The Benelux team recently attended the 26th Transport & Logistics Awards in Belgium. The 2018 gathering was hosted in Mechelen and attended by 1,500 professionals. Eight awards were presented, including Best Transporter, Green Truck Award, Logistics Project of the Year and Truck Safety Award. As a sponsor of the event, Prologis Sander Breugelmans, VP market officer, and Marijn van den Heuvel, director leasing officer, attended.

Breugelmans reported, “What I noticed in particular was the strong emphasis in the sector on quality and innovation."

"This trend is well aligned with our own activities and our high-quality portfolio in Belgium. The event was also a great opportunity to welcome and host several of our most valued Belgian customers at our tables.”

Prologis has been active in the Belgium market for several years, offering customers a wide range of high-quality warehouse and distribution centers across the country. Most of the industrial warehouse facilities are located at strategic transportation hubs that link the country’s important Port of Antwerp to the rest of Northern Europe.

In regard to the Belgium market, Breugelmans said, “Historically, it has always been an interesting market due to its central location in Europe. Belgium has three important logistics hubs—Antwerp, Liège and Brussels. Our own research from 2017 reinforced the importance of the Antwerp-Brussels corridor within a European context.”

In this survey, “Europe’s Most Desirable Logistics Locations,” Prologis Research and eyefortransport polled logistics industry participants in Europe to see how new real estate footprints are being developed. The survey reveals the most important factors driving location selection, as well as the current European logistics hot spots. The survey also shines a light on how decisions have evolved over the past three years.

Antwerp and Brussels scored particularly well in the survey because of their proximity to major consumption centers. Van den Heuvel explains, “Logistics professionals ranked Antwerp and Brussels as two of Europe’s most desirable locations. In fact, they were ranked in the top 10, based on the scores of five main factors that shape location selection in Europe—proximity to major consumption centers, regulatory environments, labor availability, transportation infrastructure and total costs.”