Dive Brief:
- The city of Clayton, Missouri, will hold a public hearing Aug. 1 to discuss whether the its planning commission should rezone land parcels to make way for expansion of Centene’s headquarters, the St. Louis Business Journal reported.
- The proposed $770 million expansion would require consolidating multiple properties into four subdistricts within the city.
- The managed healthcare giant plans to complete the project with $349 million in direct funding and $276 million in bank loans.
Dive Insight:1
Plans for the project include a 1 million-square-foot, 34-story office building with retail space and parking, a 12-story parking garage with shops on the ground floor and residential units in back, and another 34-story tower with office space, corporate lodging, a civic auditorium and parking.
A 22-story office and retail unit with parking will round out the project.
According to information on Centene’s website, the expansion could add 2,000 jobs in Clayton, 1,000 of them new for Missouri.
Centene could seek up to $147 million in public funds for the development, according to the St. Louis Business Journal. The Missouri Development Finance Board has okayed $10 million in bonds from its BUILD Bond Program for the project.
The expansion comes after Centene finalized its merger with Health Net in March in hopes to boost its business in the California market. The merger came with some conditions including that Centene will invest $75 million in California's healthcare infrastructure for underserved groups and invest $200 million in support of creating new jobs. That's a large chunk of change for both a HQ expansion and to gamble on receiving more business from the California market. The insurer's Q1 earnings report showed the company lost $17 million though those costs were mostly connected to the Health Net acquisition.
Centene's revenue reached $7 billion for the first quarter -- showing growth of 36% compared to the first quarter of 2015 -- and is projected to climb to $40 billion by the end of the year. Their Q2 earnings call is on July 26.