General Electric to Vacate Boston HQ, Reduce Footprint
Move comes as part of plan to split industrial giant into three businesses.
General Electric is moving out of its 100K SF headquarters office in the Fort Point neighborhood as the first phase of a plan to subdivide next year into three separate businesses.
The subdivided business will be: GE Healthcare, GE Vernova and GE Aerospace. GE Vernova will focus on Renewable Energy, Power, Digital, and Energy Financial Services.
The venerable jet engine and appliance maker also has put its corporate campus in Ossining, NY up for sale, according to a report in the Boston Globe.
GE is planning to occupy a smaller footprint than the 100K SF Fort Point HQ it opened three years ago.
“Winding down our physical office space in Boston and other corporate sites is the next step as part of our plan to create three independent businesses,” a GE spokesperson said, in a statement given to the Globe.
After it moved to Boston from its long-time headquarters from Connecticut in 2016, the aerospace giant announced plans for a 12-story, $200M campus that would house 800 workers in a development on a waterfront site at Boston’s Fort Point Channel.
As the industrial titan began to unwind the businesses it had established during a diversification binge in the 1980s, including dismantling its GE Capital financing unit last year, its plans for the Boston HQ changed.
The company ditched its plan for the new 12-story HQ building, limiting its workforce in Boston to 250 employees currently occupying two renovated brick buildings at 5 Necco St.
The Fort Point Channel will not be completely bereft of new development despite GE’s decision to abandon the HQ tower project.
Moving forward is the $1.2B Channelside life science development, which was approved last week by the Boston Planning & Development agency. The site for the life science project is adjacent to GE’s property.
Related Beal is developing the three-building, mixed-use life science campus on the site of a former parking lot.
The 6.5-acre site at 244-284 A St. will be transformed into a 1.1M SF mixed use development that will include 340 apartment units, the 480K SF life science hub and 322K SF of commercial space, all to be branded Channelside.
The Channelside site is next to Gillette’s World Shaving Headquarters. The development will include three buildings, a park and a public performing arts amphitheater to the community.