Clayton and the city of St. Louis were not alone in vying to become home to a new headquarters for Centene Corp., the health benefits manager that is now pursuing a $211 million project in Clayton.

In the same quarter that Centene announced its intent to move downtown and become a part of Ball Park Village, it had in hand offers — economic development incentives that included “new market credits, training credits, enterprise credits and other applicable credits” — from Denver, Detroit, and Winchester, Virginia (about 80 miles from Washington, D.C.), as well as from Belleville, East Alton, Godfrey, and Swansea, Illinois, and from Chesterfield, Creve Coeur, and Richmond Heights, Missouri.

This is according to the “Missouri Build Application” Centene filed with the Missouri Department of Economic Development, dated May 8, 2008.

It would be interesting to get the municipalities from this region together in a public meeting to compare notes on their conversations with Centene — and to consider whether everybody (not least the taxpayer) might have been better served by a more coordinated approach to the project.

(Pictured: Centene Corp. president Michael Neidorff (left) and Mayor Francis Slay on Sunday, September 23, 2007 announce the company’s move of its headquarters from Clayton to Ballpark Village, shown here in a model of downtown presented at a news conference at the History Museum in St. Louis. Huy R. Mach | Post-Dispatch)