In the anniversary edition of our magazine, we gave companies in the maritime and logistics sector a chance to put themselves in the spotlight. Flows spoke to commercial director of Willy Naessens Industriebouw, Luc Ysebaert, about the company’s logistics arm.
Construction entrepreneur Willy Naessens Industriebouw has seen tremendous growth in the construction of logistics buildings in recent years. However, building projects are not getting any easier. There is less and less land available, sustainable construction has to be considered and an ailing economy, PFAS and nitrogen discussions are causing huge delays.
“In the mid-1990s, we got into building smaller logistics projects,” says Ysebaert. “Meanwhile, some 65% of our turnover is logistics-related and we work for major developers such as WDP, MG, Heylen, Weerts, GOODMAN and Prologis. But we can also count large logistics companies such as H.Essers, Katoen Natie, Van Moer and ODTH among our customers. Nevertheless, in recent years we have been building almost about 2 million square metres per year, spread over seven countries.”
In terms of transport, everyone is talking about the modal shift. Do you see this transition reflected in your construction projects?
“As far as port-related projects are concerned, we still see a shift to the hinterland in particular. The land in the ports is full. At the moment we are very active in the Antwerp-Hasselt axis. So we clearly see that trends, such as a modal shift, are also finding their way into the construction sector. We used to build mainly near motorways, now we are increasingly building near waterways and railways.”
The available space is getting smaller and smaller. How do you deal with this?
“There is only one big problem in the Belgian construction sector and that is available building land. As a result, we are seeing a shift towards more high-rise buildings. The price per square metre has risen so much that as many square metres as possible have to be built on a limited space. For instance, we are going to put up a multi storage parking building for Antwerp Euroterminal on the Left Bank. The economy is not at its strongest, permits drag on for a long time and there is PFAS and nitrogen, so there are heavy delays on a lot of files.”
How are you looking at 2024?
“2024 is going to be a difficult year. Nevertheless, we look to the future positively. We are lucky to work in different markets. We mostly use prefabricated concrete elements with which we construct small (300 m²) and very large buildings. Willy (Naessens) always says: “We grew up with the small SME and we are never going to drop it. So we will always continue to build at two speeds, on the one hand the large mastodons of large global logistics players and on the other the small buildings of the local SME. By the way, you must not forget: those who are small today can be very big tomorrow.”
