Content in this edit is translated from the existing French Wikipedia article at :fr:Esch-Belval|Esch-Belval; see its history for attribution.
The steel era
Between 1909 and 1912, the company Gelsenkirchener Bergwerks A.G. built a brand new steelworks at Esch-sur-Alzette: the factory Adolf-Emil. In 1911, the company ARBED was created by the merger and acquisition of the 3 largest steelworks in Luxembourg. In 1994, ARBED decided to change its type of steel production for long products at its sites in Luxembourg. The steel production moved from produced from iron ore with blast furnaces to electric arc furnaces using recycled steel. With the closing of the last blast furnace in Esch-Belval in July 1997, 120 hectares were available for a reconversion process, offering a place with a high economic development for the country and the whole southern region.
The Belval project
In 2001, an international urban planning contest was set up to take the best decisions about the Belval project. After a detailed study of the projects, focused on the profitability, duration and site preparation criteria, a dialogue committee, supervised by the Ministry of the Interior, decided on 8 March 2002 to pursue the planning on the basis of the project from the Jo Coenen & Co architects and urbanists of Maastricht. Across the different districts, the project will be able to accommodate more than 5,000 inhabitants and more than 20,000 daily users. The new urban setting extends over a developed surface of almost 1.3 million m², on 69 hectares for building. An important proportion is saved for green and public spaces. The conditions of its implementation confer a great development potential on it thanks for instance to:
the respect of the guiding principles formulated since the beginning by the project originators;
the creation of a harmonious urban fabric with the municipalities of Esch-sur-Alzette and Sanem;
an active support of the State through an important decentralization programme of administrative and other governmental functions including the implementation of an ambitious secondary and higher education policy. This policy was developed in relation to creation of the University of Luxembourg and to the high school of Belval,
