Workers scramble to fix San Fran’s Millennium Tower as luxury building continues to sink

San Francisco’s Millennium Tower is sinking, causing it to tilt to the west, despite the best efforts of workers trying to fix the luxury high-rise problem.

According to reports, the tower is currently leaning more than 29 inches to the northwest corner, with much of that inclination occurring during the excavation phase of the plan laid out to eventually support the tower along the sides.

Engineers saw signs of progress earlier this year when six concrete-filled steel piles were installed along the base of the $350 million building, but that effort may have led to the new degree of tilt assumed by the sinking tower sitting on a former landfill had been built .

The result of the lean is leaking and crumbling walls in the facility’s underground parking garage, while residents live above.

Workers repair crumbling walls resulting from leaking water in San Francisco’s Millennium Tower garage

Engineers running the project now argue that data suggesting the tilt has increased may not be reliable, despite having previously relied on it to support their claims of early success with the project.

That’s what the project’s chief engineer, Ron Hamburger, said NBC the data from measurements on the roof are sensitive to weather fluctuations and those from the foundation of the building are more reliable.

Data from the building’s foundation also indicates that the current tilt is greater than previously noted, though only about a quarter of an inch, an amount Hamburger said was “negligible.”

“We are confident that after the transfer of the remaining design load to the piles,” said Hamburger, adding that “there will be no further westward movement of the roof.”

Hamburger said he and his team have the next plan to secure the building’s foundation on 12 piles sunk along Fremont Street that will support part of the weight of the construction load.

Veteran geotechnical engineer Bob Pyke, who has long doubted the $100 million plan to fix the Leaning Tower, is feeling significantly less optimistic about the project’s next phase.

“As far as the recovery work goes, this is just a mess. You spend all that money, but you still have an uncertain outcome in the long run,” he said.

Pyke says there’s no way of knowing if repairing the tower will work as hoped and it will stop tipping over after some of its weight has shifted to the piles rooted in the bedrock.

“The design team has always maintained that there will be some rebound after they connect the perimeter posts. So far, the evidence seems to indicate that this is not going to happen,” he said.

The plan as it stands is to move part of the construction load to those piles in the coming days.

The effort to stabilize the building and stop the sinking and leaning has been underway since spring 2021.

Millennium Tower on Mission Street in San Francisco’s financial district. The building opened in 2009 and had sunk 16 inches by 2016

A strain gauge can be seen on a wall with floor-to-ceiling cracks in the Millennium Tower’s parking garage

A strain gauge on the wall of the tower’s storage area, where floor-to-ceiling cracks appeared

In 2016, the building (to the right of the tallest building) had sunk nearly five feet into the soft ground and landfill on which it was built. Residents of the building then sued the developer and designers

The 58-story luxury tower opened in 2009 and quickly sold its 419 apartments, with buyers including former San Francisco 49er Joe Montana and former Giants outfielder Hunter Pence.

By 2016, the building had sunk nearly five feet into the soft ground and landfill it was built on in San Francisco’s financial district.

It also leaned, creating a 2-inch tilt at the base and a 6-inch slope at the top. Residents of the building then sued the developer and designers.

A confidential settlement reached several years ago included $100 million to install 52 140,000-pound concrete piles to anchor the building to a rock 80 feet below ground, with the idea that the piles would provide foundational support. offer to the leaning, sinking tower.