Belgium’s biggest empty industrial site has finally found a buyer, and flexible workspace is set to play a starring role in what comes next. Heylen Group, the Herentals-based industrial property group that owns Belgian coworking and business-centre brand Frame21, has acquired the entire former Volkswagen-Audi car assembly plant in Vorst (Forest), on Brussels’ southern edge. The company plans to redevelop the roughly 55-hectare site, one of the largest in Europe’s capital, into a mixed-use business park called Rings Park 21.
From car factory to “Dynamic Economic Centre”
The Vorst plant has an outsized place in Belgian industrial history. Cars rolled off its production line for more than 75 years, first under Volkswagen and later under Audi, which built the all-electric Q8 e-tron there until the factory closed for good in early 2025. Since then, one of Brussels’ largest industrial sites has sat empty, its future uncertain. A defence-sector use was even floated at one point before being ruled out.
Heylen Group, which comprises more than 40 companies and roughly 3,200 employees across sectors from logistics real estate to energy and events, says it wants to turn the site into “one of Brussels’ most dynamic economic centres.” Founder Win Heylen’s company is no stranger to this kind of conversion: in March, it also acquired most of the former Caterpillar factory in Gosselies, near Charleroi, where 37.5 hectares are being turned into an SME zone.
What rings Park 21 will actually contain
Under Heylen’s plan, the former car factory becomes a business campus integrating a hybrid ecosystem of local artisans, entrepreneurs, small and medium-sized businesses, and larger companies, alongside a training centre for the local community. Part of the site will also be opened to the public, and the nearby Vorst-Zuid railway station is set to be integrated into the project, a detail that matters for accessibility given how central connectivity has become to the appeal of flexible workspace.
Brussels Employment and Economy Minister Laurent Hublet has backed the plan publicly, framing it as exactly the kind of urban economic model the region wants: SMEs and established industrial activity sharing one site. The regional government is offering tax incentives and fast-track planning permission to draw employers in.
It’s not yet clear exactly how much of the 55 hectares will become flex offices, coworking space, meeting rooms or event space. But Frame21 is described as a significant pillar of Heylen’s wider strategy, which strongly suggests flexible workspace will be woven throughout rather than bolted on as an afterthought. Frame21 already runs coworking and event centres at two Belgian sites: near Brussels Airport in Zaventem, and in Herentals. Both are positioned in business zones outside city centres, close to motorways, combining flex desks, serviced offices, meeting rooms, event halls, food and shared amenities.
The jobs math is deliberately symbolic: Rings Park 21 is targeted to create around 3,000 jobs over roughly a decade, replacing those lost when the Audi plant shut. “Every day counts when it comes to employment,” Heylen CEO Ralph Caspanni has said, framing the project’s urgency as social as much as financial.
Part of a wider European pattern
Heylen’s move fits a trend playing out across the continent: developers pairing flexible workspace with industrial and business parks, rather than confining it to city-centre towers. Germany- and UK-based Sirius Real Estate runs coworking and flex offerings through Sirius Facilities in Germany and BizSpace in the UK, embedded within parks that also house office, workshop and storage space. In the Czech Republic, CTP, one of Europe’s largest listed industrial and logistics landlords by lettable area, operates 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 already planned.
For operators and landlords watching from the Netherlands and elsewhere, Rings Park 21 is a useful case study in adaptive reuse: rather than treating a shuttered factory as a liability, Heylen is betting that a flexible, mixed-tenant model, anchored by an established coworking brand, can turn a symbol of industrial decline into a genuine jobs engine. Given the roughly ten-year rollout, the coming months should start clarifying exactly how much of the old assembly line becomes desk space.
