The Seaport Could Say ‘Hello’ to a Helipad

Photo via iStock.com/Erchog

It was one of the big asks from General Electric when the corporation was considering whether to relocate its headquarters from Connecticut to Boston, and now it’s moving closer to becoming reality.

Officials this week announced that they are considering the Seaport neighborhood as the possible site of a taxpayer-funded helipad, a surface from which executives at GE (or others with the resources to fly by chopper) could land and take off on the way to do business in other cities. A pier owned by the city near the Blue Hills Bank Pavilion has been picked as its most likely location, the Globe reports. The plans were presented at a meeting held at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center last night, which according to UniversalHub was packed with neighbors concerned about the possibility of noise and disruption.

GE top brass said they would be interested in having a waypoint for helicopters, which they use to avoid wasting time on highways and at airports when they travel to New York or to nearby airports like Hanscom Field in Bedford. A Seaport site would be not far from GE’s new, yet-to-be-built headquarters along the Fort Point Channel.

A helipad was part of the discussion city and state officials had with GE, alongside a package of incentives that included millions in tax breaks and infrastructure spending. It would not be GE’s property, and would in fact be open to the public.

Plans are far from finalized. Officials say they are collecting public input and will produce a report in January. It’s also possible, for example, to build one out on the water, rather than on land or on an existing structure.

There are currently private helipads at four Boston hospitals and the office of the Boston Globe. The last time Boston had a public helistop was in 1999.