Auto Natie will now be called D’Ieteren Mobility Company and will leave its branches on Boomsesteenweg in Wilrijk and Prins Boudewijnlaan in Edegem. The car company has recently moved into the brand new building on Groeningenlei in Kontich, right next to the E19. “As a one-stop shop, we now provide sales, maintenance and repairs to vehicles.”
The striking building along the E19 came to life in February, under the new name D’Ieteren Mobility Center: it now includes Auto Natie Group, Brussels Auto Group, D’Ieteren Centers and Jennes. “The site in Kontich is the first with our new name. In this way we want to form one group with one identity. From now on you can easily buy a car on one side of the country and have it repaired on the other side,” says Chief Retail Officer (CRO) Jean-Pierre De Roeck.
The new complex brings together the former sites of Wilrijk, Kontich and Edegem under one roof. For example, on the showroom floor, the five brands of the Volkswagen Group stand side by side: Volkswagen, Audi, Seat, Cupra and Skoda. “That gives customers the opportunity to test multiple brands without having to travel. By the way, people want one more and more one stop shop“, explains CEO Didier Willems.
The building was previously owned by Transport Groeninghe, today D’Ieteren Mobility Group rents the building from Willy Naessens Group. Together they converted it into this mobility center in the most sustainable way possible. “We mainly built in height to preserve green space on the site. This resulted in three floors, each the size of a football field. The roof parking lot has 3,000 square meters of solar panels and the wells store a total of 300,000 liters for daily use. Moreover, everything, except the spray booth, is electric, making the building virtually energy neutral,” says CRO De Roeck.
The 125 employees from the three sites have already moved to the new building. The previous locations each had a new tenant. Only the Volkswagen site and the bodywork in Kontich remain under our own management. These will be used as buildings for maintenance and storage of car sharing company Poppy.
