Cummins Power Generation recently announced that it has purchased an 189,000-square-foot building from Medtronic, Inc., and will move its global headquarters there next year.

The sale of the building, which is located at 3850 Victoria Street in Shoreview, is expected to close in the first quarter of 2011. The purchase price will not be made public until the deal is finalized.

Cummins representative Janet Williams said that the company has outgrown its current headquarters in Fridley, which spans about 100 acres.

Williams said the company is not yet sure how many of its 1,500 local employees will relocate to the new headquarters, but that those moving are primarily in professional and administrative positions-including human resources and finance personnel-and will move to the new building early next year after the sale closes and Cummins completes some renovations.

“Making Cummins Power Generation a great place to work has been one of our principal objectives in 2010, and this move will help us reach that goal,” Tony Satterthwaite, vice president of Cummins, Inc., and president of Cummins Power Generation, said in a statement.

According to Medtronic spokesman Brian Henry, Medtronic was not marketing the building-which currently houses about 700 employees-but the sale aligns with its efforts to optimize the use of existing facilities. He said internal company research has shown that Medtronic currently has a 29 percent vacancy rate at its facilities in the Twin Cities.

The Medtronic employees at the Shoreview building will be relocated in the upcoming months to other facilities in Columbia Heights, Fridley, and Moundsview.

Cummins Power Generation designs and manufactures components that make up power generation systems, including engines, controls, alternators, transfer switches, and switchgears. It is a subsidiary of Columbus, Indiana-based Cummins, Inc., which has more than 34,000 employees and annual sales of $10.8 billion.