Crews are building a fertilizer storage and distribution facility for the J.R. Simplot Company in Baker City.

The J.R. Simplot Co. is building a liquid fertilizer storage and distribution facility in Baker City’s industrial park that is slated to open in early spring.

The Simplot Grower Solutions operation will employ seven people initially, with the potential to increase to about a dozen workers, Josh Jordan, senior manager for communications and public relations for the J.R. Simplot, wrote in an email to the Herald. Based in Boise, Idaho, Simplot is a major supplier  of frozen french fries.

The company paid $235,620 for a 14.28-acre parcel from Baker City in the city’s 64-acre Elkhorn View Industrial Park.

The facility is “part of a longer-term plan to build a permanent facility to meet the needs of area farmers, many of whom grow potatoes that we use at our processing facilities,” Jordan wrote.

The Baker City facility will not produce fertilizer.

Simplot has two main production plants, one in Pocatello, Idaho, and one in Rock Springs, Wyoming, that supply the company’s more than 200 Grower Solutions stores, Jordan wrote in his email.