NMBS suddenly puts enormous office complexes at Brussels South up for sale

The NMBS is unexpectedly looking for a buyer for four enormous office complexes at Brussels South Station, totaling 150,000 square meters. Striking: the consortium that is allowed to build the new NMBS headquarters would normally take over the sites.

The NMBS is holding a big sale at the South Station. The railway company recently put four gigantic office complexes in the station area up for sale on its real estate website.

The four together account for a floor area of ​​150,000 square meters. Half of this comes from the France-Bara complex around France Street, opposite the international train station. France-Bara consists of 12 buildings, including workshops and storage areas.

The triangular Atrium office building on Hallepoortlaan offers a surface area of ​​almost 50,000 square meters on 15 floors. In addition, the two connected Delta-Zennewater office buildings are in the display window next to the train tracks. For comparison: the Rogier Tower of the Belfius bank, one of the larger office buildings in Brussels, has 85,000 square meters.

According to a 2020 press release, the sale of the sites was directly linked to the award of the construction of the new NMBS headquarters, which has not yet started. The railway company wants to renovate and expand the vacant postal sorting center on Fonsnylaan in Sint-Gillis, at the back of the South Station, in order to centralize all its employees in Brussels.

The consortium around Besix won the construction project for the new headquarters at the beginning of 2020, just before the corona pandemic. NMBS wanted to partly finance its investment by selling the four office buildings to the consortium. It was then allowed to convert the four sites into a new district with shops, offices and homes, at its own expense and risk.

NMBS does not make it clear what exactly has changed in the original deal. “We want to finance the Fonsny project – the renovation and expansion of the NMBS buildings – partly with the proceeds from the sale of the various current sites,” spokesperson Bart Crols responds.

But it appears that the consortium is no longer interested in the four sites. Presumably, the NMBS has now simply agreed on a price for the construction of the new headquarters, which the railway company wants to retain ownership of. The splitting off of the sale of the four sites has two major advantages for the consortium. On the one hand, the financial calculations from 2020 are no longer realistic due to the sharply increased construction costs and the stagnant real estate market. An insider estimated the potential turnover from the redevelopment at 350 to 400 million euros when the project was awarded.

On the other hand, the selected companies reduce their enormous risks in the ‘project of the century’. The construction of the headquarters is significantly delayed. Despite a negative advice from the municipality of Sint-Gillis, the project received a building permit from the Brussels Region at the end of 2022. But at the beginning of last year, some local residents and associations challenged that permit with the Council of State, which has not yet taken a decision.

NMBS hopes that the works, which will last three years, can start at the end of 2024. Initially, the intention was that the first NMBS employees would then move into the new building.

Interested parties can submit bids for the office complexes until September 3. “We have no doubts whatsoever that we will receive interesting bids,” Crols insists. The sale will only become effective after the provisional delivery of the new NMBS headquarters.