General Electric is set to announce the relocation of its corporate headquarters to Boston, bringing hundreds of executives from one of the world’s largest manufacturers to a city bristling with high-tech job growth.
Boston beat out a host of suitors including New York, Providence, Atlanta and GE’s longtime home base of Fairfield, Connecticut after city and state officials offered the company a variety of incentives. The company notified Gov. Charlie Baker and Boston Mayor Martin Walsh of the decision this morning, according to a Boston Globe report.
CEO Jeffrey Immelt set off the company’s real estate search last summer, citing Connecticut’s high-tax environment.
At the same time, GE is trying to reinvent itself as a technology-driven innovator in the manufacturing of its core industrial products such as jet engines and power equipment. Its strategy is to embrace “Internet of Things” sensors and data analytics to improve manufacturing efficiencies, giving it an edge against competitors such as United Technologies and Mitsubishi.
Boston’s thriving tech startup scene, higher education presence and revitalized downtown are viewed as an advantage for companies seeking to recruit top-level engineers and scientists.
“Everything we’ve been hearing about what GE was looking for, Boston is all over it,” said David Begelfer, CEO of commercial real estate development group NAIOP-Massachusetts. “They’re looking for skilled labor and an environment that is innovative. Boston is really riding a wave right now internationally as a place to be.”
GE is expected to choose from sites in the waterfront, an area that was promoted by the late former Mayor Thomas Menino as the city’s new “Innovation District” as office development boomed over the last decade and Vertex Pharmaceuticals relocated from Cambridge to a new $1 billion headquarters on Fan Pier. As rents have risen in recent years, many of the new office towers have been filled with established companies, including law firms and money managers.
“Because of (GE’s) new corporate identity and image and the fact they want to be associated with innovation and technology, the Boston decision says we’re in the right place to be,” said John Drew, CEO of the Boston-based Drew Cos. “GE for the neighborhood is a phenomenal positive in this regard.”
Drew was one of the first developers to bet on the Seaport’s potential in the late 1990s when he completed the Seaport Hotel and World Trade Center exhibition space and the Seaport East and West office complex.
According to a Boston Globe report, GE is considering various sites in the Seaport including an unspecified property on Summer Street overlooking Fort Point Channel and a parcel owned by Massport just west of the MBTA World Trade Center station. The semicircular Massport parcel is approximately an acre and currently used for surface parking.
Swedish developer Skanska USA is looking for an anchor tenant for its 121 Seaport development, a 17-story, 400,000-square-foot office tower being built on speculation. A development team led by New York-based Tishman Speyer is expected to break ground on a 13-story, 373,000-square-foot office building at the Pier 4 site on Northern Avenue. And Newton-based W/S Development is preapproved for 2.8 million square feet of development including 400,000 square feet of office space on 12.5 acres of parking lots that it acquired late last year from Boston Global Investors.
