ICONIC Magazine

No better way to start this magazine than with a nod to the ION Hockey League. In February we brought great news: ION became the new title partner of the Belgian Hockey League! The league's ambition? To become the best hockey league in the world. This is something we can relate to very well, since we aim to profile ION ourselves as 'Best in Class.’ So you could say it's a match made in heaven!

ION celebrated its tenth anniversary in 2021! Our strength? We always look towards the future. Although we have had many successes in recent years, we have never dwelt on them for too long. We always believe that we can do better and be more ambitious and effective. This doesn’t mean that we don’t have fun. Quite the contrary, fun is in our DNA! Fun is a recurring theme in our way of working. We firmly believe that it's the reason why our trajectory flows naturally and efficiently.

Our lives have been ruled by the corona pandemic for over a year now. Still, we kept up our team spirits because, after all, fun is in our DNA. We kept looking to the future and were able to secure some exciting projects. In terms of business, ION actually had a bumper year. Without a doubt, one of our greatest successes is the renovation of Antwerp’s iconic Boerentoren (“Farmer’s Tower”)..

No one could have predicted what would happen since the publication of the last edition of ICONIC in late 2019. They were - and are - challenging times indeed. But at ION, we don’t bury our heads in the sand. We pull up our sleeves and look to the future with drive and ambition.

As 2019 draws to a close, ION can look back on a successful year. We once again grew a lot. We developed beautiful projects and welcomed more than 30 new colleagues. Today, we can proudly say we have 85 employees and 525 million euros in completed projects. And we continue to work hard, because there are still projects worth 1.2 billion euros in the pipeline.

ION is not what it was eight years ago. We are still a driven property developer with ambitious plans for the future. But we are no longer a small start-up with big dreams. We have grown into a CO₂-neutral property developer with more than 70 colleagues and new offices in Waregem and Brussels. We are proud of that, but we are not done dreaming yet.

We are literally bursting at the seams, but we’re also bursting with pride. We are attracting many new, motivated talents who are inspired by our youthful drive. Last year, more than 30 people joined the ION team, so now our head office in Waregem is slowly but surely getting too small.

Of course we do not see this as a ‘problem’, but rather as an opportunity that is right up our street. So we started looking for the best location to sustain our company’s incredible growth. After a thorough search, we found a 1.1-hectare plot and we started to dream up our own Business Park in Waregem. A dream that will soon become a reality.

We came up with the idea of publishing a magazine. Not a given for a property developer. We are very much aware of that. But when you aim to be different, you can’t be afraid to go against the flow.

But why this magazine, you might ask. To this day, we find that the youthful drive which pushed us to set up ION in 2011 continues to encourage people. To think about architecture. To think about urban development. To think about sustainability. To think about the homes of the future. And with this magazine we want to encourage you too. To consider all of this and more, and to find new sources of inspiration.