Boston Tech Scene Gains Big Anchor Tenant in General Electric

GE announces that it has selected Boston for its corporate headquarters location.

GE has about 5,700 employees in CT, including about 800 people employed at the Fairfield headquarters.

In recent years, the company is steering its wheel software business and in last September, the company’s chief executive, Jeffrey R. Immelt, predicted that G.

In September, the city arranged a bus tour for GE officials to visit various sites in Dorchester, Roxbury, the Seaport and the Back Bay.

“Immelt said in his address to the Business Council that he is looking for an ecosystem and as GE changes as a company – looking to be a digital industrial company – he needs talent, and he is right, we don’t have the amount of digital talent you can find in Boston or NY”, he said. So is access to top academic talent and innovation; GE specifically cited Greater Boston’s 55 colleges and universities. “But this hurts”, Malloy said. He added transportation in Boston was a major selling point for GE.

“I don’t think it’s surprising that GE moved here”, said Lori Brock, Osram’s head of corporate innovation in the Americas.

The specifics on which GE employees will move where have not yet been made public.

“General Electric’s choice to move to Boston is the result of the city’s willingness and excitement to work creatively and collaboratively to bring positive activity to our local economy and continue to grow our industries”.

Malloy said he offered GE, quote, “a lot” of incentives to stay.

Although GE has been scouting new locations for three years and Boston was rumored to be on the shortlist, Stewart told CPE the announcement still came as somewhat of a surprise to many in the industry, but that it seems to be welcome news. Persuading the company to move to Boston involved city and state tax incentives and grants of $145 million at a time when CT is considering raising taxes on businesses.

GE said the move would have no material financial impact, with costs offset by state and city incentives and the sale of its current headquarters offices in Fairfield, Connecticut, and its offices at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York City. City officials have offered the company a generous property tax relief package, with some estimates as high as $25 million.

GE is almost 124 years old, and is now in the process of transforming from a finance business model to a company that will focus on clean energy, flight technology, and health sciences.

According to the newspaper, GE, called Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker and Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh Wednesday morning to share the decision. In other words, GE execs were clear that they wouldn’t stand for a tax hike, and CT just didn’t take them seriously. But increasingly, suburban office parks are losing out to urban environments that are more attractive to young, well-educated workers. However, other Connecticut State Representatives understand GE’s decision. It plans to move employees to a temporary location in Boston starting in the summer of 2016. The full move is expected to be completed in several steps by 2018.

“This is a tremendous loss at all sorts of levels”, said Republican Senate Minority Leader Len Fasano.