GE Brings Things To Life In Boston; Lights Out In Connecticut

Direct access to Logan International Airport was likely a factor in picking the Seaport District over sites in the Boston suburbs or Westchester County, NY, Stewart said.

As a $130 billion global firm, GE is “leading the digital transformation of industry”, Chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt said in a statement.

The legislature and Malloy made more changes in a December special session called to reduce a $350 million budget shortfall.

According to media reports in June, GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt, started planning to find a new headquarters by emailing employees and telling them that company was considering relocating to a state with “a more pro-business environment”. In a later special session, some of those corporate tax increases were reduced. We want to be at the center of an ecosystem that shares our aspirations. GE has had operations in Somersworth for almost 70 years and at one time had employed 2,000 people at the facility.

According to the article, Boston’s Mayor Martin J. Walsh and Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker have been working hard over the past few months to “lure” GE to the city that has seen a lot of big businesses move in over the years. “If they sell the building somebody buying it will still pay the taxes”, Tetreau said, “so the tax revenue should be protected or replaced, but there is so much else – charitable donations, volunteer work, purchases from small vendors and suppliers – so many other things they do”. In Boston, GE will have roughly 800 people; 200 from corporate staff and 600 digital industrial product managers, designers and developers split between GE Digital, Current, robotics and Life Sciences.

“General Electric’s decision to move their headquarters and jobs from CT to MA is a direct result of Democrat Gov. Dan Malloy’s failed leadership and eagerness to drive business out of his state through job-killing policies”.

Still, GE has deep roots in NY. “GE would have received significant tax breaks, whether it relocated to Manhattan or Westchester”, he said in a statement.

But the company will also be receiving $25 million in tax relief over 20 years from the city of Boston, $1 million in state workforce training grants, $5 million from the state for an “innovation center”, housing assistance for GE employees, and up to $120 million from the state for public infrastructure projects.

CT also has many corporate tax structures that are less favourable than other states’, such as rules that could put more of GE’s global sales within Connecticut’s grasp, and those probably also tipped the decision, Walczak said.

“I think it was a bit of a stretch for GE to come to Providence”, Hively said. Bloomberg recently ranked MA the No. 1 state for innovation. Businesses care about talent, and we will continue our investments in our higher education system in order to connect them to the needs of high-tech employers.