11/6/2023 0 Comments Millennium tower lean![]() "We felt they had it under control," replied Lui, now employed in San Francisco's public works department. But the engineering firm concluded, "It is our professional opinion that the structures are safe."Ĭity Supervisor Aaron Peskin, who has convened hearings on the matter at City Hall, asked Lui why the building was then certified safe for occupancy. In a February 2009 letter, a chief buildings inspector, Raymond Lui, wrote to the tower's engineering firm to express concerns about "larger than expected settlements." He asked what was being done to stop the sinking and if the building's structural safety could be affected.ĭeSimone Consulting Engineers replied that the building had already unexpectedly settled 8.3 inches. They show both sides knew the building was sinking more than anticipated before it opened in late 2009, but neither made that information public. Several documents involving the downtown building were leaked in recent weeks, including exchanges between the city's Department of Building Inspection and Millennium Partners, the developer. But in a major earthquake fault zone, the Millennium Tower's structural problems have raised alarm and become the focus of a public scandal. But it's not sinking evenly, which has created a 2-inch tilt at the base - and a roughly 6-inch lean at the top.īy comparison, Italy's famed Leaning Tower of Pisa is leaning more than 16 feet. "Is it safe to stay here? For how long?"Ĭompleted seven years ago, the tower so far has sunk 16 inches into the soft soil and landfill of San Francisco's crowded financial district. Fix officials say the building’s elevator and life-safety systems would start to fail should the building reach 40 inches of tilt."What concerns me most is the tilting," says Buttery, 76, a retired real estate developer. The building currently leans about 29 inches at the northwest corner. While an outside expert questioned the assumptions of the computer models used for the fix, its engineers stand by their assertions that the 18 piles are enough to stop the sinking and reverse some of the tilt. “The last thing that you want to do to a tower - a building that is tilting in one direction - is dig 25 feet deep excavations along the sides of the building that are settling and tilting,” he said.īut now that the city has approved the scaled-down plan, fix engineers say the work at the corner of the tilting tower should be done by year’s end. ![]() He fears that will rob supportive ground where it’s needed most. Another, he says, is the risk from all the new digging needed at the corner of Mission and Fremont Streets. Pyke has argued that is just one reason city officials should halt the project. “You don't stop continuing settlement,” he said. But Pyke worries by scaling down to just 18, the piles won’t function as well as they would if there were 52. ![]() ![]() They function more like adjustable cushions to keep from damaging the existing concrete slab foundation when load is shifted onto them. He says that by design, the new support piles are not rigid. “The load transfer from the existing foundation to the new perimeter piles is very complex,” says veteran geotechnical engineer, Bob Pyke, a longtime critic of the fix. The plan is to shift some of that load from the leaning building onto some of those bedrock-supported piles.Īn expert who has criticized the fix even before it was approved warned that the plan will not likely work the way the fix engineers hope. Work has started on digging a 25-foot deep trench at the northwest corner of the building to make room for that extended foundation. Underground Wall Could Be Hitch for SF's Millennium Tower Fix PlanĪs part of that work, crews need to extend the existing foundation.
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