SAN FRANCISCO – A 58-story luxury San Francisco apartment building continues to sink, sloping about three inches per year, said the engineer in charge of repairing the troubled building.
At the current pace with no fix, the Millennium Tower could reach a 40-inch (1 meter) slope in just a few years, which would be the point where the elevators and plumbing may stop working, said Ron Hamburger, the technician.
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 Millennium Tower opened with fanfare in 2009 and all 419 apartments sold out quickly. Celebrity residents included former San Francisco 49er Joe Montana, late venture capitalist Tom Perkins, and San Francisco 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.
