urbanSTL

^ business is very good. CNC stock is up 15% in the last 6mo. I predict Centene will be at $20billion revenue in a 3-4yrs.

Management confirmed the purchase of the buildings east of Hanley. They are currently in talks with the architectural firm and plan to break ground in the next 12-18 months.

Another Slay miss....the writing is on the wall.

In Slay's defense, right after Centene pulled out of Ballpark Village I had someone at the very top of the company tell me that it was entirely due to their inability to work with "those guys from Baltimore" (Cordish.) They had nothing but good things to say about Slay and the Cardinals.

No I know that...but they gave the whole cake away to Cordish. Just like Slay gave away the whole cake to those music festivals in LA. He really needs to stop being such a sucker to out-of-town glitz and glam.

The Ceo can walk to work in Clayton. Certainly that was appealing.

Well, then let's just move every CEO's family to Clayton and mover every Fortune 100 co to Clayton and call it a day!

moorlander wrote:I'd suspect a stock split in the not too distant future.

They announced a split as part of the earnings announcement.

http://www.stltoday.com/business/local/ ... a8d14.html

Does anyone else drive/walk by this monolithic garage wall and feel oppressed by how blank, boring, and generally soulless it is?



The shimmering garage screen along Forsyth and the multicolored walkway into Centene Plaze are commendable additions, but are also rather sterile and corporate. Clayton needs to get on the phone with Bill Christman, the Vine Brothers, or Shepard Fairey and get a sign or mural figured out for this huge blank canvas. Clayton could use a little color and creativity to make it more inviting.

Portland:

New Philadelphia, Ohio:

Providence:

Or something a little less gaudy than this, which could read: "Clayton - Gateway to the West.... County"

If something new is too much for Clayton's sensibilities, they could just reproduce a Thomas Hart Benton work:


Or put up a huge neon version of this:


Just something, anything!, other than Ernest Trova's sculptures (which I like), to lend Clayton some character and identity. For better or worse, it's the County seat for 1,000,000 people and should exude a little more culture and identity than it currently does.

I like your ideas Wabash. The original renderings had the wind chime wrapping around.

Centene has moved up to # 186 in the Fortune 500 rankings released today, up from # 251 last year.

Greg

^ So do we chalk this up as another missed opportunity to downtown, city and lack of class A office space? Also, could you say this is also disappointing from the perspective of a corporate suite seriously looking at downtown headquarters once upon a time now only looking to the west like so many other corporate executives.

My first thought, taking up space along the central corridor and its transit access and the ease to move between facilities would be a win win situation. Heck, My first thought is Centene might be the perfect tenant to kick start CORTEX/Wexford US Metals site. I believe Union Station/LHM has available space. How about the office space that VA is going to vacate downtown? All three sites including HQ are within easy walk to metrolink as well as multiple housing opportunities.

roger wyoming II wrote:^ I find it extremely frustrating companies like Centene don't open a beachhead in the city.

Couldn't agree more. Hopefully this is just a stop-gap until they can get Centene Plaza Phase II up and running. Seems maybe they could purpose build an exclusive tower for themselves instead of incorporating space for other tenants (as they did with Armstrong Teasdale, JPMorgan UMB, Cassidy Turley, etc...)

I think people have mentioned this before, but as for that beach head - and getting into pipe dream territory - I think Cortex would be a good bet. Centene has already taken a significant philanthropic interest in midtown - donating naming rights for the Center for the Arts (home of Circus Flora, Jazz St. Louis, Dance St. Louis, etc...) and the SLU Billikens basketball court. They've already been burned by Cordish while trying to make a move downtown. The people behind Cortex have established a strong track record of executing projects that support the best interests of incoming companies. If they wanted to add a beachhead in the city - maybe something the the BJC @ The Commons building - I think Cortex would be the place they'd do it.

As I recall the hang up with centene was the city 1% tax. That would probably still be a sticking point?

Wabash, good point on Centene II. It seems that with significant lease space all over west county and committing more that they would have pulled the trigger on the second tower that was part of the Clayton development plan. I can certainly understand Brown Shoes or whatever their called themselves now past development goals coming to a grinding halt. But Centene is bursting at seems and continues to grow and expand its business model. Heck, the US Supreme Court ruling on Thursday only helped them.

Also, I'm curious if Montgomery Bank will actually pull the trigger on their tower. They are almost like Clayton's version of a mini BPV as they continue to provide various renderings, waver from use to use, have a strong financial background to take some risk but so adverse to risk to a point that they have no space to lease when the market might take them up on an offer. I would say it is 50-50 on whether the former The Crossings development breaks ground on a second tower before Montgomery Bank decides to put up some of its own capital.

The other Clayton corporate powerhouse that seems to have gone quiet is Apex Oil.

^Same here. I never heard the earnings tax was a major issue or deal breaker. Centime knew it was there when they announced their Ballpark Village Headquarters plans.

Geoff has a write up on NextStl. Says they'll break ground in 2016

Looked like the License Office was closed yesterday. Was it just an off day, or are they out of there; is demo imminent?