San Francisco luxurious high-rise tilting 3 inches per 12 months

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – The Millennium Tower in San Francisco continues to sink, leaning about three inches per year, said the engineer in charge of repairing the troubled building.

Ron Hamburger said the luxury building’s slenderness at the current speed could reach a 40-inch slope, which would be the point where the elevators and plumbing might stop working, in just a few years without repair.

Hamburger told the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in an update hearing last week that the building would remain secure and that installing 18 steel piles underground was the best way to stop the tipping and possibly reverse some of it, reported KNTV TV.

“The building continues to rise at a rate of about half an inch a year and lean at a rate of about three inches a year,” he told supervisors last week. “It does this whether we work on site or not.”

The 58-story tower opened to fanfare in 2009 and all 419 apartments quickly sold out. High profile residents included former San Francisco 49er Joe Montana, late venture capitalist Tom Perkins, and Giants outfielder Hunter Pence.

But by 2016, the building had sunk four inches into the soft ground and landfill of San Francisco’s dense financial district. It was also sloped, creating a 5 cm slope at the base and a 6 inch (15 cm) slope at the top. Local residents sued the developer and designers.