Corporate Headquarters & Workplace

women on staircase with shiny art installation hanging down

Russell Burns Building in Interior Design Magazine

Featured in Interior Design Magazine, the Russell Burns Building reflects Clayco's commitment to innovation, collaboration, and creating spaces built for the future.

Collage honoring Russell Burns featuring family members and Clayco leadership, historic photos of Burns working alongside Bob Clark, team photographs from Clayco's early years, and exterior views of the Russell Burns Building. The images highlight Burns' lasting impact on Clayco's culture, growth, and legacy, culminating in the dedication of the 233,000-square-foot headquarters building named in his honor.

The Russell Burns Building: A Diamond in the Rough

From a former call center to a world-class workplace, Bob Clark shares the story of the Russell Burns Building and the remarkable legacy of the man who helped shape Clayco's culture and success.

Two U.S. Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jets flying in formation over the Gateway Arch and downtown St. Louis skyline along the Mississippi River.

Welcome Home, Boeing!

Boeing moves its Defense, Space and Security headquarters to St. Louis, strengthening the region’s role as a national aerospace and defense leader.

How Lamar Johnson Collaborative Designed a Healthier HQ for First Bank

Clayco’s partner company, Lamar Johnson Collaborative, is supporting Missouri residents and businesses and making a lasting, positive impact through its successful work on the new headquarters for First Bank!

Innovative Projects with Subcontractor Weaver Steel

Weaver Steel in Saint Peters, Missouri, is one of Clayco’s subcontractors and embodies the dedication it takes to transform public spaces into hubs for human connection.

LJC Wins Big at Lerch Bates People’s Choice Awards

Clayco’s partner company, LJC, won three 2024 Lerch Bates People’s Choice Awards for Fulton East, Triangle Square Apartments, and 4300 E Camelback.

Ferrero’s Innovation Center and R&D Labs

America just got more delicious! Willy Wonka might be jealous because we have something irresistibly sweet to share from Chicago - Lamar Johnson Collaborative (LJC) designed Ferrero’s first United States Innovation Center!

Clayco's STL Office Teams are Relocating & Expanding!

Missouri has played a fundamental role in Clayco’s history and my own. I grew up and started Clayco in the St. Louis region, and it is a heartfelt focus of mine to help the area regain its past glory. As the next step toward this mission, I am thrilled to announce the relocation and expansion of our St. Louis offices and operations center! Our St. Louis regional offices will come together in Berkeley, Missouri, in a newly recycled and renovated Clayco hub. What’s truly serendipitous about this is that Clayco designed and built the office for another company 11 years ago – and soon, it will be our new home. The 230,000-square-foot facility in NorthPark Development will accommodate over 1,000 team members committed to engaging the local community with their time and hands.

September's Subcontractor of the Month: KONE

The most remarkable projects are developed through strategic partnerships that achieve exceptional results. Clayco prides itself on partnering with the best in business to embody the Art & Science of Building, and KONE is a great example of how our extended team of subcontractors helps us accomplish that. KONE is a proven global technology leader in the elevator and escalator industry. The company provides elevators, escalators, automatic building doors, and solutions for maintenance and modernization and aims to improve the flow of urban life. Clayco and KONE are devoted to safety, diversity, strong company cultures, and expertise that brings the most powerful projects to life.

600 Canal Place Earns 2022 American Architecture Award

As someone heavily drawn to the “Art & Science of Building,” the work done for Dominion Energy is a remarkable structure to highlight. Like Clayco, Pickard Chilton connects a love for art to the spaces we design and develop – which is one of the reasons why 600 Canal Place was recently awarded a 2022 American Architecture Award by The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies. Developed by Clayco and Hourigan Construction as a design-build project, Dominion Energy’s new 20-story office tower at 600 Canal Place in downtown Richmond, Virginia, was designed by Pickard Chilton, Kendall Heaton Associates, and OJB Landscape Architecture. The design team created a next-generation workplace that fosters collaboration and sustainability that will help Dominion Energy recruit and retain top talent.

