A Belgian Legoland is one step closer, as developers settle on Charleroi

Charleroi is a step closer to hosting a new Legoland amusement park. Should the project come to fruition, it will be the fourth Legoland park in Europe and the 10th in the world.

Merlin Entertainments, the British theme park operators behind Legoland, were looking info different sites to cover the Benelux area, but are now concentrating on Charleroi, according to a statement released by the company on Friday.

“After reviewing many options, the Merlin team is giving priority to the Gosselies site in Belgium, in the Charleroi region,” the company said. “Merlin will be performing various studies and due diligence of the property in close collaboration with Sogepa, a Walloon public investment fund, which owns the land.”

Theme park and hotel

Legoland theme parks are based on the famous children’s building blocks and have different ‘worlds’ such as Adventure Land, Knight’s Kingdom, Movie World (pictured above) and Duplo Land (for the littler kids). Every Legoland has a Mini Land, with miniature versions of famous monuments and pop culture icons created entirely of Lego.

Gosselies is the northern-most district of Charleroi, about eight kilometres from the city centre. The Caterpillar plant in Gosselies shut down in 2016, leaving a massive industrial site open for development.

The Legoland resort, which includes a hotel as well as a theme park, would take up approximately 70 hectares, or two-thirds of the abandoned factory site. According to the company, the remaining part of the site could be considered as a possible area for future expansion or green space.

Photo courtesy Merlin Entertainments