500,000m² of Federal Government office space is empty

Not all of the space in the buildings is in use. 

The dailies ‘Het Nieuwsblad’ and ‘Gazet van Antwerpen’ report that of the 500,000m² of office space that is currently empty around 100,000m² is rented by the Federal Government from private landlords. 

The Eurostation building near to Brussels South Railway Station (photo above, at the bottom on the right) is a prime example of the federal authorities paying rent for office space that is not being used. Of the 77,000m² of floor space in the Eurostation building, just half is currently occupied. 

This is despite The Federal Buildings’ Directorate paying 1.4 million euro/month to rent the whole building. The Federal Buildings’ Directorate has rented the building since 2005 and has a rental contract with the Eurostation building’s owners that runs until 2035. 

The Federal Buildings Directorate pays around 450 million euro per annum in rent to private landlords to rent buildings to house federal public services. 

It was the Flemish Christian democrat MP Franky Demon that obtained the figures from the Federal Secretary of State Mathieu Michel (Francophone liberal). Mr De Demon told journalists that this is “money down the drain” and “This is not an example of good governance”.

Mr Demon adds that in his policy statement Mr Michel promised to take measures to better manage the buildings that are used by federal public services and that when assessing how much office space is needed will take into account the increase in homeworking since the pandemic.

Mr Michel says that since 2020 the total office floor space used by federal public services has decreased from 7.8 to 6.8 million M². The aim is to reduce this by a further million and save 37 million euro/annum by 2030.