The City of Brussels has revealed more details about the sports park and public park that are being built at the Heizel in the shadow of the King Boudewijn Stadium.
The sports park can be divided into three main zones: a first containing a hockey field as well as a football and rugby pitch; a second consisting of a new Victoir Boin athletics stadium and a third featuring a public park.
“This sports park means we are updating antiquated sports infrastructure at the Heizel” Benoit Hellings (green), sports alderman of the City of Brussels told media outlet Bruzz.
“The hockey field currently used by the Primerose club will be modernised to meet international standards”.
A hybrid football and rugby pitch with natural and synthetic grass and with the capacity for a crowd of 5,000 is being built on the site of the existing Victor Boin Stadium that is in poor repair. “Schools will be able to use it and youth tournaments can also be organised here. The idea is to stage all kinds of sports events at the new site. Demand is tremendous”.
The Victor Boin Stadium moves to a new location and will house the Excelsior athletics club. It’s the biggest athletics club in the land. Most of the events organised here will be linked to it.
“Here athletes will be able to train and warm up for the Ivo Van Damme Memorial at the nearby King Boudewijn Stadium”.
Alderman Hellings says that the new sports infrastructure will meet the needs of the various sports clubs that currently use the Heizel.
New public park at the Heizel
The plans also involve the creation of a brand-new pedestrian park. The park will incorporate parts of the old Victor Boin Stadium as well as a number of other sports fields including the now disbanded pétanque club. Pétanque is a game popular in Belgium and France in which metal bowls are thrown to land as near as possible to a target ball.
The park will include public sports infrastructure including an “agora space” where members of the public will be able to play football and basketball as well as a fitness zone that will be accessible to all and include very simple exercises.
Alderman Hellings says the presence of offices and hospitality outlets will increase social control in the area: “This should improve safety, because today too many people complain that the Heizel is unsafe”.
What’s it going to cost?
The City of Brussels has earmarked 8 million euros for this project, but the total cost of the project is expected to total 50 million euros. Neo will foot the rest. Neo is a cooperative venture grouping the Brussels Region and the City of Brussels, one of the 19 municipalities in the Brussels Region. Neo was set up with the sole aim of transforming the Heizel area by providing modern infrastructure.
Work on the sports park will start as early as next year but will only be completely finished in 2030.
Primerose and Excelsior, the two biggest sports clubs, will be able to take possession of the new infrastructure well before then.
“The clubs have over 1,400 members. We’ll organise the work to ensure they can move into their new sports infrastructure first” says Hellings.
In the meantime sports enthusiasts will be housed elsewhere.
More plans
The Neo Project also includes plans for a new conference centre, a shopping mall, hospitality outlets and homes, but the plans have repeatedly been thrown out by the council of state, Belgium’s highest administrative court. The court’s main concerns are the changes to the urban designation plans that are needed to allow for a shopping centre at the Heizel.
Fortunately for Brussels’ sports enthusiasts the urban designation plan didn’t need to be changed to allow construction of new sports infrastructure because the land was already being used for this purpose.
