San Francisco’s ‘sinking’ Millennium Tower leaves residents fearful; lawsuits filed
A colossal luxury apartment in San Francisco called the Millennium Tower continues to sink, sloping to one side about three inches per year, reports say. The engineer trying to repair the building has admitted the building’s demise, according to the AP. Ron Hamburger, an engineer, has stated that the 58-story apartment building could reach the point where the elevators and plumbing may stop working if tilting continues at current speed with no fix.
However, Ron Hamburger gave a solution to repair the Millennium Tower in San Francisco. In a hearing last week, Hamburger informed the San Francisco board of directors that the building is still secure. He went on to inform supervisors that placing 18 steel piles in the bedrock will help prevent the building from tipping over and possibly reverse some of it, AP quoted a KNTV television report as saying. Ron Hamburger told overseers that the building continues to “settle at a rate of about half an inch a year and topple at a rate of about three inches a year,” according to the AP.
Millennium Tower has been sinking since 2016, many lawsuits from residents
At the beginning of December last year, the engineers named two possible reasons for the demise in a letter to the general manager of the building. Accordingly, the building’s demise could be due to the vibrations of the ground associated with the pile installation and the removal of excess soil after the piles were installed, The Daily Mail reported. The Millennium Tower opened in 2009 and all 419 apartments were quickly occupied. The apartment building had high-profile residents, including former San Francisco 49er Joe Montana and San Francisco Giants outfielder Hunter Pence. The building had sunk 16 inches (40 centimeters) into the soft ground by 2016, creating a 2-inch slope at the base and a 6-inch slope at the top. Residents of the apartment building were informed of the demise in 2016 and many lawsuits have been filed since then.
