GE SHEDS LIGHT ON HQ PLANS

Includes new 12-story Fort Point building

General Electric’s threebuilding headquarters campus in Fort Point is slated to span more than 400,000 square feet with a proposed new 12-story building that includes a “vertical village” — a glass-enclosed “core of activity” connecting GE employees and visitors.

“The project will reflect both the project site’s industrial past and GE’s digital future,” Ann Klee, GE’s vice president of global operations for environment, health and safety, said in a letter of intent submitted yesterday to the Boston Redevelopment Authority.

The industrial giant plans an approximately 293,000-square-foot building on 2.48 acres that it is buying from South Bostonbased Gillette Co. The new building will be next to two brick warehouse buildings at 5 and 6 Necco Court that GE will renovate.

The project is expected to cost GE between $80 million and $100 million, and will include office, lab, meeting and maker space, a bistro/cafe cafeteria, coffee bar, museum and community co-working lounge. The “vertical village” will be part of the new building’s design.

“We’re very focused on bringing the outside in to GE,” spokeswoman Sue Bishop said. “That was part of the reason we chose Boston — because of the great ecosystems there for startups, the universities, researchers, technology companies.”

GE hopes to move into the new complex in 2018. It initially estimated the campus’ size at about 300,000 square feet, but Bishop said the project evolved. “The space and the zoning allowed for us to go higher than we originally thought,” she said.

GE announced in January that it would move its headquarters from Fairfield, Conn., and in March pinpointed the South Boston location, which eventually will employ up to 800 people. The state and city committed up to $145 million in subsidies and tax breaks to lure GE here.

Its new building will be connected to the renovated buildings by a pedestrian bridge and GE Plaza, a passageway extending from Necco Street to Fort Point Channel.

The renovated buildings also will be connected with a shared lobby with elevators within an atrium and winter garden.

GE’s project also calls for more than 57,000 square feet of open space and Boston Harborwalk improvements along the channel.

Meanwhile, 150 to 200 GE employees will start moving into 68,000 square feet of temporary offices at 31-44 Farnsworth St. in Fort Point in July and August, with the first official day of work there set for Aug. 22.

“We currently have three floors, and we’ll be picking up another one between now and the end of the year,” Bishop said.