The Touraine equipment company (SET), the leading developer in Indre-et-Loire, is supporting the American Wabtec and its subsidiary Faiveley Transport in the reorganization of its industrial activities in the Tours conurbation.
This railway equipment manufacturer will merge its two factories into a single entity of 800 employees. Its La Ville-aux-Dames unit, which manufactures electronic systems, will be closed and repatriated to Saint-Pierre-des-Corps, its other site, which notably produces doors for trains, and of which the SET is already partly owner. Via its heritage SEM, it bought a logistics wasteland in 2016 to allow it to expand and renovated a first warehouse. With this new operation, the developer will transform a second building, a large, partially unoccupied 9,700 m2 hall. “We are going to rebuild the factory on the factory and will densify the interior of the existing surfaces so as not to increase the footprint,” explains architect Cécile Garcia-Giraud, co-manager of Atelier Bourlois, master of work of the project. Three levels of offices will occupy part of the building, while the volume will be retained for the rest of the hall to accommodate industrial activities.
Real estate development contract. The SET will also intervene on the part of the land which directly belongs to Wabtec “via a real estate development contract”, specifies Vincent Arnault, its director of major projects. To accommodate the electronics workshop, 2,900 m2 of premises currently used by the administration will be destroyed and rebuilt. “We are working on a wooden structure with metal cladding to obtain the best possible carbon footprint,” adds the architect.
The reflection also focused on the appearance of the facades visible from the street, which will be treated with metal cladding with a decor reminiscent of colored pixels which will range from yellow to red. This is where the main entrance to the factory will be transferred, with a hall raised to R + 2. The SET has also purchased several neighboring plots to create a car park with 250 spaces.
The operation, which will be delivered in the summer of 2026, costs €21 million, including €15 million excluding tax for work. At the end of the project, Wabtec, which is a tenant, will have an option to purchase the part of the site of which it is not yet the owner.
