GE moving headquarters to Boston to tap tech talent

General Electric’s announcement that it is relocating its headquarters and bringing 800 jobs to Boston brought a whoop of excitement from City Hall.

However, GE ultimately chose Boston due to the fact that MA spends more on research and development compared with any other region worldwide, and because Boston attracts a diverse and technologically-fluent workforce which is focused on solving the many challenges of the world. “GE is going to have an opportunity to reshape Boston in a really positive way”, said John Gallaugher, an associate professor at Boston College’s Carroll School of Management.

Three years ago, the $130 billion high-tech global industrial company said it began considering a new composition and location for its headquarters.

In making its decision, Immelt said Boston was selected based on the evaluation of business ecosystem, talent, long-term costs, qualify of life for employees, connections with the world and proximity to other important company assets.

GE Chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt said in a statement on its website that Boston will be the next location of the company’s corporate office.

GE will also be selling its offices in Fairfield, Conn., and at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York City.

General Electric’s decision to move its headquarters from Fairfield to Boston gives Connecticut Republicans “good talking points for the upcoming legislative races”, a University of Connecticut political science professor said Thursday.

The new headquarters for the company, which is now ranked number 8 on the Fortune 500, will be located in the Seaport District of Boston, also known as the Innovation District.

GE is attempting to position itself as a “digital industrial” company by expanding a business providing data analytical capabilities for its heavy-duty equipment. It is expected to complete by 2018.

Fair to say this was a brilliant day for Boston.

Mr. Malloy declined to offer details on what financial incentives the state offered GE, but said “we were highly competitive”.

MA and Boston offered the company incentives worth up to $145 million, which included up to $25 million in property-tax relief.

As recently as Monday, Phil Oliva, a senior adviser to Westchester County Executive Robert P. Astorino, said, “They’ve narrowed down the sites and Westchester is still in play”. He said last year’s business tax increases, which prompted GE to threaten moving out and led state lawmakers and Malloy to scale back some hikes, was a “catalyst” to GE deciding to finally leave.

“I think they’re going to do what they’re going to do, that’s what I think”, he said Monday. But increasingly, suburban office parks are losing out to urban environments that are more attractive to young, well-educated workers. That’s a lot of inducement for a headquarters that will house about 800 employees.

Even the head of the state’s largest business organization, Joe Brennan, concedes that tech-rich Boston might be better-suited in some ways for GE’s ambitions to be a global technology leader.

Senate President Martin M. Looney also released a statement on the move by GE.

Although the tax breaks are generous, they were not the key reasons for GE’s choice of Boston.

In some ways, General Electric mirrors Massachusetts’ transition from blue-collar manufacturing to the knowledge economy.