Van Nelle Fabriek

The “Van Nelle Fabriek” is one of Netherlands' largest and most important industrial monuments and one of ten Dutch Unesco World Heritage sites, with a size of approx. 68,000 sq.m. of office / warehouse space, located in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. 

The Van Nelle Factory has been designed by the architects J.A. Brinkman and L.C. van de Vlugt and was built during the period 1925 to 1931 and expanded in 1967. The complex was initially built for the processing, packing and trading of coffee, tea and tobacco. The buildings are designed on the basis of the concept of "daylight factory". The iconic building was described by Le Corbusier as "factory of light".

In 1998 Sara Lee / DE, the former owner of the factory, ended her activities in Rotterdam and the factory was transformed to the Van Nelle Design Factory. In 2014 the Van Nelle Factory was placed on the Unesco World Heritage List.

The Van Nelle Factory currently accommodates more than 80 tenants spread over the various buildings. The tenants have different backgrounds, particularly from the creative sector including architecture, ICT, recruitment and design. In addition, there is still space available in the various buildings for which the new owner has already started discussions with new tenants.
 
One of the tenants that is involved in the Van Nelle Factory from the start is Van Nelle Events. Van Nelle Events organizes a large number of leading events annually, including Art Rotterdam, a leading art fair and the Design District trade fair.

The sales involved a large number of stakeholders, including the selling party Van Nellefabriek BV in its capacity as managing partner of CV Van Nelle Ontwerpfabriek, the Municipality of Rotterdam as "site holder" for Unesco World Heritage "and the financing bank. CV Van Nelle Design Factory and the financing bank were advised by NL real estate - Knight Frank and for the legally by Van Doorne Advocaten and Notarissen and by Ekelmans & Meijer Advocaten.