COLUMBUS, Ind. (AP) — Engine maker Cummins Inc. will keep its corporate headquarters in the central Indiana city of Columbus despite looking for a larger office complex in Indianapolis, a company spokesman said.
The company wants to bring together its two current offices in downtown Indianapolis where about 100 employees now work in areas such as communications, information technology and investor relations, Cummins spokesman Jon Mills told The Republic (https://bit.ly/172HLOq ).
"Our goal is to consolidate the two ... to create more efficiencies and more collaboration," Mills said.
Cummins has for the past several months been searching for different Indianapolis office space, including the possibility of constructing a new building.
Cummins Chief Executive Officer Tom Linebarger and other top company officials have offices in Indianapolis but spend most of their time in Columbus, Mills said.
"We continue to be committed to Columbus, Indiana, as our headquarters," Mills said.
The company now has 30,000 square feet of Indianapolis office space, while it about 700,000 square feet of office space in downtown Columbus. The company has a lease until 2019 on its corporate office building in the city about 40 miles south of Indianapolis.
Cummins has some 8,000 headquarters and factory workers in Columbus and nearby cities.
Mills said it is too early to know whether any employees from Columbus would be transferred to a new Indianapolis office.
Although lack of available housing for Cummins workers and others remains an issue in Columbus that Mills said needs to be addressed, he said the company's search in Indianapolis is driven primarily by its interest in consolidation.
Columbus Mayor Kristen Brown said that since the end of 2010, nearly 800 rental apartments have been added in the city for an increase of nearly 17 percent. Brown also said the number of permits filed for single-family homes has recovered and is about double the recession low.
Cummins first established its Indianapolis operations in 2004. With about $17 billion in annual revenue, Cummins ranks as Indiana's third-largest public company, trailing only WellPoint Inc. and Eli Lilly and Co.