Pickfords Business Solutions led a consortium of companies last year to move NATO headquarters in Brussels to a new 254,000 square metre building just across the road.

The move was the largest European relocation in ten years and involved companies from the Overseas Moving Alliance, including Mondial Movers (Netherlands) and AMT (France). 

The moving process itself took a total of 13 weeks to complete and consisted of relocating 4,000 workplaces and 29 national embassies. This included 7km of archived records, fine artworks and valuable heavy items, 25,000 crates of office assets and IT equipment as well as the flags of all 29 member states.

The workforce comprised 40 operatives and six vehicles working like clockwork to rotate between the new and old office locations. The move to the iconic and highly secure building was completed by June last year, just in time for the NATO summit that took place in July. It was completed one day ahead of schedule and without disruption to NATO’s day-to-day operations.

Pickfords also implemented an environmentally friendly initiative for recycling the fixtures and appliances from the former HQ. All catering and kitchen equipment was disconnected and taken to be resold, while remaining furniture, fixtures and items were broken down into component parts and separated for recycling to reduce waste.

Bogdan C Lazaroae, Director, New NATO HQ Project and Transition Office said, “The move of NATO headquarters from the previous facility to the current state of the art one was a once-in-a-generation endeavour. This is not something that is likely to repeat any time soon.”