Boston Scientific selling 24-acre Minnetonka complex, moving workers to Maple Grove expansion

Medical device maker Boston Scientific is selling one suburban Twin Cities property and ballooning another’s footprint, the latest example of area companies concentrating operations in fewer but often fast-growing locales.

The medtech company recently listed its 226,000-square-foot complex on 24 acres in Minnetonka, a step toward sunsetting its longtime presence in the western suburb. Meanwhile, just a 14-minute drive up I-494, construction is underway on a 52,000-square-foot expansion of the company’s 79-acre Weaver Lake spot, officially located at 1 Scimed Place in Maple Grove.

That $139.4 million project looks quaint compared to Boston Scientific’s second Maple Grove complex: a $170 million, 400,000-square-foot campus that employees could start moving into by the end of this year.

“Across Boston Scientific, we continuously align our real estate and workspace to support our business strategy as well as our growth,” a spokesperson said in an email. “As part of that ongoing process, we made the decision to move employees from our Minnetonka site in Minnesota to our Weaver Lake site in Maple Grove, Minnesota.”

Boston Scientific initially said that move could happen later this year but then amended the timeline to the first half of 2026.

The for-sale Minnetonka parcel includes lab, warehouse and the highest-class office space, according to listing information from real estate company CBRE. That did not include an asking price, but Hennepin County property records show four adjacent parcels at the 10700 Bren Road W. address have a combined 2025 assessed market value of $14.8 million.

As of March, Boston Scientific employed roughly 10,000 workers in Minnesota — in Minnetonka, Maple Grove and a 92-acre complex in Arden Hills — with its workforce approximately doubling in the past 15 years. Despite its Massachusetts name and HQ, all eight of the company’s divisions do business in Minnesota, including its large cardiology segment headquartering in the state.

The company declined to answer specific questions about the Minnetonka sale, including parts of the business that operated there and if this could prompt any layoffs. The listing said the company will consider leasing the facility through June 2026 but will cease all operations and occupancy at that time.

Per property records, half of the Minnetonka buildings were built in 1991, with the rest coming in 2007. The listing also said the property experienced a redevelopment in 2013. American Medical Systems, which Boston Scientific partly acquired in 2015, previously was located on the campus.

The campus’ Fortune 500 pedigree is what makes it attractive, said CBRE Senior Vice President Harrison Wagenseil.

“They take very good care of their assets typically,” Wagenseil said, adding the property is beautiful and in a great location.

It’s near a stop on the under-construction expansion of the Metro Green Line light rail and part of “one of Minneapolis-St. Paul’s most affluent and dynamic suburban submarkets,” per the listing.

“In that general area, there’s a lot of medtech and life science companies, even biologic companies,” Wagenseil said. “So, it’s a hot spot.”

UnitedHealth Group, for example, headquartered in Minnetonka on Bren Road East starting in 1998. But the health care giant elected to not renew its lease on the 10-story, 344,000-square-foot office building in 2022. Employees moved into an Eden Prairie building, and the former HQ was vacant and in financial distress as of January.

Boston Scientific’s expansions in Maple Grove will support the influx of Minnetonka employees and boast room for training as well as research and development. They will also produce 440 new full-time equivalent jobs by 2030, city filings said.

Other Minnesota companies are buying into the northwest suburbs, too: Graco is leaving northeast Minneapolis within two years to HQ near new factories and distribution centers it built in Anoka, Dayton and Rogers.

Commercial real estate, particularly office space, has struggled in the wake of the pandemic as remote and hybrid work has reduced demand. But some areas of the Twin Cities metro are faring better than others. The overall vacancy rate for the amenity-rich “class A” office space in the Twin Cities was 24.8% in the first quarter of 2025, per a Colliers report, but in the office-dominated central business district of downtown Minneapolis, that rose to 28.7%.

The vacancy rate in the northwest suburbs, including Maple Grove: 14.7%. Along the I-394 corridor where Minnetonka is: 21.2%.

Staff writers Jim Buchta and Katy Read contributed to this report.