projects typically bring more retail and rental competition before any measurable effect on resale prices shows up, and the effect varies block by block. We haven’t seen published data isolating Sauer Center’s specific impact on nearby home values, so we’d treat any confident prediction with caution.
How do I get around this part of Richmond without a car?
GRTC’s Pulse bus rapid transit line runs along Broad Street between Willow Lawn and Rockett’s Landing, with stations near the Sauer Center site, and buses run fare-free every 10 to 30 minutes depending on time of day.
