Ikea Helps a Town Put It Together

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New Plant Brings Hope to Manufacturing Town

The powerful global economic forces that swept away thousands of textile and tobacco jobs in Danville, Va., are now working in this small town's favor. On May 21, 2008, it became the site of Sweden-based IKEA's first furniture factory in the United States.

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The 930,000-square-foot factory, in one of Danville's industrial parks, is outfitted with all Ikea furniture and decorated in the company's trademark blue. It is devoted to making two of the chain's most popular products, Expedit bookshelves and Lack coffee tables.

Enormous machines create the wooden sandwich of high-density fiberboard and sturdy honeycomb-like paper framed by wood supports that is used in Ikea furniture, which is sold in the company's 34 U.S. stores. Another line cuts the boards and applies a finish to the side edges in birch, white or brown. The wood is then painted or covered in paper foil before moving to another line for inspection and packaging.

Swedwood North America Vice President Jorgen Lindquist said he anticipates that it will take three to six months before the plant's roughly 160 workers are up to speed. The ripple effects are already being felt, however. One of Ikea's suppliers, the Polish mattress and furniture manufacturer Com.40, announced in February that it plans to open a plant in Danville that would bring 800 jobs.

The plant's arrival was like a lifeline for Kylette Duncan, 49, who lost her job at Corning inspecting optical lenses for TVs when the company moved the manufacturing overseas in September. Duncan had worked at Corning for seven years and made $16.95 an hour.

Now she is at the Swedwood plant checking wooden boards to make sure the paint is applied correctly. Her salary is $11.50 an hour, but Duncan said she isn't complaining.

"Hey, I've got a job," she said. "Danville stayed the same for so many years, and now it's like boom, boom, boom. It's like we can get excited about Danville again."

Several Swedwood employees even went to Poland for six weeks of training earlier this year. For Shawn Crews, 32, who was hired as a security guard and now works on the paper foil line, the trip was his first time out of the country.

"It's basically just changed my whole life, to be honest with you," he said.

Now Danville boasts a Sam's Club and a PetSmart. Home Depot and Target are slated to open over the summer, making the town a regional shopping hub. Annual sales-tax receipts were up about 12 percent last fiscal year over 2004.

Sharon George, 36, is one of the residents hoping to take advantage of the new economy. Her great-grandparents moved to Danville to work at Dan River, and her grandparents carried on the tradition. George spent a year with the company in her 20s filling and quilting comforters.

Now she is training for her manufacturing technician's certification and associate's degree at Danville Community College. Ikea is on her list of prospective employers.

"I really thought Danville was going to become a ghost town," George said. "Five years ago, I never thought that anybody would have said that Danville would do anything."