DASHED HOPES: The collapse of an insurance industry star's landmark project cost Charlotte a major windfall.

• Author: Martin, Edward

Construction scaffolding and exposed beams lent a touch of reality as Centene CEO Michael Neidorff, standing next to Gov. Roy Cooper, pointed out details on a tabletop architectural model of a huge building under construction in northeast Charlotte.

"It's amazing," Cooper beamed, "what a billion dollars can do." At the June 2021 gathering at Charlotte's University Research Park, Neidorff told Cooper, Mayor Vi Lyles and others that 3,230 employees would soon work in the 800,000-squarefoot structure for the nation's largest Medicaid managed-care insurance company.

The $450 million in potential state and local incentive payments, arranged by Cooper and others, helped entice what promised to be one of North Carolina's biggest economic-development home runs. Lyles hailed the project as a "milestone" for the area.

The plan called for a completed building by late 2022, when construction would be well under way on adjacent campus projects. Centene envisioned recreational areas, a child-care site and other amenities.

It all sounded logical given Neidorff's success in creating a Fortune 500 company with 71,000 employees. Centene's plans seemed akin to New York financial services giant TIAA, which opened an adjacent 92-acre campus in 2000 that now employs 5,000.

But Neidorff's promises of new jobs and investment are now a distant memory.

In August, Centene told Cooper it was quitting the unfinished project after investing $700 million. That's more than triple the amount of money that Carolina Panthers David Tepper walked away from at his ballyhooed Rock Hill, South Carolina development after disputes with municipal leaders earlier this year.

The Centene property, which Neidorff said would become its East Coast headquarters, is listed for sale by the Cushman & Wakefield real estate firm. It's hoped that a major enterprise will pounce on the building--probably at a big discount. "They're watching a couple of hundred million dollars evaporate," says a Charlotte executive who helped attract Centene.

Centene, in a statement, says the reversal reflects "a fundamental shift in the way people want to work. About 90% of our workforce is fully remote or in a hybrid work environment, and workplace flexibility is essential to attracting and retaining top talent." Officials declined to elaborate.

The company is "drastically" office space across the U.S., as more employees work remotely or in hybrid settings, notes Sam Chan, Cooper's press secretary. The company employs 1,300 statewide, including 700 in Charlotte.

But there was much more to Centene's expensive incursion into the University City area near UNC Charlotte than bungled planning and a shifting workplace culture, according to people familiar with the failed project. Several other factors behind the abrupt shift have received limited attention.

Perhaps most...