The new Square Mile?
King's Cross is rightly lauded as a regeneration success story, and it is desire that has turned it into one of the world's leading AI and technology hubs.
With Google's much-awaited London HQ due to open in the next few weeks, The Daily Telegraph this week took a look at the regeneration of King's Cross, its role as an AI and tech cluster, and its future as what one VC investor calls "the new Square Mile".
The former post-industrial wasteland is often rightly fêted as a success story, an example of how such projects should be approached. But while the Telegraph is right to shine a light on King's Cross journey to its current status, its framing doesn't quite capture what really happened. For King's Cross isn't a place that was 'just' improved - it's a place that was orchestrated.
Too many developments still focus on demand. Footfall, catchments, transport links - ie. the fundamentals. But demand alone rarely creates momentum - it simply fills space. King's Cross did something different. Under Argent (now Related Argent), it was built around desire, and that meant curating occupiers, not just leasing to them. Thinking about adjacency and ecosystem value over decades, not years or quarters. And using infrastructure - from St Pancras International downwards - not just for access, but to give global occupiers the confidence to commit early.
The result is what we now call a tech cluster, but that's an outcome, not the strategy. Businesses like Google didn't define King's Cross, they responded to it. And that's because desire is magnetic. It attracts talent, capital, and brands in a way demand alone cannot. Even the public realm plays into this. Granary Square and the wider masterplan aren't just well designed. They extend time, increase interaction, and create the kind of environment people choose to be in. And that choice is everything.
The uncomfortable truth for the industry is that most schemes still optimise for demand metrics and launch moments. King's Cross optimised for long-term desire. That requires patience, conviction, and a level of placemaking capability that is still rare.
So the real question is not whether King's Cross can be replicated - it's whether the real estate industry, and the capital behind it, is prepared to prioritise desire over demand. To take the long view. To, ultimately, create something holds the potential to shape not just the district it sits in, but the wider world too. The real estate sector is full of the talent to do incredible things; King's Cross may have set the template, but it won't be the last regeneration project to see this level of success.