Details of the $770 Million Proposal for the Centene Clayton Expansion in St. Louis

Alex Ihnen critiques the plan for the proposed, $771.8 million Centene Clayton corporate campus, which recently had another in a series of well-attended public hearings. Ihnen writes the following preamble before launching into a comprehensive evaluation of the plans merits and demerits:  

To premise the following critique, it needs to be conceded that the plan to develop vacant lots, and low-rise buildings into office towers in downtown Clayton is a good one. It’s better than good, it’s great. It has been an absurd sight as large swaths of vacant land have sat idle for a decade next to the region’s high-end business center, two MetroLink stations, and a Ritz-Carlton hotel. The $770M plan to add nearly 3,000 employees, residents, and retail to the city’s central business district is something to applaud.

Among the weaknesses of the plan, as evaluated by Ihnen, are the plan's effects on the street. "The design…completely abandons Hanley [Road] as a place for pedestrians," for instance, writes Ihnen. Moreover, "the campus master plan for employee circulation works hard to keep everyone inside, from garage to office and across the campus."

Another criticism posited by Ihnen: the need to increase the number of residential units proposed by the plan, to reduce traffic to the campus by allowing more people to live within walking distance. The plan has only taken steps in the opposite direction, according to Ihnen, decreasing from 135 to 119 in recent drafts.

Other themes of Ihnen's critique include public spaces, architecture, and NIMBYs. On that last count, Ihnen takes issue with "misplaced at best" criticisms by the opposition to the development.