San Francisco Landmark, Luxury High-Rise Millennium Tower Is Sinking Fast

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SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS) — The Millennium Tower, one of the city’s most prestigious addresses, is sinking fast.

The luxury high-rise is home to celebrities like Joe Montana and Hunter Pence. Condominiums in the 58-story building have price tags as high as $10 million.

According to KCBS and Chronicle Insider Phil Matier, an engineering report says that the 58-story, $350 million luxury high rise has sunk by 16 inches since its completion in 2009. It’s also tilted by two inches to the northwest.

The news did not inspire confidence among building residents.

“It’s scary,” said resident Mark Weir. “I’ve seen a lot of surveyors, so I kind of thought something was up like that and I’m pretty shocked. ”

“The leaning tower of San Francisco,” said another Millennium resident, Joe Keegan.

Who is to blame for the problem depends on who you ask.

Millennium Tower officials say the sinking was triggered by excavation work for the nearby Transbay Terminal. But Transbay officials point out that the tower had already sunk by ten inches before the Transbay dig began. They blame the problems on the way the high-rise was built.

“To cut costs, Millennium did not drill piles to bedrock,” said the transit authority in a statement. Had it done so, “the tower would not be tilting today.”

In fact, the Millennium Tower sits on an area of mud-fill. It is not steel-framed, and instead relies on shear walls, columns and beams. The building is anchored over a thick concrete slab and its pilings extend about 80 feet into dense sand, not into the bedrock which lies about 200 feet below street level.

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