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The Centene Corp. (NYSE: CNC) is donating its Ferguson service center to the Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis that the managed care giant opened in response to the unrest after Michael Brown’s death.
The transfer of the property from an affiliate, the Centene Management Co., is set to occur in June and will enable the Urban League to expands its services, the organization’s president and CEO, Michael McMillan, said at a press conference Thursday.
Most of the employees assigned to the Centene building at 2900 Pershall Road have been working from home since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The donation of the 44,604-square-foot building and eight-acre tract is the continuation of the legacy late Centene CEO and chairman Michael Neidorff handed to his successor, CEO Sarah London. Centene said it invested $30 million to construct the service center. The appraised total is $14.6 million and the assessed total is $4.7 million, according to St. Louis County property records.
Neidorff pushed for the project as a way that Centene could help bring stability and hope back to Ferguson after the police shooting of teenager Michael Brown in 2014.
The center opened in April 2016, with about 250 employees handling processing claims from its Missouri-based Home State Health and contracts in other states. Most of those employees lived in the Ferguson and Florissant communities and the surrounding area. Neidorff died in 2022 at the age of 79.
Centene did not respond to questions about the current number of employees assigned to the location, many of whom are working remotely. A contract employee said Thursday that the service center essentially has been closed for about two years. Signs also refer to the structure as the “training center.”
Online property records refer to the owner as “Chapter 100 – city of Ferguson.” Mayor Ella Jones didn’t immediately return a message seeking comment. A 2017 city document stated that Centene received a 75% property tax abatement for the Service Center.
“Because title to the property is held in the name of the city during the lease term, the property acquired with the bond proceeds is tax exempt, which effectively results in tax abatement for the company,” the document states, referring to Chapter 100 of state law pertaining to industrial development financing.
Reached for comment, a Centene spokesperson said in an email: “Between now and the closing, Centene will pay off the bonds, take formal title to the building and gift it to the Urban League.”
Thursday's announcement came as the Business Journal reported earlier this month that Centene Corp.'s foundation gave far less in St. Louis last year, in what amounts to $8.7 million decline in giving for the region's nonprofits. The Centene Foundation said it made $19.5 million in contributions in the St. Louis region in 2022, but that total declined to $10.8 million in 2023 – a 45% decrease – as the group shifted its focus away from the arts to health and social services programs.
Asked why the service center was being donated by the corporation instead of the foundation, its president, Keith Williamson, replied: "Because the building was constructed and owned by Centene. It was never in the foundation."
The Urban League is leaving its leased space at 8960 Jennings Station Road and moving that operation to the Centene Connected Community Center and plans to hire up to 100 employees to work there, McMillan said.
McMillan said the building will house the Urban League’s Head Start program, its housing department, an additional site for the Save Our Sons and Save Our Sisters workforce programs and a re-entry program that the local affiliate does with the National Urban League. The parking lot and the commercial kitchen will be the regional distribution center for the Urban League’s six food pantries, he added.
The building’s conference center will host events and the building will include an Enterprise Bank & Trust “mini-branch,” McMillan said.
“This will be our North County headquarters to empower, uplift and really show people that the Ferguson area is continuing to move forward in different ways,” he said.