Raytheon's former Cambridge Highlands campus, which it sold to life science developer Healthpeak Properties for $180 million in September 2021. Image courtesy of Newmark
Raytheon Technologies’ relocation of its global headquarters from Waltham to Virginia could affect its future real estate footprint in Massachusetts, where the defense contractor occupies over 2.5 million square feet of commercial properties.
Raytheon announced its plans Tuesday, saying a headquarters in Arlington, Virginia “increases agility in supporting U.S. government and commercial aerospace customers and serves to reinforce partnerships that will progress innovative technologies to advance the industry.”
A company spokesman said “there would be no reduction in the defense company’s Massachusetts workforce as a result of the move.”
The headquarters relocation comes nine months after Raytheon sold its BBN Technologies headquarters in Cambridge to life science developer Healthpeak Properties for $180 million. The company has a lease that runs for another five years at the 229,000-square-foot office and R&D campus off Concord Avenue.
In February, a pair of Woburn office buildings leased to Raytheon’s missile defense technologies division were acquired by life science developer Alexandria Real Estate Equities for $125 million. The properties at 225 and 235 Presidential Way span approximately 440,000 square feet.
Raytheon also occupies properties in Andover, Bedford, Billerica, Burlington, Concord, Framingham, Norwood, Quincy, Tewksbury and Marlborough, according to data from real estate researchers Costar.
Raytheon owns the 870 Winter St. headquarters in Waltham, which includes 163,000 square feet of office space.
Reacting to the surprise announcement, Bay State business leaders questioned whether the decision was a negative verdict on the state’s competitiveness.
“It won’t be the last headline that we read in that regard,” Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation President Eileen McAnneny said after the host of a forum on the state budget read a breaking news alert about the company’s plans. Companies are “much more attuned to relative cost differences,” she said.
Raytheon said it had not “accepted or sought” financial incentives from any state or municipality as part of the move, and said it would “maintain its strong U.S. presence which includes 600 facilities across 44 states and territories.”
The company’s four business units have operations in Virginia, Raytheon said, and its new global headquarters will be in Arlington’s Rosslyn neighborhood alongside the Raytheon Intelligence & Space business.
Raytheon Technologies Corporation’s four businesses are Collins Aerospace, Pratt & Whitney, Raytheon Intelligence & Space, and Raytheon Missiles & Defense. In 2020, the company was formed after Raytheon Company and the United Technologies Corporation aerospace businesses combined their businesses.
At the Massachusetts Association of Health Plans’ budget forum, association president Lora Pellegrini called the news a “timely message.”
“Raytheon is moving out of the state, and they’re moving to Virginia,” she said. “So I think to your point about us creating an economy, and a place where people want to live and work, and it’s affordable, maybe that is one of the reasons Raytheon is moving. Obviously, it’s a huge loss to the commonwealth.”
McAnneny went on to recall tax policy changes enacted in the 1990s to retain Raytheon, at a time when the Department of Defense was doing belt-tightening and the company was exploring a potential move to Arizona and its more favorable tax climate.
The Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance used the news to draw attention to a constitutional amendment on the November ballot enabling a new 4 percent surtax on household income above $1 million per year, a measure that Democrats in the state legislature have advanced to raise money for education and transportation.
The alliance opposes the surtax and said it would push the tax climate here “further into unfriendly territory for businesses and their employees.”
Banker & Tradesman staff writer Steve Adams contributed to this report.
