Owner of Belgian Coworking Brand Frame21, Heylen Group, Takes Over Former VW/Audi Plant in Brussels
Belgian real estate group Heylen — owner of the coworking and business-centre brand Frame21 — is acquiring the entire former Volkswagen-Audi car assembly plant in Brussels. The company plans to redevelop the roughly 55-hectare site into a large mixed-use business park called Rings Park 21.
The site was one of Belgium’s major car factories, Audi assembled vehicles there for decades. The last car left the line around a year and a half ago, and the site has stood empty since. Under Heylen’s plan, the former factory becomes a business campus that integrates various functions. The company aims to build a hybrid ecosystem of local artisans, entrepreneurs, SMEs and larger companies, and also plan to establish a training center on site for the local community.
Rings Park 21 is expected to create around 3,000 jobs over roughly a decade, replacing those lost when Volkswagen-Audi closed the plant in early 2025.
It is not yet known how much of the site will become flex offices, coworking, meeting and event space, but Frame21 is a significant pillar of Heylen’s strategy, which points to flexible workspace being part of the plan.
Frame21 runs coworking and event centres at two Belgian sites: near Brussels Airport in Zaventem and in Herentals. Both sites sit in business zones outside the city centre, close to motorways. The centres combine flex desks, serviced offices, meeting rooms and event halls with food and shared amenities.
The trend worth watching: other European developers have also combined flex space with industrial and business parks, where coworking is one of several uses on a single site, alongside offices, industrial activity and logistics, and located in business parks or former industrial sites rather than city centres.
Germany-and-UK-based Sirius Real Estate offers coworking and flex through Sirius Facilities in Germany and BizSpace in the UK, within parks that also hold office, workshop and storage space. In the Czech Republic, CTP — one of Europe’s largest listed industrial and logistics owner by lettable area — runs the Clubco coworking network, which has grown to around 7,000 sqm across Brno, Ostrava and Nupaky near Prague since 2021, with further expansion and a Slovak entry planned.
Pic Source: heylenwarehouses.com
