The Neo II public procurement has been assigned to the consortium composed of CFE and Cofinimmo. The purpose of this public procurement, which was launched by the city of Brussels and the Brussels-Capital Region in 2013, is a Design-Build-Finance-Maintain (DBFM) contract for a convention centre and a high-class hotel.

The complex will be located on the Heysel plateau, north of Brussels, next to the Atomium. The goal of Neo II is to confirm the role of Brussels as an international conference city. A prestigious 49,000 m² convention centre will be able to receive more than 5,000 participants simultaneously in various events such as international conventions, spectacles and meetings. The centre will be coupled with a luxury four-star hotel, with a surface area of 15,000 m² and comprising 250 rooms.

The consortium CFE/Cofinimmo called on the internationally renowned contemporary French architect Jean Nouvel to design the site. His latest masterpiece is the Louvre museum in Abu Dhabi, which was inaugurated in November 2017. The Belgian bureau MDW Architecture will supervise the implementation of the project.

Signing of the contracts will take place in the fourth quarter of 2018. Construction works will start after obtaining the permits, planned for 2020, and should take three years. The convention centre’s operational phase will have a fixed duration of 20 years and will start as from delivery of the certificate of availability at the end of the construction works.

As for the hotel, the consortium CFE/Cofinimmo intends to conclude an agreement with NH Hotel Group. This international group has large experience in hotel infrastructure management, combined with MICE1 infrastructure all over Europe.