Could this be a Covid-related delay Neidorff is using to get the region to act with regards to crime impacting his recruitment efforts? I expect construction to possibly slow once current backlogs are built. I may be wrong if there’s a big economic bounce back, but that remains to be seen.
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Whatever. It’s on hold because they’re leaving. Crime was awful in StL when they announced this plan.
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I heard they wiped out their entire marketing department of 70-100 employees. They are outsourcing marketing now to HLK.
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^^Leaving? Can you elaborate?
Theory or do you have insider info?
Theory or do you have insider info?
^ I'm sure that was just conjecture. I don't think Centene is going anywhere...but if the St. Louis region can't get its head screwed on straight in the next couple years I could definitely see them moving the HQ to Charlotte. I don't think they'll ever lay off the more than 5,000 people they employ here and then abandon all the real estate they have in STL.
If I were Michael Neidorff, instead of b*tching about crime in the press, I'd be working the County Executive and the City Mayor to get the BoF launched and start working out ways to improve the region...crime rates and all.
If I were Michael Neidorff, instead of b*tching about crime in the press, I'd be working the County Executive and the City Mayor to get the BoF launched and start working out ways to improve the region...crime rates and all.
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I figured it was more of a theory. The issue we face as a region is the fact that most are content with the fragmented government here. Not to mention crime has been a serious problem in STL for decades. The dysfunctional relationship between the prosecutors office and the police department makes it worse, not to mention the shortage of police officers. I’m pretty sure the unfortunate “caught on the crossfire“ murder on 170 only fuels his feelings on our region & crime. We have got to fix it, regardless of what Centene does. I believe the claims that recruiting talent is tough, due to our reputation (fair or not). Perception is reality to outsiders.
^ Completely agree. However...Centene trying to pull strings in the city and county police departments without any public input isn't the way to do it. We saw how that blew up in their face a couple weeks ago. We have a voter approved method in the Board of Freeholders that could not only be used to improve policing, but that could also be used to improve the regions courts, the airport, public health, etc...and from what I can tell Neidorff (and other area executives, he's hardly the only one) would rather try the typical STL backroom bullsh*t. Incredibly frustrating.
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I know for a fact that they plan on leasing 3/4 of their new building and it truly is bye-bye STL and hello Charlotte. They love Charlotte.
We are losers.
We are losers.
Could be great news for STL. No coastal firm will ever want a million sqft at the ATT building but this space is brand new and ready to use tomorrow. Huge opportunity to land a coastal firmwhitherSTL wrote: ↑Dec 15, 2020I know for a fact that they plan on leasing 3/4 of their new building and it truly is bye-bye STL and hello Charlotte. They love Charlotte.
We are losers.
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Yeah, history has proven that losing a Fortune 50 HQ does wonders for the original metro area. What.ldai_phs wrote: ↑Dec 15, 2020Could be great news for STL. No coastal firm will ever want a million sqft at the ATT building but this space is brand new and ready to use tomorrow. Huge opportunity to land a coastal firmwhitherSTL wrote: ↑Dec 15, 2020I know for a fact that they plan on leasing 3/4 of their new building and it truly is bye-bye STL and hello Charlotte. They love Charlotte.
We are losers.
Just trying to look on the bright side. 750,000 sqft of premium Class A space is a good thing to have right now with companies to relocate to away from coasts. You can either be sad or look try and look at the brightside of things.whitherSTL wrote: ↑Dec 15, 2020Yeah, history has proven that losing a Fortune 50 HQ does wonders for the original metro area. What.ldai_phs wrote: ↑Dec 15, 2020Could be great news for STL. No coastal firm will ever want a million sqft at the ATT building but this space is brand new and ready to use tomorrow. Huge opportunity to land a coastal firmwhitherSTL wrote: ↑Dec 15, 2020I know for a fact that they plan on leasing 3/4 of their new building and it truly is bye-bye STL and hello Charlotte. They love Charlotte.
We are losers.
We’ve known they’ve planned on leasing out most of that building to other firms since day one. Bank of America announced the consolidation of all their suburban office space here in 2018.
^^ Lol, other than this guy, no one is talking about Centene vacating any of their more than half a dozen office spaces in St. Louis. This building is currently fully leased so there isn’t 750,000 square feet available to any firm.
