“After everyone avoided responsibility it isn’t solely about safety anymore, it's about financial security. With no one willing to pay for the blame, the Millenium Tower is at a sinking standoff.” -- Bella Schainker, 8th grade
The 58-story, 645-foot tall Millenium Tower, a luxury residential skyscraper in San Francisco, is sinking into the ground. Currently, the building is leaning over two feet off of its center, due to the rapidly compressing clay and sand soil that the foundation sits upon, along with the building itself being made of heavy concrete and lacking any anchoring to the bedrock underneath.
Engineers halted construction on the repair in the summer of 2021 so they could “determine why increased foundation movement was occurring and how this could be mitigated.” According to the 48hills article “The Leaning Tower of Soma is a mess—but everyone’s ducking responsibility,”, the team that designed the repair never analyzed how many new pilings were really needed to safely stabilize the building and the amount has now shifted from the 52 pilings to just 18. The process of digging up the new pilings almost certainly caused the building to lean farther. The newest repair itself costs about $350 million dollars.
Eventually the developer, Millennium Partners, the homeowners, and the city agreed to a deal that included a “fix.” The decisions on repairing the building were driven not just by safety but by the developer’s finances. In the same 48 hills article, it states that in order to relaunch the stabilization, structural engineer Ronald O. Hamburger on Thursday proposed slashing the number of support piles beneath the tower from 52 to 18 to "minimize additional building settlement." Hamburger said the 18 steel piles will be anchored into bedrock 250 feet under the tower.
A letter to the Millennium Tower’s general manager last month said the new, quicker fix was needed after engineers identified two potential causes for apparent worsening of the building’s settlement: “vibration of the soils associated with pile installation activity, and unintentional removal of excessive soil as the piles were installed,” according to NBC News’s article, ”Leaning San Francisco skyscraper is tilting 3 inches per year as engineers rush to implement fix.”
According to the ABC7 News’s timeline, Millenium Partners were aware of the issues with support and stability as early as 2008. The tower was opened in 2009 and it wasn’t until 2016 tenants learned of its instability. In 2017, a report was made stating that the building was in fact earthquake safe. The biggest issue was in 2018, when the building was visibly tilting, sinking, and there was a cracked window on the 36th floor.
According to the previously mentioned article by NBC News, residents were informed that the building is settling unevenly and more than anticipated in 2016. But efforts to stabilize the sinking and leaning skyscraper seemed to worsen matters.
In an CBS Local exclusive interview from October 2021, a former condo owner says he’s glad he got out. Andrew Faulk remembers the day in 2016, when he and hundreds of other Millennium Tower unit owners were called to an important meeting where they got what would become life-changing news. “Well, the best I remember is, the building is sinking. And tilting,” said Faulk. “What they said was, this was not a big problem.”
Later, Faulk’s husband Frank Jernigan rolled a marble on the floor of their $4 million, 50th-floor condo that confirmed for them that the problem was all too real. “The marble turns around and picks up speed as it heads in the direction that the building was leaning. We were surprised, and we were a little shocked,” said Faulk.
There was denial at first after finding out. “We thought, ‘Oh, this can’t be a big thing,’ you know? This is a building in downtown San Francisco,” said Faulk. “It has to be safe!” Faulk says building management never disclosed anything about the sinking when he purchased the unit. “...That was really disappointing because we learned later that the sinking had actually already begun when they were showing the unit to us,” said Faulk. “Looking back, I feel comfortable in saying it was deceptive.”
The San Francisco Department of Building Inspection tells ABC7 News that an inspector has been to the site 3 times. The inspector determined there is no imminent risk to pedestrians below, specifically because cracked glass is laminated and designed to hold in place even when fractured.
As reported by ABC7 News, "We have demonstrated to our satisfaction and hopefully eventually to the city's satisfaction as well, that the building will remain safe, that it will stop settling and that it will begin recovering tilt,” said Ron Hamburger.
Engineers halted construction on the repair in the summer of 2021 so they could “determine why increased foundation movement was occurring and how this could be mitigated.” According to the 48hills article “The Leaning Tower of Soma is a mess—but everyone’s ducking responsibility,”, the team that designed the repair never analyzed how many new pilings were really needed to safely stabilize the building and the amount has now shifted from the 52 pilings to just 18. The process of digging up the new pilings almost certainly caused the building to lean farther. The newest repair itself costs about $350 million dollars.
Eventually the developer, Millennium Partners, the homeowners, and the city agreed to a deal that included a “fix.” The decisions on repairing the building were driven not just by safety but by the developer’s finances. In the same 48 hills article, it states that in order to relaunch the stabilization, structural engineer Ronald O. Hamburger on Thursday proposed slashing the number of support piles beneath the tower from 52 to 18 to "minimize additional building settlement." Hamburger said the 18 steel piles will be anchored into bedrock 250 feet under the tower.
A letter to the Millennium Tower’s general manager last month said the new, quicker fix was needed after engineers identified two potential causes for apparent worsening of the building’s settlement: “vibration of the soils associated with pile installation activity, and unintentional removal of excessive soil as the piles were installed,” according to NBC News’s article, ”Leaning San Francisco skyscraper is tilting 3 inches per year as engineers rush to implement fix.”
According to the ABC7 News’s timeline, Millenium Partners were aware of the issues with support and stability as early as 2008. The tower was opened in 2009 and it wasn’t until 2016 tenants learned of its instability. In 2017, a report was made stating that the building was in fact earthquake safe. The biggest issue was in 2018, when the building was visibly tilting, sinking, and there was a cracked window on the 36th floor.
According to the previously mentioned article by NBC News, residents were informed that the building is settling unevenly and more than anticipated in 2016. But efforts to stabilize the sinking and leaning skyscraper seemed to worsen matters.
In an CBS Local exclusive interview from October 2021, a former condo owner says he’s glad he got out. Andrew Faulk remembers the day in 2016, when he and hundreds of other Millennium Tower unit owners were called to an important meeting where they got what would become life-changing news. “Well, the best I remember is, the building is sinking. And tilting,” said Faulk. “What they said was, this was not a big problem.”
Later, Faulk’s husband Frank Jernigan rolled a marble on the floor of their $4 million, 50th-floor condo that confirmed for them that the problem was all too real. “The marble turns around and picks up speed as it heads in the direction that the building was leaning. We were surprised, and we were a little shocked,” said Faulk.
There was denial at first after finding out. “We thought, ‘Oh, this can’t be a big thing,’ you know? This is a building in downtown San Francisco,” said Faulk. “It has to be safe!” Faulk says building management never disclosed anything about the sinking when he purchased the unit. “...That was really disappointing because we learned later that the sinking had actually already begun when they were showing the unit to us,” said Faulk. “Looking back, I feel comfortable in saying it was deceptive.”
The San Francisco Department of Building Inspection tells ABC7 News that an inspector has been to the site 3 times. The inspector determined there is no imminent risk to pedestrians below, specifically because cracked glass is laminated and designed to hold in place even when fractured.
As reported by ABC7 News, "We have demonstrated to our satisfaction and hopefully eventually to the city's satisfaction as well, that the building will remain safe, that it will stop settling and that it will begin recovering tilt,” said Ron Hamburger.