San Francisco’s Millennium Tower is now tilting 26 inches to the north – transferring at a price of three inches a 12 months

Millennium Tower in San Francisco, California on January 14, 2017. Source – Victorgrigas, CC SA 4.0.

The Millennium Tower in San Francisco is now 26 inches off center, with 10 inches of that tilt occurring last year while work was underway on an alleged repair, according to the project’s chief engineer.

Civil Engineer Ronald O. Hamburger spoke Thursday at a hearing in the city proposing an updated solution for the building’s foundation, NBC Bay Area reported. Hamburger’s new proposal would be to reduce the originally proposed 52 piles to 18, claiming this would “minimize additional building settlement.”

The 58-story, 645-foot tower opened to residents in 2009. The estimated $350 million project consists of two buildings, the larger of which houses 419 luxury apartments, including a lavish $13 million 5,500 square foot penthouse. It is the tallest residential building in the city

The tower’s uneven settlement has caused cracks in the surrounding sidewalk and basement walls of the smaller, 12-story sister building next door. The tower is adjacent to the Salesforce Transit Center, a bus terminal and potential future rail terminus for the California high-speed rail network currently under construction.

In May 2021, a $100 million project to save the Millennium Tower from sinking was begun, but work was halted on August 2 because the building had contributed to its thinness; Incline 5 inches toward Fremont Street, 25 percent more than before.

A letter to the Millennium Tower’s general manager last month said the new, faster solution was needed after engineers identified two possible causes of apparent deterioration in the building’s settlement: “vibration of the ground associated with piling activity and accidental removal of excess soil as the stakes were installed.”

Experts have blamed nearby construction projects and a process known as “drainage” for the weakening of the ground beneath the tower, according to previous CNN reports.

“We begin this new year of 2022 as we ended last year and many years, with the Millennium Tower continuing to sink and tip,” City Supervisor Aaron Peskin said at last week’s hearing, according to NBC.