- Katie Huang
Millennium Tower in San Francisco is Titling 3 Inches Per Year
Millennium Tower, the highest building in San Francisco, was completed in 2009. It started opening to residents on April 23, 2009. It is a 58-story, 645-foot-tall (197 m) condominium skyscraper. The project has 419 residential units, with 53 teams in the smaller tower.
In May 2016, the residents were informed that the central tower was sinking and titling. In recent days, a report shows the building is tilting 26 inches north and west. Ronald O. Hamburger, a structural engineer from San Francisco, commented last Thursday that he would fix the tower's foundation.
The solution to fix the stability problem is to remove the number of support piles beneath the tower from 52 to 18 to "minimize additional building settlement." The engineers point out the reason why the central tower is tilting: “vibration of the soils associated with pile installation activity, and unintentional removal of excessive soil as the piles were installed.”
Hopefully, this problem can be solved shortly. Many residents in this tower are concerned about safety. The letter to the manager said the plan for 18 piles is safe. Even though it won’t stop the sinking, the tower's builder had predicted that the building would settle at a maximum of 5.5 inches by 2028.
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