Screening of buildings and site selection due to joint venture Janssens Field Services and Telenet

Early 2018, Freestone got the assignment to conduct a full audit (due diligence) of all buildings and associated assets, part of the joint venture between JFS and Telenet. The exercise covered 4,800 m² of warehouses and 3,000 m² spread over 5 sites. The objective was to collect all relevant information and to get a good picture of the contractual, legal and financial parameters.

Given that 300 employees had to be housed in Mechelen and Ghent, Freestone started up two site selections. After determining the needs, an office space of 350 m² was sought for Ghent, while 3,000 m² were needed in Mechelen. After analyzing the responses to the RFIs, several locations in both cities were visited and analyzed in order to get a shortlist.

PROJECT DATA SHEET

• Customer: Joint venture Janssens Field Services and Telenet
• Project: Due diligence lease contracts and 2 site selections
• Timing: Q1 2018
• Location: Antwerp and Ghent
• Size: 3,310 m² office space

Office needs were met in both Mechelen and Ghent. 2,975 m² were leased in Campus-T in Mechelen, and 335 m² in Ghent was included in the UCO Tower. A saving of € 450,000 was negotiated by Freestone over the duration of both contracts.

Freestone's approach

• Screening lease contracts
• Determining space requirements and search criteria
• Market exploration
• Analysis long list
• In-depth spatial, technical and financial comparison of the 3 shortlist options
• Determining preferred premises and preparing negotiation arguments
• Negotiating contractual conditions
• Drawing up the final lease contract