A point was made in ldai_phs's post. I doubt we will see Centene vacate their St. Louis space, but the point made seems pretty spot on. Say Centene vacates all their space here, Clayton is a hot office market and large space goes quick there (as is being seen at Forsyth Point). So having additional space become available would most likely fill up. And since the space is Class A or higher, then you could start getting interest from outside the area companies wanting to open up a presence here. To me, that post makes sense.
As for Centene pulling what they're pulling, it doesn't surprise me. If all they're going to do is b**** about St. Louis meanwhile they take $500 Million in incentives from Charlotte, then they can beat it. And in particular, Neirdorff can beat it. Centene's time to shine here came and went. The City of Clayton should revoke any and all incentives issued for the Clayton Campus and just be done with them.
As for Centene pulling what they're pulling, it doesn't surprise me. If all they're going to do is b**** about St. Louis meanwhile they take $500 Million in incentives from Charlotte, then they can beat it. And in particular, Neirdorff can beat it. Centene's time to shine here came and went. The City of Clayton should revoke any and all incentives issued for the Clayton Campus and just be done with them.
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^^Of course, keep your sources confidential if you choose, but what hard evidence do you have that Centene is leaving STL for Charlotte (In a much larger capacity than we know)
If they leave, I’d bet another local firm would grab the space, causing a domino effect in the local office market. Losing Centene is a terrible loss. Let’s focus on keeping them....
If they leave, I’d bet another local firm would grab the space, causing a domino effect in the local office market. Losing Centene is a terrible loss. Let’s focus on keeping them....
^ The likelihood they'll layoff over 5,000 people is highly unlikely. A HQ move, regulating STL to a branch office, is much more likely if things don't change locally.
I was reading through the comments on stltoday and one did raise an interesting point. With the pandemic and working from home, could this just be an excuse to get out of building further office space that as of right now isn't needed at all? If they bothered to look at the actual statistics they'd know that Charlotte and St. Louis are about even with crime when comparing metropolitan areas.
Granted, a pandemic seems like a perfectly good excuse in itself to press pause without burning the city in the process.
I was reading through the comments on stltoday and one did raise an interesting point. With the pandemic and working from home, could this just be an excuse to get out of building further office space that as of right now isn't needed at all? If they bothered to look at the actual statistics they'd know that Charlotte and St. Louis are about even with crime when comparing metropolitan areas.
Granted, a pandemic seems like a perfectly good excuse in itself to press pause without burning the city in the process.
I've got a bad feeling about this. I just hope they don't go all Kroenke on us on the way out.
Greater St. Louis Inc. is facing it's first huge challenge, that's for sure.
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As we know, Neidorff had been working behind closed doors to get greater cooperation between City & County police. However, he cannot get a full on merger of departments without a vote, correct? I think he sheds light on a serious issue in our region. It’s time for leaders to step up & take action.... not because of Centene’s threats... because something major needs to change! When will people in this region understand how much fragmentation has cost our region?!?!
Might be cynical, but Nierdorff's comments have always struck me as being about providing him cover and justification for when he relocates HQ to Charlotte. It seems like he has a history of taking advantage of certain narratives he's created as leverage for a secondary motive. Ballpark Village flirtation came after he wrestled with Clayton on their original plans. He threatened that jobs would be lost if he didn't get the deal he wanted, floated relocation to other states and ultimately played the city against the county all to land his HQ in the exact spot he originally intended.
Suddenly taking a much more public stance on crime problems in the city that served as their HQ during their explosive growth phase seemed like convenient way to justify the Charlotte investment, which was mostly about the massive incentives. Announcing that they're halting further building in Clayton again seems to be greasing the wheels when most people probably realized they never had intent on building things like the auditorium and the public atriums, etc.
You can sort through this very thread and see how many times they've done the dance
Suddenly taking a much more public stance on crime problems in the city that served as their HQ during their explosive growth phase seemed like convenient way to justify the Charlotte investment, which was mostly about the massive incentives. Announcing that they're halting further building in Clayton again seems to be greasing the wheels when most people probably realized they never had intent on building things like the auditorium and the public atriums, etc.
You can sort through this very thread and see how many times they've done the dance
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Elected officials and corporate leaders have talked endlessly about our crime problem for years but have never attempted anything major to actually address it. If this forces them to finally get off their butts and try something then so be it.