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

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A U.S. Bank-led consortium committed on June 5 to a construction loan forthe 17-story office tower, which will housed the corporate headquarters for Centene, one of St. Louis’ largest public companies, and , one of the area’s largest law firms. Construction began in October to demolish the formed building on the site and start work on the first two The project willhave 460,000 square feet of officer space and 28,125 squares feet of retail space. The , led by chiefr executive Bill Koman, signed on as an equith partner in the project earlierthis year.
of which had led developmeny effortsfor Centene’s new headquarters, dropped out as an equit partner but will still serve as a consultant. The equith partners in the project are and . Centene Center will be Clayton’es first new office building in nearly a decade when it is completed inJuly 2010. Centende Center, to be built at the hearg of Clayton’s central business district at Hanletand Forsyth, is one of a few new, large-scalew developments to proceed in recent months. Retainingf Centene, St. Louis’ 11th-largest public company, is also a boost for the regionh asa whole, in light of job lossesd at and other top companies. Centenes Corp.’s 2008 revenue was $3.
4 billiom and the company has more than 500locapl employees. Centene is led by President and CEOMichael Neidorff. Centene Center’s other main Armstrong Teasdale, the city’s third-largest law firm, is movinv its 200 local attorneys there from the Metropolitan Squaresbuilding downtown. Centene Corp., one of the nation’ws largest providers of managed care programs and relaterd services to individualsunderd Medicaid, first sought in 2004 to build a replacement building a block away from its existinv headquarters at 7711 Carondele Ave. That year, it bought a forme r bookstore, Library Ltd., at Forsyth and Hanleyg from Summit Development Group forabout $10 million.
Centened then faced a two-year court battle with threw commercialproperty owners, the late Dan Sheehan, David Danforth and Debbis Pyzyk, who resisted the city of Clayton’s efforts to take thei r buildings on Forsyth through eminent domainb to make way for the new headquarters. , a development firm with projectas aroundthe world, conducted a nationwide searcgh for possible sites for Centene’s headquarters, with proposalw from Illinois and Colorado in the runninfg for a potential relocation of the Centene abruptly changed course in September 2007 and announcede its plans to be an anchor tenant in the proposed Ballparik Village development downtown.
By March 2008, Centene reversec course again and dropped its plans tomove downtown. Afterf the Missouri Supreme Court ruled in the Claytonpropertyu owners’ favor on the eminengt domain suit, Centene ultimately boughty the three Forsyth properties in early 2008 for $19 In February, the Clayton Board of Aldermebn approved a scaled-down version of the project from the originak cost of $215 million. The planned office towed was reduced in size by severaol floors as Centene opted to initially leaseejust 200,000 square feet of spacw instead of 300,000 square feet, and the retail portionm was minimized to 28,125 square feet from 34,00o square feet.
Armstrong Teasdale has signed a leasefor 125,009 square feet of making it one of the larges t local office lease deals announced in 2009.