Dominion Energy’s Thomas F. Farrell Building

Clayco and Hourigan Construction collaborated to provide design-build services for Dominion Energy’s new office tower in downtown Richmond, Virginia. Like Clayco, Hourigan aims to enhance communities through its integrated services and we are continuing this vision with this transformative 20-story project. The 1 million-square-foot development spans a full city block and includes a high-performance workplace for over 1,000 employees, street-level retail, employee amenities, and parking. To maintain environmental goals, the building is certified LEED Gold and implements various sustainability strategies like energy-efficient mechanical and electrical systems, an exterior landscaped terrace that captures and utilizes rainwater, and more. This is especially significant for Dominion Energy as the company is committed to safely providing reliable, affordable, and sustainable energy and achieving Net Zero emissions by 2050.

Vivid Seats Chicago HQ Designed by LJC

Vivid Seats has a new headquarters in Chicago! The 40,600-square-foot corporate HQ for the leading online ticket marketplace was designed by Clayco’s partner company Lamar Johnson Collaborative. The facility enables a hybrid work model with collaborative workspaces and an area for live events, a gym, coffee shop, bar, rooftop, and a food court in the historic Marshall Field Building downtown. All excellent reasons for people to get back to the office! Like how our work in design and building connects people through the development of spaces, Vivid Seats operates on the belief that “Life Happens Live” and unites people through one of the widest selections of events and tickets in North America. This facility helped the company construct a new identity, celebrate the brand, and prove to its team that there is no replacement for the creativity, cooperation, and innovation that comes from working together in person.

Lululemon

Although Clayco and Lululemon are very different in terms of the services we offer (us in design/build and the other a technical athletic apparel company for yoga, running, training, and most other sweaty pursuits), in a sense, we are both types of “builders” – one of structures and the other of good health! While Clayco took on the organization’s 175,000-square-foot warehouse expansion for product storage and secondary office space with additional breakrooms, offices, conference rooms, and employee amenities, Lululemon is helping people build their health and wellness. With a covered outdoor basketball court and outdoor patio spaces with canopies, our renovations may help others discover their love for fitness and the outdoors too!

Reinsurance Group of America HQ Established in MO

Clayco served as the design-builder for the Reinsurance Group of America’s (RGA) $150 million headquarters in my hometown of St. Louis, Missouri! Gensler and Fox Architects also worked on the project as the building design consultant and interior architect to help bring the 415,000-square-foot interactive and connective workplace to life. The design of the corporate campus mirrors RGA’s global brand and the local roots of its people, featuring two high-tech, five-story glass office towers connected through a stone-clad base that conceals the parking structure.

LJC Creates First Bank HQ

Lamar Johnson Collaborative is collaborating with First Bank to build its 85,000-square-foot innovative headquarters in Creve Coeur, Missouri. The facility reimagines the workplace and is being constructed for the well-being and forward-thinking future of the company’s workforce and clients. LJC’s team is designing the building to reflect the workplace changes that followed the pandemic and encourage employees to socialize, host meetings, and collaborate on projects. The structure will feature a courtyard-style office that offers flexibility between landscapes and provides natural light for each desk, with quality space and great views for each team member. First Bank’s goal is to develop a building that will last for generations and is a landmark in Creve Coeur and beyond.

Constructing Centene East Coast Headquarters

Centene Corporation, a leading multi-national healthcare enterprise, invested more than $1 billion to develop an 80-acre campus for 6,000 of its employees – and Clayco is helping to build it! Construction has been ongoing since 2020 and has been developed in multiple phases – the first being the main 770,000 square-foot, Class A office building and a 2,400-space parking garage. The development will feature office space, an early childhood development center, walking trails, water features, and more! The design also highlights the campus environment with open spaces, natural light, and the site’s natural features.

