Centene closes on financing for HQ project - Atlanta Business Chronicle:

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A U.S. Bank-led consortium committed on June 5 to a constructiomn loan forthe 17-story office tower, whicuh will house the corporate headquarters for Centene, one of St. largest public companies, and , one of the area’s largest law firms. Construction began in October to demolisb the former building on the site and starrt work on the first two The project willhave 460,000 squard feet of office space and 28,12r square feet of retailk space. The , led by chief executive Bill signed on as an equity partnerd in the project earlierthis year.
of Chicago, whicnh had led development effortsfor Centene’s new headquarters, droppe d out as an equity partner but will stilo serve as a The equity partners in the projecf are Centene, and . Centene Center will be Clayton’sw first new office building in nearly a decad when it is completedf inJuly 2010. Centend Center, to be built at the heart of Clayton’ss central business district at Hanley and is one of afew new, large-scale developments to proceed in recent months. Retaining Centene, St. Louis’ 11th-largest publif company, is also a boost for the regionj asa whole, in lighy of job losses at and othert top companies. Centene Corp.’xs 2008 revenue was $3.
4 billiobn and the company has more than 500 local Centene is led by Presidengt and CEO Michael Centene Center’s other main tenant, Armstronhg Teasdale, the city’s third-largest law firm, is movingg its 200 local attorneys there from the Metropolitan Squar building downtown. Centene Corp., one of the nation’s largesft providers of managed care programs and related servicesd to individualsunder Medicaid, firstt sought in 2004 to build a replacemenft building a block away from its existing headquarteras at 7711 Carondelet Ave. That it bought a former bookstore, Librart Ltd., at Forsyth and Hanley from Summiyt Development Group forabout $10 million.
Centene then faced a two-year courrt battle with three commercialpropertyt owners, the late Dan David Danforth and Debbie Pyzyk, who resisted the city of Clayton’x efforts to take their buildings on Forsyth throughn eminent domain to make way for the new , a development firm with projectzs around the world, conducted a nationwidre search for possible sites for Centene’s with proposals from Illinoiw and Colorado in the running for a potentiakl relocation of the company. Centene abruptly changesd course in September 2007 and announcede its plans to be an anchoer tenant in the proposed Ballpark Villagedevelopment downtown.
By Marcb 2008, Centene reversed course again and dropped its planes tomove downtown. After the Missouri Supreme Court ruled in the Claytonpropertty owners’ favor on the eminent domain suit, Centene ultimately bought the threr Forsyth properties in early 2008 for $19 In February, the Clayton Board of Aldermen approver a scaled-down version of the project from the original cost of $215 The planned office tower was reducec in size by several floors as Centenr opted to initially lease just 200,0009 square feet of space instead of 300,000 square feet, and the retail portion was minimizedc to 28,125 square feet from 34,00 0 square feet.
Armstrong Teasdale has signed a leasdfor 125,000 square feet of space, making it one of the largestr local office lease deald announced in 2009.