Centre of Art and Design - La Louvière

In April 2016, the city of La Louvière decided to proceed with the awarding of a works concession concerning the redevelopment of the Centre of Art and Design. This operation has notably lead to the appointment, at the end of a negotiated procedure without advertising, of a cultural operator tasked with operating a building to be redeveloped on a former industrial site, as part of a cultural economy project.

According to the terms of Judgments 235.784 and 235.785 of the State Council, delivered on September 16, 2016, the city of La Louvière decided, in the same month, to waive the awarding of this concession and relaunch a new procedure, concerning a concession which has the same purpose, but by means of an amendment to several of the conditions initially chosen.

The public limited company Wilhelm & Co. filed an application whereby it requested that the Council of State order the suspension of the execution of this decision adopted on September 16, 2016. Judgment n° 236.383 of November 9, 2016 welcomes this application. The Council of State rules, on the one hand, that the disputed decision does not meet the demand for a statement of reasons which was imposed on the city and, on the other hand, that the criteria chosen for selecting the cultural operators who would then be invited to submit a bid, had not been able to be set in relation to the purpose of the contract, since there is no definition of the services that the ultimately appointed operator should provide.