Photo by Sam Dean | The Roanoke Times

Commonwealth Transportation Board Member Dana Martin (left) and Virginia Secretary of Transportation Pierce Homer promoted the plan.

The placement of an intermodal hub in Elliston has big potential to improve Southwest Virginia as a business location, state leaders and business people said Tuesday.

It will be at least 2010 before the new facilities for shifting freight containers between trucks and trains are ready, but already officials are confidently predicting a sizable boost in jobs and output for the region.

The project positions the region to "get its footing in the global economy," Pierce Homer, Virginia's secretary of transportation, said in announcing that public funding will be available for the Norfolk Southern Corp. project.

The yard will make possible the movement of larger amounts of freight at lower unit shipping costs, say officials who tout it as a vital link to creating a major east-west corridor for the shipment of goods and materials between the Port of Virginia in Hampton Roads and the Midwest.

Leaders are predicting a rush of businesses choosing to situate their operations close to the new yard to save money.

IKEA, the Swedish furniture company, for instance, chose Virginia for a new factory opened in Danville in part to be able to employ intermodal shipping. Bengt Danielsson, the North American president of IKEA subsidiary Swedwood, confirmed the strategy by e-mail Tuesday.

Advance Auto Parts spokeswoman Shelly Whitaker said the announcement "creates an opportunity" to be explored by logistics experts at the Roanoke company in charge of keeping more than 3,000 company stores stocked. She had no further details.

Ralph Williams, a commercial and industrial real estate agent with Copty Commercial Real Estate in Roanoke, predicted new opportunities will become available to buy and divide land or for buildings for manufacturing or distribution.

As one who can put together land deals, he said he is expecting his phone to ring more.

"I'm sure that there are going to be a lot of developers that are going to be looking to do something in this area," Williams said.

Ken Anderson, a Blacksburg engineer, said he also believes companies will be looking for space in proximity to the yard. A fraction of a mile from the site, a small industrial park north of U.S. 460 spanning perhaps 15 to 20 acres is not large enough to accommodate all the potential interest, he said.

In another take on the opportunity, Steve Anderson, president of Integrated Textile Solutions in Salem, said he is talking with a Chinese company that wants to open a U.S. distribution hub. Integrated Textile Solutions wants to help make that happen and the intermodal project will make the project more feasible, he said.

Here's why: The Chinese company intends to ship the raw materials into the United States through the Port of Virginia. Right now, logistics firms near the port have an edge to win the manufacturing work over Integrated Textile Solutions, which must truck the goods to Southwest Virginia. When the intermodal yard opens, delivery by rail to the region becomes an easy option, enabling the company to close the gap held by coastal firms.

"We support it wholeheartedly," he said.

But one normally vocal advocate for economic progress in Southwest Virginia wasn't saying much about the intermodal yard Tuesday.

Aric Bopp, who directs the New River Economic Development Alliance, said his organization will evaluate how to market the facility "if and when" it is built -- an acknowledgement that local governments that fund the alliance's operations have vowed to fight the project if Elliston is its location.

"Based on the current politically-charged atmosphere around this facility, our organization would just as soon not comment on intermodal in the greater region," Bopp said.