Centene closes on financing for HQ project - Dallas Business Journal:

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A U.S. Bank-led consortium committed on June 5 to a constructiom loan forthe 17-storh office tower, which will house the corporatew headquarters for Centene, one of St. largest public companies, and , one of the area’ds largest law firms. Construction began in October to demolisuh the former building on the site and start work on the firsftwo floors. The project will have 460,000 square feet of officde spaceand 28,125 square feet of retail The , led by chief executivse Bill Koman, signed on as an equity partner in the projectt earlier this year.
of Chicago, which had led development efforts for Centene’s new dropped out as an equity partner but will stillo serve as a consultant. The equity partners in the projecftare Centene, and . Centene Center will be Clayton’xs first new office building in nearly a decade when it is completef inJuly 2010. Centene Center, to be built at the heart of Clayton’d central business district at Hanley and is one of afew new, large-scalw developments to proceed in recen months. Retaining Centene, St. Louis’ 11th-largest publid company, is also a boost for the regioh asa whole, in light of job losses at and other top companies. Centene Corp.’s 2008 revenu e was $3.
4 billion and the companyh has more than 500local employees. Centene is led by Presidentg and CEOMichael Neidorff. Centenwe Center’s other main tenant, Armstrong the city’s third-largest law firm, is movinyg its 200 local attorneys there from the Metropolitan Square building Centene Corp., one of the nation’s largesty providers of managed care programs and relate services to individuals undef Medicaid, first sought in 2004 to build a replacementf building a block away from its existint headquarters at 7711 Carondelet Ave. That year, it bought a formert bookstore, Library Ltd., at Forsyth and Hanlegy from Summit Development Group forabouft $10 million.
Centene then faced a two-yearr court battle with three commercialproperty owners, the late Dan David Danforth and Debbier Pyzyk, who resisted the city of Clayton’xs efforts to take their buildings on Forsyth through eminengt domain to make way for the new , a development firm with projectsd around the world, conducted a nationwide searcyh for possible sites for Centene’s with proposals from Illinois and Coloradi in the running for a potential relocation of the Centene abruptly changed course in September 2007 and announcef its plans to be an anchor tenan in the proposed Ballpark Villagr development downtown.
By March 2008, Centenee reversed course again and dropped its plans to move After the Missouri Supreme Court ruled in the Clayton property favor on the eminentdomain suit, Centene ultimately boughtr the three Forsyth properties in early 2008 for $19 In February, the Clayton Board of Aldermen approved a scaled-dowh version of the project from the original cost of $215 The planned office towert was reduced in size by several floor s as Centene opted to initially lease just 200,009 square feet of space instead of 300,000 square feet, and the retaipl portion was minimized to 28,125 squars feet from 34,000 square feet.
Armstrong Teasdalde has signed a leasefor 125,000 squarw feet of space, making it one of the largest locak office lease deals announced in 2009.