IN Brief:
- The 83,000m² site will contain more than 55,000m² of specialist warehouse space.
- The facility will handle healthcare, pharmaceutical, perishable, chemical, and technology cargo.
- Construction is expected to begin during 2027, subject to permitting, with completion targeted for 2028.
DP World will invest an initial €48 million in a temperature-controlled logistics hub beside Antwerp Gateway, adding specialist warehouse capacity for pharmaceuticals, healthcare products, perishables, chemicals, and technology cargo.
The development will occupy an 83,000m² site and provide more than 55,000m² of warehouse space, offices, and value-added handling areas. Later infrastructure phases could take total investment to approximately €100 million.
DP World is developing the facility with logistics property company Montea and Maatschappij Linkerscheldeoever, the public body responsible for land and development on the left bank of the Scheldt. The project follows the award of the site concession and remains subject to permitting.
Construction is expected to begin in the second quarter of 2027, with completion targeted for the second quarter of 2028. The warehouse will be partly refrigerated and is being designed to achieve BREEAM Excellent certification.
Healthcare and pharmaceutical logistics form the primary design brief, while approximately half of the capacity is intended for perishables, including bananas and other fresh produce. Multiple temperature regimes are planned so that cargo can be stored under appropriate conditions rather than forcing the building into one cold-storage configuration.
The site’s position beside Antwerp Gateway is central to the operating model. Cargo will be able to move between ocean transport, terminal handling, storage, consolidation, specialist services, and inland distribution within one port-centred network.
Road, rail, and inland-waterway links will provide options for onward transport across Belgium and neighbouring European markets. That modal access may be particularly useful during road congestion or disruption, although pharmaceuticals and perishables will continue to depend heavily on tightly scheduled truck movements.
Rainer Schmid, chief commercial officer for DP World in Europe, said customers increasingly require logistics that combines “operational efficiency with reliability”. The project is intended to reduce transfers between disconnected terminal and warehouse operations, particularly for cargo where time, temperature, security, and traceability must be controlled together.
Cold-storage capacity cannot be assessed by floor area alone. Its practical performance depends on temperature zones, clear height, racking, dock design, product dwell time, refrigeration resilience, handling equipment, and the balance between storage and value-added processing.
Pharmaceutical operations also carry different validation, monitoring, and security requirements from a produce warehouse handling high-volume seasonal flows. Combining healthcare, fresh produce, chemicals, and technology cargo broadens the customer base, but it increases the complexity of building controls and operating procedures.
Temperature-sensitive pharmaceuticals may require documented conditions, qualified equipment, controlled access, and continuous records. Bananas and other produce need rapid handling, appropriate ventilation, and close coordination with inland distribution.
Partial refrigeration could make the building more flexible than a fully frozen warehouse, allowing chambers and ambient areas to be allocated according to demand. The operator will still need to manage cargo separation, airflow, hygiene, fire protection, and maintenance without compromising adjacent zones.
Refrigeration failures or poorly controlled door movements can affect product integrity quickly, making redundancy and alarm response as important as the nominal storage temperature. The project announcement does not yet identify the refrigeration technology, backup arrangements, monitoring platform, or maintenance model.
Energy demand will be another significant operating factor. Refrigeration, ventilation, lighting, automation, monitoring, and charging infrastructure can create a substantial electrical load, while heat and moisture enter continuously through loading areas and doors.
The BREEAM target indicates that building efficiency is included in the design, although no details have been released on renewable generation, heat recovery, refrigerants, insulation performance, or energy storage.
Belgium is already attracting technically ambitious cold-storage developments, including a 45-metre automated deep-freeze warehouse based on high-density storage and robotic handling. DP World’s project follows a different model, using port proximity and multimodal access to combine storage with international cargo movement.
Locating the warehouse near the deep-sea terminal could shorten the physical and organisational distance between vessel discharge, storage, and inland dispatch. Every additional transfer introduces scheduling, documentation, damage, temperature, and visibility risk.
The hub will not remove those risks, but it could reduce the number of independent handovers involved in a shipment journey. Its value will depend on reliable data transfer and operating coordination as much as the proximity of the buildings.
Several capacity details remain undisclosed, including pallet positions, annual throughput, automation content, customer commitments, and precise temperature ranges. Those figures will determine whether the site operates mainly as a large specialist store or as a higher-throughput consolidation and distribution platform.
Permitting is the next formal gate, followed by the proposed 2027 construction start. If the timetable is maintained, the hub will enter service in 2028 as a substantial addition to European port-based cold-storage capacity — one whose performance will be decided by temperature control, maintenance, data integrity, and dependable cargo handovers.
