A second entrepreneur is venturing into the Rotterdam amusement park headache. The city is anything but enthusiastic

For a moment, Wos Hu (62), who looks out over the Maashaven from the doorway on Rotterdam-Katendrecht, falls silent. “An amusement park in the middle of the city. How do you get there?” The local resident sounds as if he has just heard that for the first time. But in 2012 he also thought it was a crazy idea.

When Hu looks through the kitchen window, he sees an outdated Ferris wheel diagonally across the water, which has not been turning for five years. Not a single amusement park visitor has walked between the chimneys on the site of the converted waste plant for fourteen years.

Hennie van der Most, a once celebrated entrepreneur from the east of the country, tested Rotterdam’s patience with the never-opened amusement park on the south bank. Until April of this year, a creditor acted: the entire park – including attractions – went into one foreclosure under the hammer.

But instead of the site being cleared for housing, as the city had hoped, the next entrepreneur saw his opportunity to realize adventurous dreams. The equally idiosyncratic and wealthy businessman Wim Beelen was the highest bidder. He aims to open the first part of the amusement park this summer.

And that’s not the only thing. If it is up to Beelen, a 120-meter-long replica of Noah’s Ark will soon be moored – temporarily – along the quay of the Maashaven.

Screaming children

If a party boat sails through the inland port, Reshma (49) – full name known to the editors – can hear the party music in her living room. In that case she knows: the ship will sail on again. But, she says, that doesn’t apply to an amusement park, with screaming children on roller coasters and flashing spotlights.

It was the reason that the Katendrechter objected to Van der Most’s plans fourteen years ago. And it is also the reason why she is not looking forward to the play paradise of Beelen.

The neighbor across the street would have preferred that the former site of waste processor AVR had been cleared for “something the city really needs.” Put a student house there, she suggests. “I have three children, there is a housing shortage, it is a very beautiful place. Then you think: use that land for housing.”

But Wim Beelen, whose wealth business magazine Quote estimated at 145 million euros, has very different plans. And he doesn’t sit back.

The entrepreneur quickly dismantled almost all of Van der Most’s second-hand attractions, from the UFO tower to a roller coaster that had never been put into use. The attractions turned out to be unsafe. According to Beelen, the previous owner also took crucial operating systems with him just before the auction.

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Seizure of estate

Yes, he is in a hurry, Beelen says on the phone NRC. “The children of South have been driving past this for ten years with the promise: it will open within six months.” And so, according to the entrepreneur, 150 construction workers are currently walking around the site.

‘Playing at Beelen’ should become a park, he says, “where children can be children again.” No haunted house, but “playing around”, “playing outside” and “discovering” – with the Ark as a temporary encore. The first visitors can enter the site this summer, in the spring of 2028, two years before the lease expires, the “grand opening” planned.

The neighborhood has not yet forgotten that Van der Most had equally ambitious ideas from 2012 onwards. He invested tens of millions in the park and ultimately lost his entire empire to the project. In May, the judge declared Van der Most bankrupt. The creditor even seized his estate and private home.

“I felt sorry for him,” says Jan Pieter Kaptein (36), who lives in Charlois. “Van der Most has made a mess of it. But you wouldn’t wish a career to end this way on anyone.”

At the same time, he sees how yet another businessman is taking over his neighborhood. “The area simply needs to be redeveloped, in collaboration with local residents. The municipal council has already said before the bidding process: all well and good, but we want to look at homes.” Kaptein is referring to a motion from just before the auction, in which the full council stated that it no longer wanted an amusement park at the location. Not even under a new owner.

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’45 seats’

Beelen is not concerned about that. “The city decided fourteen years ago: there should be an amusement park. I did not come up with that. If the city council does not want that, then it should have said to the council: I want you to make a bid at the auction.” According to him, the council mainly wants to “score cheaply on the backs of children”.

The leasehold on the site expires in 2030. After that, the entrepreneur must return the land to the municipality. The question is therefore whether the city will maintain its intention not to renew the lease.

As far as Kevin van Eikeren, councilor for PRO, is concerned, there is no doubt about that. He is not happy with Beelen, who recently on the radio criticized the “45 seats” of the council. “He continuously insults the municipality and the parliament. He is simply a prolete, a patjepeean, a man who is mainly concerned with himself.”

Geert Koster (Liveable Rotterdam) is milder. He is already leaving the door open to extend the lease in 2030, although Leefbaar Rotterdam also agreed to a motion to subsequently give the site a new purpose.

Given the “current state of affairs”, the motion still applies, according to the council member. But he also says: if Beelen succeeds in opening the amusement park, “we are realistic enough to look at it again.” “If there will soon be a fantastic park, I find it difficult to say: get out now.”

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Photos Walter Autumn

‘Smiling children’s faces’

Beelen was previously part of the municipality of Amsterdam in the clinch about the construction of a shipyard for superyachts on the ADM site. After a tough legal battle, the city bought the site back in 2025 for 165 million euros.

The city received a harbinger of what could happen in Rotterdam over the next four years, when councilor Chantal Zeegers (D66) invited the entrepreneur for a meeting at city hall. Upon arrival, she handed Beelen a letter stating that the municipal council would prefer to build homes on the site.

He refused to accept the letter.

He will not accept another invitation. “I don’t want to talk to those people at all.” He only wants this as soon as there is a new council after the 2030 elections, which will soon have to decide on the leasehold. “The only thing I want to put my energy into is the amusement park. Then you will see smiling children’s faces there in no time.”

At Katendrecht, Flip Klos (19) will just wait and see. Fourteen years ago he was just in primary school when the first plans saw the light. Klos can hardly remember anything other than that on the other side of the Maashaven an entrepreneur is building an amusement park, which is not being completed. And he hopes it stays that way for a while.

“Once I’m out of the house, which hopefully won’t be long, I don’t care so much anymore. I didn’t have to. But if that man thinks it’s cool: have fun.”

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