Ostend Opens Hangar d’Amour, Centralizing Window Prostitution in Harbor Facility
Ostend’s controversial Hangar d’Amour has officially opened, bringing all of the city’s window prostitution under one roof in a renovated historic warehouse in the harbor area. The facility, which has been in development for approximately a decade, aims to regulate the city’s red light district while improving working conditions for sex workers, according to VRT NWS.
A Decade in the Making
The project traces its origins to 2016, when initial plans were formed to relocate window prostitution from the Hazegras district near the train station. The city formally found a buyer for Hangar 1 in June 2018, when then-Mayor Johan Vande Lanotte announced the project, promising that “the window prostitution will move to a better building with a better system without intermediaries.” The main tenant of Hangar d’Amour rents directly to the sex workers, eliminating middlemen.
The path to opening was not smooth. In February 2020, the project appeared to collapse after a conflict between the city and developer Ion, but was revived months later when an agreement was reached with the Lion Investment Fund, as VRT NWS reported at the time. Construction faced further setbacks, including the discovery of concrete rot in the building’s internal structure in March 2024, which required design changes and the scrapping of a planned basement level, according to Flows.be.
A Purpose-Built Facility
The nearly 120-year-old neoclassical warehouse at Stapelhuisstraat 1 in the Middenhaven area underwent a renovation costing approximately 10 million euros. The facility houses 36 rooms, of which 10 to 15 are currently in use. Each room features three emergency buttons that trigger a 110-decibel alarm, plus a direct connection to police, who maintain a satellite post within the building.
Rooms are rented in shifts of eight hours at 110 euros per shift, with sex workers setting their own prices for services. The spaces were designed in consultation with sex workers, who had input on room colors, mattress thickness, bed height, and lowered sinks. The rooms use exclusively red light and blacklight, typical for the industry.
“It’s important to involve sex workers in these choices,” said Franky De Coninck of DC Bouw, the owner and operator of the building, as reported by VRT NWS. “Those people know which setup works best. Moreover, it’s also important that they support the move to this new building. We want this to be a positive story for them.”
De Coninck also operates Villa Tinto in Antwerp, a similar megabrothel with 51 rooms that served as the model for Hangar d’Amour. As he told P-Magazine, “What we built in Antwerp gets an almost identical copy here. Only slightly smaller.”
The building is not exclusively for sex work. It also includes office space, an event hall, a brewery, a rooftop bar, and a restaurant/brasserie. “The sex work section is on the left, on the right is a brewery,” De Coninck explained. “There’s also a rooftop bar and there will be offices for the port companies.”
A Managed Approach to a Persistent Reality
Mayor John Crombez (Vooruit) emphasized the policy rationale behind the project. “The importance is that, since prostitution is present in the city anyway, there is now an organized way of working that can reduce human trafficking and better protect sex workers, also regarding their income,” he said, as reported by VRT NWS. “It simply happens in an organized and proper manner, and that is necessary.”
The old red light district in Hazegras has been completely emptied of window prostitution and is slated for urban redevelopment. “Hazegras is a neighborhood in full development and will continue to develop in the future,” Crombez said. “Meanwhile, we can offer sex workers in our city an alternative where they can work in better conditions.”
Window prostitution is a recognized form of sex work in several Belgian cities, including Antwerp, Brussels, Ghent, Charleroi, and Liège, as documented on Wikipedia. Prostitution between consenting adults is legal in Belgium, though third-party profiteering is not.
Early Signs of Success
Since opening, no incidents have been reported, according to Mayor Crombez. “I haven’t received any news about the operation itself, but I also haven’t received any reports of incidents, thanks to the police’s extra surveillance,” he said. “So I have the impression that it started well.”
The project has drawn significant public interest, with around 20,000 visitors touring the facility during Open Bedrijvendag in October 2024, as Focus-WTV reported. “Erotica and sex always trigger. That’s human nature,” said Karin Vander Elst, co-owner of Hangar 1.
What’s Next
As the facility ramps up operations, key questions remain: Will all 36 rooms become fully occupied? How will the mixed-use nature of the building work in practice? And will this model be replicated in other Belgian cities? The project’s success in Ostend could signal a new approach to managing sex work in urban environments across the country.