People in San Francisco are alarmed by the fact that The Millenium Tower, a 58-story luxury residential building, has sunk 16 inches since it was built in 2009.
The Millenium Tower, which is reported to be the largest reinforced concrete building in the United States is not only sinking, but is also leaning 6 inches towards the nearest skyscraper to it. The building which is the tallest residential structure in the city is now dubbed as "The Leaning tower in San Francisco."
Homeowners filed a lawsuit against the developer citing that it has a "defective foundation." The issue also raised alarms and concerns from the city officials, and examinations are being conducted to determine whether or not the building has engineering flaws. San Francisco is prone to earthquakes since there are two major fault lines in the area.
In an interview with The New York Times, a civil engineering professor at the University of California Nicholas Sitar mentioned that people should pay close attention to the case of the Millenium Tower. He added that the soil conditions in San Francisco is very challenging for engineers since there weren't any tall buildings in the area for a long time. The construction of the Millenium Tower was brought about by advances in the engineering field and research on buildings in earthquake zones. This may have made engineers confident of constructing the skyscraper. However, Sitar added that the confidence is warranted to some extent, but "at that the same time, there has to be an abundance of caution."
Millenium Tower was constructed by the developers Millenium Partners. They claimed responsibility for the initial sinking of the building, saying that it may have been caused when they were removing groundwater. However, they mentioned that the further sinking was due to the ongoing excavation nearby under the Transbay Joint Powers Authority which is building a multibillion-dollar transportation and housing hub.
The Wall Street Journal reported that a Current and former city officials were submitted into questioning on Thursday. The matter at hand was inspected by a city audit and oversight committee headed by San Francisco Supervisor Aaron Peskin. He mentioned that the issue goes beyond as there is a need "need to understand what other buildings built on landfill, and clay, and sand are in a potentially similar situation."
At the time of the construction, the city was reported not to have regulatory laws on inspecting the construction since it was the first of the few skyscrapers in the Business District. The current lawsuit alleges that the building will sink another 8-15 inches in the next years and that the earthquakes can make it worse.
Hearings about the case will continue in the coming weeks. Millenium Developers has received at least nine awards after the construction of the building for "excellence in structural engineering". They also stated that the building was constructed in high regard of the city standards and that permits were properly secured.
The litigation is expected to stretch on for years in order to find out who's really responsible for the engineering flaws.
