Gent is finally selling its abandoned Gent-Sint-Pieters hotel (built for the World Expo 1913). Should it be turned into a new hotel or an apartment building?
11.09.2025
Flandria Palace selling price: €4,250,000 (purchase deadline: November 14, 2025)
Does Ghent need more hotels or housing? No idea about the hotel situation. Excellente location for both imo.
it will probably become an unaffordable airbnb
Ghent isn’t selling anything. NMBS is.
get your facts right before posting. it is NMBS property, not owned by Gent city.
It’s being used by the NMBS. So not empty as you stated. 😉
Just make it useful. They need living space, make app/lofts whatever the market wants. But keeping it soul a bit would be nice
Platgooien en een upkot gebouw opzetten
/s
They’ll probably turn it into luxury apartments just like they do with any old building.
“live in our luxurious apartments for onky 500k excl, and have a lovely view of the train station and students pissing against your building”
Studenten Kots
Will become luxury flats just outside the budget of most normal people at 500K-1million depending on size.
To cater to the masses they might have a few lower priced ones but they’ll be 75 square meters big.
I would hope hotels, so we’d have something decent next to the train station, and the inside could be enjoyed by everyone if they put in a nice restaurant.
but the greens are against, so probably housing, shame. There is no parking and it’s at a busy intersection, so it’s far from optimal
Given that it used to be a hotel and, after that, office space, I think the building would be most suited to be adapted for student accommodation, given all the small rooms and all. There is a very large shortage of student homes here in Gent, which put heavy pressure on the housing market.
I hope that the exteriour of the buidling will be kept, looks absolutely stunning
Great location for a hotel so re-opening one there makes sense.
the 1913 pictures is less deformed
Move it to some place that isn’t Gent.
Tear it down and put containerhouses (200 EUR/month) in its place. There is no need for archaic useless buildings as long as people have no place to live (basic human right, something which Gent likes to brag about)
Can we bulldoze it? That would be a prime location to build a parking garage!
Alright /r/belgium. Let’s get together and buy this place.
Apartment building please.
It’s a monumental building so very limited what you can do in terms of total renovation. I see the likes of Michel Moortgat collect these type of assets.
It’s going to be Ghentrified, same as all other buildings with a favourable location to live in.
Tear it down and build one those square luxury appartment blocks with white or light grey brick and way too large windows!
Considering there’s a global housing crisis, I’d rather see it being turned into housing
But that said, as long as it stayed useful and doesn’t fall into the hand of real estate speculation , I’m fine with
How about option C: centralize the remaining public services there? They did it in Bruges at the back of the station, and it’s honestly a pretty damn good idea to put it near the station: easily accessible by public transport, easy for the folks who work there to commute to it, stations tend to already have plenty of parking nearby (as is the case in Ghent), etc.
I was wondering last week when I was there at the station why that place ain’t a five star hotel or something fancy.
27 comments
Does Ghent need more hotels or housing? No idea about the hotel situation. Excellente location for both imo.
it will probably become an unaffordable airbnb
Ghent isn’t selling anything. NMBS is.
get your facts right before posting. it is NMBS property, not owned by Gent city.
It’s being used by the NMBS. So not empty as you stated. 😉
Just make it useful. They need living space, make app/lofts whatever the market wants. But keeping it soul a bit would be nice
Platgooien en een upkot gebouw opzetten
/s
They’ll probably turn it into luxury apartments just like they do with any old building.
“live in our luxurious apartments for onky 500k excl, and have a lovely view of the train station and students pissing against your building”
Studenten Kots
Will become luxury flats just outside the budget of most normal people at 500K-1million depending on size.
To cater to the masses they might have a few lower priced ones but they’ll be 75 square meters big.
I would hope hotels, so we’d have something decent next to the train station, and the inside could be enjoyed by everyone if they put in a nice restaurant.
but the greens are against, so probably housing, shame. There is no parking and it’s at a busy intersection, so it’s far from optimal
Given that it used to be a hotel and, after that, office space, I think the building would be most suited to be adapted for student accommodation, given all the small rooms and all. There is a very large shortage of student homes here in Gent, which put heavy pressure on the housing market.
I hope that the exteriour of the buidling will be kept, looks absolutely stunning
Great location for a hotel so re-opening one there makes sense.
the 1913 pictures is less deformed
Move it to some place that isn’t Gent.
Tear it down and put containerhouses (200 EUR/month) in its place. There is no need for archaic useless buildings as long as people have no place to live (basic human right, something which Gent likes to brag about)
Can we bulldoze it? That would be a prime location to build a parking garage!
Alright /r/belgium. Let’s get together and buy this place.
Apartment building please.
It’s a monumental building so very limited what you can do in terms of total renovation. I see the likes of Michel Moortgat collect these type of assets.
It’s going to be Ghentrified, same as all other buildings with a favourable location to live in.
Tear it down and build one those square luxury appartment blocks with white or light grey brick and way too large windows!
Considering there’s a global housing crisis, I’d rather see it being turned into housing
But that said, as long as it stayed useful and doesn’t fall into the hand of real estate speculation , I’m fine with
How about option C: centralize the remaining public services there? They did it in Bruges at the back of the station, and it’s honestly a pretty damn good idea to put it near the station: easily accessible by public transport, easy for the folks who work there to commute to it, stations tend to already have plenty of parking nearby (as is the case in Ghent), etc.
I was wondering last week when I was there at the station why that place ain’t a five star hotel or something fancy.
Make it something publicly accessible
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