Aerospace and building systems conglomerate United Technologies Corp. plans to move its headquarters out of downtown Hartford’s Gold Building by the of the year and into its Farmington campus, the Fortune 50 company announced Thursday afternoon.
Akhil Johri told investors at a New York City meeting that the company is looking to save more than $100 million in corporate offices expenses, according to a webcast of the meeting posted on UTC’s website. The move would take UTC’s remaining corporate employees out of the three  floors they occupy in downtown Hartford and put them in the massive campus in Farmington, where UTC occupies other space and where rents and taxes are considerably cheaper.
With UTC moving out, the Gold Building will be put up for sale by the end of the month, said Pat Mulready, senior vice president of CBRE New England, which will represent building owner Talcott Realty Investors in the sale.
The headquarters of UTC subsidiaries Carrier Corp. and Otis Elevator are in Farmington already.
UTC’s headquarters has occupied the 26-story skyscraper One Financial Plaza for the building’s entire 42-year history. The structure better known as the Gold Building even has a helicopter pad that served UTC executives and high-profile guests, but it is no longer in use.
In March 2014, UTC struck a deal with the state of Connecticut to cash in $400 million in unused research and development tax credits in exchange for UTC investing $500 million in new Connecticut facilities, such as a new corporate headquarters for East Hartford aerospace subsidiary Pratt & Whitney. State negotiators pushed hard for UTC to submit to other conditions, including keeping the corporate headquarters in Hartford, but UTC balked at such an arrangement.
The conglomerate has been slowly transitioning employees out of Hartford into the Farm Springs Road campus in Farmington for the last two years, and in 2013, UTC no longer was the Gold Building’s top occupant.
Thursday’s announcement was originally overshadowed by UTC saying it was exploring strategic options for Stratford helicopter manufacturer Sikorsky Aircraft Corp., including spinning it off as a separate company.
The two announcements Thursday were the biggest so far of new UTC CEO Gregory Hayes’ tenure. Hayes took over in November after the abrupt departure of former chief executive Louis Chenevert, and with Hayes’ background as former UTC chief financial officer, analysts projected he would run the company in a more fiscally oriented manner.
