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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsA 58-story skyscraper in San Francisco is tilting and sinking making their apartments worthless
https://www.yahoo.com/news/m/443e7797-49a5-39c4-92ea-f1a925d4cf31/ss_a-58-story-skyscraper-in-san.htmlYahoo News / Business Insider..
Bad news keeps piling up at the "leaning tower" of San Francisco. Millennium Tower is a luxury residential high-rise that has sunk 17 inches and tilted 14 inches since it was completed in 2008. Though an inspection by the city showed it's safe to occupy, the building's wealthy residents take no solace. Their multimillion-dollar condos have tumbled $320,000 in value on average. Here's what we know about the fate of Millennium Tower.
Millennium Tower rises 58 stories above San Francisco's Financial District.
The city's fourth-tallest skyscraper contains over 400 multimillion-dollar condo units. It soars 645 feet, providing residents with panoramic views of the Bay Area... more info..but here is the most important....
But residents weren't happy after learning in June 2015 that the building had sunk 16 inches into the soil and tilted 2 inches at its base.
So far in 2017, Millennium Tower has sunk an additional inch and tilted another 2 1/2 inches toward the massive Salesforce Tower under construction across the street.....(more at link)
ghostsinthemachine
(3,569 posts)But. I think Joe Montana lives on the top floor, or he did anyway. What do the tenants do? The developer?
The lawyers must be salivating at all the possible suits.
dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)Yep....
Too bad they did not set it on bedrock....
Brother Buzz
(36,416 posts)and the other half is on reasonably consolidated fill.
One situation, or the other, the engineers can deal with, but in this case, they totally blew it.
R B Garr
(16,950 posts)be condemned or something. Too dangerous to live in.
Brother Buzz
(36,416 posts)While the owners continue to reside in the tower.
Millennium Tower keeps on sinking, but there may be a fix
By Matier & Ross Updated 12:24 pm, Wednesday, July 19, 2017
<snip>
The good news for the towers well-heeled residents, who paid from $1.6 million to $10 million for their condominiums, is that a pair of engineering firms hired by developer Millennium Partners and other parties involved in the dispute think they have a solution that will stabilize the tower and prop it back upright.
The LERA firm and DeSimone Consulting Engineers say the problem can be remedied by drilling 50 to 100 new piles down to bedrock from the buildings basement. Each pile would be anywhere from 10 inches to a foot in diameter.
<more>
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Millennium-Tower-keeps-on-sinking-but-there-may-11297935.php
R B Garr
(16,950 posts)pilings from the basement. I guess that's why they need two engineering firms for this because of the check and balances getting it right. I still would be scared to live there. Imagine riding the elevators, etc.
I see where Joe Montana sued the building's developers. What an awful and scary mess.
Brother Buzz
(36,416 posts)Joe Montana helped promote the tower in 2010 in exchange for residency, which means he could be on the hook for lawsuits himself. He promoted the tower while management know of the problems, yet didn't tell him. He's kinda pissed because his reputation is on the line.
R B Garr
(16,950 posts)extend to the City, as well, for approving construction on that ground. Though other surrounding buildings aren't in jeopardy, it seems. I sure can see why buyers were initially attracted to a high rise with those views, but how scary it's turned out to be.
Edit, I remember seeing a show (I think like Huell Howser or something like that) that showed how that area/land was built up and marveled at it, but it obviously has its downsides.
snooper2
(30,151 posts)just because LOL
jmowreader
(50,555 posts)Polyurethane foam is a good product for raising a slab...but I don't think it'll pick up a 60-story building.
Binkie The Clown
(7,911 posts)A lot of San Fransisco is built on the rubble of the earthquake that was just pushed into the bay and used as fill to create new "land".
marylandblue
(12,344 posts)The building designer has to submit soil reports to city plan checkers showing that the soil can support the building. The designer made a mistake and the plan checkers didn't catch it.
NutmegYankee
(16,199 posts)It's a major reason that you don't see many tall buildings in the US Southeast coast. Sandy soil with bedrock very deep below. In Norfolk, VA, it can be 7000 feet down.
JI7
(89,247 posts)mulsh
(2,959 posts)liberal free market at work in all its glory. A great deal of the eastern shore of SF is built on these lots.
Here's an article with maps about water lots in the area where the Millennium Tower was built.
[link:http://www.foundsf.org/index.php?title=WATER_LOT_SPECULATION|
dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)People talk of buying land by the gallon in So. Fla., because the "bedrock" is porous limestone, and water flows in and out of that.
And it goes UP with rising sea levels..into the streets.
WinkyDink
(51,311 posts)mulsh
(2,959 posts)term seems to upset hardcore free market fetishists, especially when they're bad mouthing liberals.
It's mostly the correct economics term but then so are terms like grifter, con artists or the archaic "flim-flam man".
Warpy
(111,245 posts)There is no way I can think of to shore up something that big. Had they caught the mistake (and I'm being generous) there might have been a way.
Eventually doors and windows will no longer fit, windows will start to crack and fall, and the damned thing will be unsafe and have to be demolished.
I do feel a bit sorry for people who spent everything they had to buy into the place, some undoubtedly in the hope that the profit in a few years would allow them to buy an ordinary bungalow in Silicon Valley, where their jobs were. California is nuts.
Javaman
(62,521 posts)someone completely fucked up on the geo-engineering report.
I work in this industry and I have seen lawsuits like this.
they are not pretty.
this is a massive fuck up.
tinrobot
(10,895 posts)Does it completely tip over?
Tracer
(2,769 posts)MyNameGoesHere
(7,638 posts)Close it down and let it be the American version of the fine tower at Pisa. That one can be blamed on lack of engineering skills at the time, this one can be a monument to greed.
hatrack
(59,584 posts)"But the fourth one stayed up!"