Supporting Alderman Burnett at Fulton East

As the first next-generation office building in the nation, Fulton East is built for the future. In addition to 85,000 square feet of floor-to-ceiling glass skyspace, this groundbreaking project includes health protection measures, like a hands-free elevator system, plasma disinfection technology, and touch-free secure access systems. My favorite feature of Fulton East is its amenity deck that includes 2,925 square feet of vegetated space and reflective roofing that earned the building LEED certification for reducing the project’s urban heat island effect. There was no better place to host a fundraising event for Alderman Walter Burnett, Jr. who currently represents Chicago’s 27th ward. For 26 years, Alderman Burnett, Jr. has been a great advocate for the communities he serves, and he’s a leader who has shaped Chicago in many ways.

Centene Centre - Clayton, Missouri

My relationship with Centene dates back to 2008 when Clayco won its first project with the company to build a 21-story office tower, complete with a beautifully-designed public plaza and a 1,700-space parking garage. Working with Mr. Neidorff at Centene has been one of my greatest experiences. This first project was completed in 2010 and brought new life to Clayton, Missouri. Before the construction of Centene’s headquarters, the area was suffering from the financial collapse brought on by the economic recession. Clayco managed to develop a strategic financing plan, resulting in the entire facility being nearly fully leased in less than 15 months. The entire district was elevated as businesses quickly moved in and more people were present and supporting the businesses in the area. After this first success, of which we are very proud, Clayco was awarded the $770 million project of expanding Centene’s headquarters, providing a new structure that is adjacent to the current Centene Plaza. This expansion is also expected to create 2,000 new jobs for the state of Missouri, which is particularly important in these times.

Fulton East - Chicago, Illinois

The Fulton East project in Chicago’s West Loop is the first post-COVID era workplace in the city to be designed with new health and safety protocols in mind. I love this project because we have implemented really cool changes to make sure the building is up-to-date with design and technology that accounts for the pandemic. The building is next to the Fulton Market restaurant scene and will include ground-floor retail space and a green roof outdoor space. Fulton East will be a 12-story office building with three floors of parking and eight floors of white core space for lease. The floor-to-ceiling vision glass will provide unobstructed views of the city while allowing optimal amounts of daylight into the building’s interior.

The New, New Workplace

My Design/Build company, Clayco, delivers approximately 4,000,000 square feet of class A office and call center space per year to Fortune 100 companies and other major employers. For us, creating productive work environments has always been second to the safety, security and well-being of our clients’ employees. That was before COVID-19. Now those three are even more of a priority. During recent conversations with CEOs, facility managers and chief talent officers/HR executives, we’ve speculated about what preparations may be necessary to return the workforce to the office. CEOs want their employees back for various reasons, and there are important decisions to be made, both for a few months from now, hopefully, and far beyond. A number of us working from home are struggling with tools we may have dabbled in before but which are now front and center for conducting business. Between the user interface, an overloaded Data Center capacity because of the unanticipated surge in use of Microsoft Teams, Webex, Zoom and other products, it’s been challenging. While the option of having some our workforce at home is probably here to stay, it’s often easier to collaborate, communicate and find efficiencies in the office. However, the executives I’ve talked to are eager for a return to normal, but ONLY when it’s safe. We will certainly require new guidelines, CDC recommendations and suggestions from major health institutions. As employers, it will be our job to create work environments where “de-densifying” and social distancing can work in every department. Some companies have already started thinking about a “care package” to be distributed to their workforce before they return to work. This could include guidelines and maps for new routes to their workspaces, healthcare products like hand sanitizer and masks, and even goggles. Work hours may be staggered in some facilities. Making workers feel that their managers care about them and their families will be critical. The front-line facility people will be more important than ever. Property management, security, compliance and life safety should be top of mind. Re-evaluating every step from receiving for deliveries to the dock door itself, as well as the best cleaning products to use, will need to be scrutinized to protect those involved. Safeguarding up-close contact areas with plexiglass separations, to having more sophisticated UV protection in the HVAC system, more fresh air overall, and other mechanical changes, will be required.