Centene Plans $1B Regional HQ in Charlotte

Centene’s East Coast headquarters in Charlotte, N.C. Image courtesy of Centene Corp.

Centene Corp. has selected Charlotte, N.C., for the location of its new 1 million-square-foot East Coast headquarters. The St. Louis-based health-care administration company, which conducted a comprehensive evaluation process in its search for a regional home, will invest $1 billion in the development of a campus that will generate 6,000 new jobs.

Centene will build its East Coast headquarters on a site along Governor Hunt Road in University Research Park. The campus will take shape in four phases and will ultimately consist of several buildings encompassing office space, a data center and Centene Tech University, the company’s corporate learning and development center.

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Centene’s new location will also offer a host of amenities, including meeting space, a childcare and early education center, dining venues and a fitness center. Additionally, the state-of-the-art property will feature technology enabling remote collaboration in today’s emerging work-from-home climate and connection to the corporate network throughout the campus via Wi-Fi.

Construction of Centene’s Charlotte project is on schedule to commence in August, with the delivery of the first phase planned for the second half of 2022. Centene expects to commence the second phase of the project in 2024.

National Growth Spurt

News of Centene’s decision to establish its East Coast headquarters in Charlotte comes while the company is in the midst of developing a new 68-acre West Coast headquarters in the Natomas area of Sacramento, Calif.

Centene has been doing its share of signing tenant agreements, as well. As noted in its annual report, the company generally leases space in the states where its health plans, specialty companies and claims processing facilities operate.

Just weeks ago, in May, Centene pre-leased Renaissance Center 7, a 118,800-square-foot project in Tampa, in its entirety. And in the fourth quarter of 2019, the multi-tenant Centene Centre delivered fully leased in St. Louis, with Centene as the anchor tenant occupying 70 percent of the 640,000-square-foot tower’s space.