In the 1960s, brothers Arthur and Emiel De Cock worked as paid employees for other farmers and needed a warehouse to store their farm equipment. They then built their first shed, and NV De Cock was born.
Scott Graphics, a new factory in Bornem, was struggling at the time with a lack of space. The family De Cock’s storage space that was then under construction was the perfect solution.
The brothers were not immediately interested in leasing the space. But after insistence, they finally consented and built a second shed.
A bit later Arthur was involved in a motorcycle accident caused by a reckless motorist. He was able to build an additional shed with the insurance payment.
Soon the brothers were also asked to transport the goods from the nearby factory. First with tractor and wagon; later they invested in their own truck.
Due to the continued growth of Scott Graphics, they fairly quickly added buildings in Klein Mechelen. Arthur and Emiel quit their jobs and began to focus only on transport. Emiel also bought a tractor-trailer at the time.
Every five years they expanded the storage facilities, and new tenants were added such as major new customer Veranco sweets.
And then something unexpected happened. In 1989, plans for the construction of new buildings for the company Super Club were rejected because the new building would have been located too close to highway N16. The site on which a pyramid-like building was to be built was adjacent to the De Cock site in Bornem. But since the pyramid had to be constructed further from the N16, it would have to be built on the De Cock site. Thus in order to realise their project, Superclub needed to buy the land and warehouses.
After long negotiations, we finally agreed to an exchange for industrial land at Pedro Colomalaan 10. Ideal, because now we could rebuild an updated version of all warehouses.
In 1990, construction company Valcke built a new 15,000-m2 complex (2 x 5,000 m2 and 2 x 2,500 m2). The tenants moved from the old warehouses in Klein Mechelen to their new location.
In the end, the Super Club pyramid was never built: not much later the firm ran into financial problems and eventually went bankrupt.
In 2000, we built unit E, with a surface area of 3,078 m2 and a much higher roof.
In 2017 we will be adding four units along the back. We lease only our own buildings and can therefore provided our tenants with a quick and flexible solution.
After all these years, the company Scott Graphics (currently Sappi) is still a customer, and for us that is the best advertising.
A selection of references from our tenants: