A year ago, Danny Eanes was a Goodyear retiree hauling sand. Now he owns Eanes Concrete with his partner Philip Hudgins and has landed the contract to provide the concrete for the new Swedwood plant.

“I already had Eanes Excavating, and then I bought some trucks and went into Eanes Hauling to haul sand,” Eanes said Thursday. “Then I came to Rowland Concrete and asked about the chance to haul sand for the company if they got behind. He (the owner) asked if I just wanted to buy the business and haul for myself.”

So he did.

Eanes’ business has “grown and grown” since that time, he said, and is getting ready to grow some more in preparation to haul the concrete for Swedwood, a manufacturing subsidiary for IKEA which will be located at the Cane Creek Centre.

“I will definitely have to hire more people and buy more trucks,” he said. “It’s a major deal.”

Eanes predicted his company will haul 14 loads at 26 tons per truck of sand out a day since 800 to 1,000 yards of concrete are to be poured a day. Eanes also will haul in excess of 1,000 tons of rock a day from the Vulcan quarry in Pelham, N.C., and mix the sand and rocks with cement from Roanoke.

“Whatever it takes, I’ll get it in here,” Eanes said. “I’m excited to get started. You’ve got to set your goals high. I’m not the type to retire and sit down.”

Another local firm, Dewberry, was instrumental in the Swedwood project.

“We helped the Danville-Pittsylvania County Regional Industrial Facilities Authority bring Swedwood to town,” project manager Shawn Harden said Friday. “We laid out the grading, utilities and parking - the civil infrastructure.”

Harden said Swedwood had an idea of what they wanted and how big of a site was needed, and Dewberry, an architectural design company, put together an exhibit last year to show how the plant would fit into the site.

Dewberry’s job now that Swedwood is in town is to make sure the 200-acre site is constructed properly and perform the surveying and stakeout work.

Dewberry, which is headquartered in Fairfax and has 33 offices in 16 states, provided the site and civil engineering services for the entire Cane Creek Centre, according to a news release.

This included the “environmental permitting and design of a Norfolk Southern rail spur.”

The Mid-Atlantic Broadband Cooperative also hired Dewberry to provide “planning, permitting, design and construction management” to develop the Regional Backbone Initiative, a fiber optic cable route that spans 20 counties, five cities and more than 60 industrial parks and businesses.

The Cane Creek Centre’s access to the cable route was another key factor in Swedwood’s decision to locate its first North American furniture manufacturing plant in the area.

The Swedwood factory will be one of the largest economic development investments ever in the area. Swedwood plans on beginning operations in late 2007 and eventually employing more than 700 workers.