Gordon Gill, the designer behind Jeddah Tower, has used the Saudi megatall project to make a very different point. Gill said cities should stop treating new supertalls as the only source of urban innovation and instead reopen the value locked inside ageing buildings already standing.
By Aurelius Coutinho Arabian Business
Jeddah Tower is still set to rise beyond 1,000 metres with more than 130 floors, and 2026 updates have kept its August 2028 completion target in place.
Gill says, “The greatest opportunity in the U.S. for innovation is in the programming of cities,” and then pushes the argument further by saying owners need to keep older stock relevant to “avoid obsolescence.”
Read through that lens, the hidden city is not underground. It is the enormous inventory of towers, offices, and mixed-use assets already embedded in the urban fabric.
A hidden city in plain sight
Gill anchored that case in scale. He noted that nearly half of America’s 125 million buildings are more than 50 years old, arguing that this stock presents a far larger urban test than the race for the next headline tower.
“It’s the existing building stock you have to keep your eye on,” he said, calling for buildings to be refreshed and kept relevant as part of a longer sustainability legacy.
Gill also tied reuse to direct citywide gains, not just asset-level upgrades. “We’ve proven that we can renovate an existing building and actually help the building next door,” he said.
“This is where I think the opportunity rests, not just to help yourself, but to help everyone.” That position recasts retrofit as core urban infrastructure work, not a side discussion beside new development. More
By Aurelius Coutinho Arabian Business
