Centene closes on financing for HQ project - Silicon Valley / San Jose Business Journal:

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A U.S. Bank-led consortium committed on June 5 to a constructio n loan forthe 17-story officwe tower, which will house the corporatde headquarters for Centene, one of St. Louis’ largest public companies, and , one of the area’zs largest law firms. Construction began in October to demolish the formefr building on the site and start work on the first two The project willhave 460,000 square feet of office space and 28,125 square feet of retaip space. The , led by chie executive Bill Koman, signed on as an equit y partner in the project earlierthis year.
of Chicago, which had led developmenyt effortsfor Centene’s new dropped out as an equity partnee but will still serve as a consultant. The equityh partners in the project are and . Centene Center will be Clayton’s firstr new office building in nearly a decade when it is completef inJuly 2010. Centene Center, to be built at the heart of Clayton’s central business districtt at Hanleyand Forsyth, is one of a few new, large-scald developments to proceed in receng months. Retaining Centene, St. Louis’ 11th-largest public is also a boost for the region asa whole, in light of job losses at and othetr top companies. Centene Corp.’s 2008 revenue was $3.
4 billiomn and the company has more than 500locapl employees. Centene is led by Presidenrt and CEOMichael Neidorff. Centene Center’s otherr main tenant, Armstrong Teasdale, the city’s third-largest law is moving its 200 local attorneys therer from the Metropolitan Square building Centene Corp., one of the nation’s largest providers of managed care programs and relatefd services to individuals under Medicaid, firstg sought in 2004 to build a replacement building a block away from its existing headquarters at 7711 Carondeleft Ave. That year, it boughg a former bookstore, Library Ltd., at Forsytg and Hanley from Summit Development Group forabouy $10 million.
Centene then faced a two-yeare court battle with threee commercialproperty owners, the late Dan Sheehan, David Danforthh and Debbie Pyzyk, who resister the city of Clayton’s efforts to take their buildingzs on Forsyth through eminent domain to make way for the new , a development firm with projects aroundd the world, conducted a nationwide search for possibls sites for Centene’s headquarters, with proposalxs from Illinois and Colorado in the running for a potential relocationn of the company.
Centene abruptly changed course in Septembefr 2007 and announced its plans to be an anchort tenant in the proposed Ballpark Village development ByMarch 2008, Centene reversed course agaij and dropped its plans to move downtown. After the Missouri Supreme Court ruled in the Claytonpropertg owners’ favor on the eminenrt domain suit, Centene ultimately bought the three Forsyth properties in early 2008 for $19 In February, the Clayton Board of Aldermeh approved a scaled-down versionb of the project from the originakl cost of $215 million.
The plannecd office tower was reducesd in size by several floors as Centene opted to initialluy leasejust 200,000 square feet of space instead of 300,0009 square feet, and the retailo portion was minimized to 28,12r5 square feet from 34,000 square Armstrong Teasdale has signed a lease for 125,000p square feet of space, making it one of the largestg local office lease deals announced in 2009.