Centre management Heist-op-den-Berg

CityD has been supporting the municipality of Heist-op-den-Berg as town centre manager since 2022. The new council is also continuing to strengthen the supply chain. The residents of Heist are now proud of their municipality, because ‘everyone wants to live, work and shop in Heist-op-den-Berg, because you can find everything there’.

What Heist-op-den-Berg teaches us: CityD's centre management is the silent force behind a vibrant core

When you walk through Bergstraat in Heist-op-den-Berg, you can feel it immediately: the shops are flourishing, the restaurants and cafés are bustling, people are lingering, in short, the centre is pulsating. But anyone who has been involved in centre reinforcement for some time knows that such dynamism never grows by itself. Behind the scenes, there is a driving force that few residents are aware of, but which is indispensable for policymakers: centre management.

The role of the centre manager is to listen, connect, negotiate, provide direction and, above all, deliver visible results. And that is precisely why Heist-op-den-Berg is such a powerful case study: for years, the municipality has been demonstrating how a combination of vision, commitment and professional centre management can keep a local commercial centre resilient, even when many Flemish cities are losing ground.

The core that stands firm, even when the going gets tough

In recent years, commercial centres have been under pressure: e-commerce, changing consumer behaviour, inflation and shifting mobility patterns. Yet Heist-op-den-Berg has remained remarkably stable. Not because the centre is immune to change, but because the administration followed a clear course under the professional guidance of CityD. Together with the stakeholders, they: 

• consistently opted for core strengthening;
• took a restrictive approach to peripheral developments;
• collaborated structurally with entrepreneurs and trade associations;
• investing in communication, experience and city marketing

In short: Heist-op-den-Berg pursues a policy of thinking first, then acting — and that is exactly where centre management makes the difference.

The work that no one sees, but everyone feels

The CityD centre manager does not have a visible uniform. You don't see a counter, a company car or a defined office. You only see the result: a commercial centre that runs like clockwork.

But behind that apparent self-evidence lies an immense amount of thinking and doing. The work of a centre manager, who commutes every day between files, business meetings, policy discussions and practical action.

CityD describes it as spin-in-the-web work: a role that is strategic, organisational, human and communicative at the same time. In Heist-op-den-Berg, this role has been performed for years by a partner who knows the municipality through and through — and that makes the step forward even stronger.

Because a centre manager:

• listens to entrepreneurs, detects minor tensions and prevents them from becoming major ones
• builds support, step by step, with a process that exudes confidence
• connects services, so that policy, economy, mobility and city marketing work together
• supports trade associations, so that they become stronger, more professional and more effective
• builds bridges with real estate, investors and owners to avoid vacancy
• organises, but above all coordinates—because an event without a strategy is not a policy

These are tasks that often remain invisible until they are no longer there. Then you suddenly realise how much work that silent force was actually doing.

From city making to city branding: the story must first be right

CityD calls the centre management the smart tension between city making (improving the product) and city branding (marketing the product).

You cannot promote a city if its core is not working. And you cannot strengthen a core without residents and visitors knowing what they can find there. Heist-op-den-Berg is an example of this: only when the identity of Bergstraat was clearly defined — “a desire to experience” — could city marketing really pay off.

Centre management ensures that:

• events logically match the identity
• retailers communicate with one voice
• the municipality promotes its assets in a coherent manner
• promotion is not an isolated activity, but a strategy
• improvements in the area are visible and tangible

It is city marketing with both feet firmly planted in reality. No slogans without substance, no campaigns without structure.

The Four-Leaf Clover: a simple structure for complex challenges