Millennium Tower

San Francisco is a famous city in California, hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world visit the city by the bay in a year. It’s is known for its attractions like, Lombard Street the crookedest street in the world. Then you have the world famous Fisherman’s Wharf, China Town and Alcatraz. Now it has the Leaning Tower of Millennium. Not!

This 58 story building was completed in 2009 on Market Street on the Southside. It was supposed to be the tallest building in San Francisco. Since its completion it has been sinking and leaning. It has sunk 16 inches and it has titled 2 inches. What the heck! In 2009 Raymond Lui chief building Inspector at the time, sent a letter to the Millennium Towers engineering firm. Concerned about the “larger than excepted settlements” and “what was being done about the sinking and if the building’s structural safety could be affected.” Just like those big firms being greedy and all about the money. They sent a reply from DeSimone Consulting Engineers, that the building had already unexpectedly settled 8.3 inches. But the engineering firm concluded, “It is our professional opinion that the structures are safe.” When Aaron Peskin the City Supervisor convened a hearing on the matter and asked Lui why the building was then certified safe for occupancy. He said, “We felt they had it under control.” Now 8 years later the founding partner of Millennium Chris Jeffries said, “We did this building the right way,” and “The building is 100 percent safe.” Now it’s the blame game. Jeffries blames the building’s problems on a neighboring building site where a city rail terminal is being built. He says the Transbay Joint Powers Authority, the public agency is building the $4.5 billion transit hub, dug a 60-foot hole to create a dry construction site and forced out millions of gallons of groundwater that wound up compressing and weakening the soil under the Millennium Tower. Transbay says the tower’s “inadequate foundation is the sole cause of the excessive settlement and tilt.” It released a statement saying the building had sunk 10 inches and started to lean before the agency broke ground in 2010. All those wealthy ones who couldn’t wait to own a piece of the Millennium Tower are probably thinking twice. Like Jerry Dodson, an attorney and engineer who paid $2.1 million in 2009 for his two-bedroom apartment on the 42nd floor. The Penthouse sold for 10 million.

All I know I couldn’t live in something like that and especially in San Francisco. With the big earthquake that is bound to come. Look what happen in the 1906 earthquake 3000 people lost their lives. I couldn’t even imagine how many loss of life there will be. They better fix this problem before something horrific happens.

LM

http://www.mercurynews.com/2016/10/24/tilting-sinking-san-francisco-high-rise-raises-alarm/