EFFINGHAM, Ill. — Fast-growing Beck’s Hybrids will get even bigger in 2015 as the Atlanta, Ind.-based seed company plans to build a research and distribution center in the central Illinois town of Effingham.

Details regarding terms of the transfer of land the city owns in an industrial park south of town are being finalized now and should be wrapped up in a matter of weeks, said Ashley Fisher, the company’s marketing director. During a city council meeting earlier this month, Beck’s consultant Jim Zimmer told Effingham leaders the company hopes to get started on construction immediately and plans to have research crops growing later this spring. "If all goes well, we hope to have practical farm research crops growing in the spring," he said, according to one local newspaper report.

The company and city leaders have been working on plans for the land sale for nearly 18 months, said Effingham Economic Development Director Todd Hull, and they include an agreement that calls on local officials to secure a $300,000 state grant to help cover costs of road and infrastructure improvements leading to the site in the Effingham Business Park.

Beck’s Hybrids is family-owned and -operated, and it serves farmers in Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky, Tennessee, Iowa and Missouri. It is ranked as the country’s sixth-largest seed company, but the largest independently-owned operation.

The proposed Practical Farm Research and Distribution facility would consist of three 30,000-square-foot buildings and is designed to provide seed to farmers within central and southern Illinois and eastern Missouri.

Beck’s has various facilities in four other states, including a similar research and distribution center completed late last year in London, Ohio. The company now has about 460 employees, Fisher said. The new facility in Effingham will add 30-40 jobs within two years, Zimmer said, and will cost about $2.5 million to construct.

Plans also call for an annual farm show at the site, with the first one tentatively planned for August. A similar farm show at the company’s Henderson, Ky., research facility last year, the first at that site, drew about 1,200 people from throughout the region, Zimmer said.