Sunshine Health, a subsidiary of Centene Corp., is seeking $375,000 in taxpayer incentives to expand its local workforce by 125 jobs and make a capital investment up to $900,000.
Incentives for the St. Louis-based managed health care solutions company would come from the Qualified Target Industry Tax Refund. The city will pay up to $75,000, while the state will cover the remaining $300,000.
The company is slated to spend $900,000 — $450,000 in renovations and $450,000 in equipment and furniture. The expansion is proposed as an additional 11,000 square feet of office space at a complex near its local offices at 8301 Cypress Plaza Drive.
A pending building permit application shows Centene Sunshine State Health proposes to renovate 10,470 square feet of space in The Concourse at 5120 Belfort Road, at an estimated cost of $188,460. That would be the site of the expansion, said Beth Nunnally, Centene vice president of external affairs.
The company in August also received a permit to renovate space at the nearby Cypress Plaza location.
The 125 jobs would be in addition to retaining its current 107 employees, for a total workforce of 232. The new jobs would be local hires.
Average annual salaries of the new employees will be almost $49,000, the same as the existing jobs, according to a project summary. The jobs would be created by the end of the year.
Dubbed “Project Cardinal,” the City Council Finance Committee will have a special meeting at 2 p.m. Tuesday to discuss the deal. If approved, it could be passed by the full council that evening. Nunnally said a representative from the corporate office would be at the meeting.
Centene is a Fortune 500 company and from 2011-12 jumped from No. 453 to No. 303 on the list. It has locations in Jacksonville, Sunrise, Tampa and Orlando. Nunnally said the company recently reached 1,000 employees in the state and has about 9,000 nationwide.
Mayor Alvin Brown said in an earlier news release that the deal “highlights the important and growing contribution of the health care industry to our local economy.”
In 2007, the company acquired ownership interest in Access Health Solutions, with Sunshine Health being created to incorporate Access into a full-risk model that maintains a local approached to Medicaid managed care.