San Francisco's sinking Millennium Tower creates 1-inch gap between building next door

KCBS radio ^ | 2/24/2022 | Natalia Gurevich

[vespa300]

The saga of San Francisco's sinking Millennium Tower continues, as the structure's movement has now created a 1-inch gap between the main tower and a 12-story podium, according to reporting by the San Francisco Chronicle.

[M Kehoe]

Maybe a small earthquake would help?

5.56mm

[vespa300]

Cool....thanks. Gonna watch it.

[just Grace]

Duct tape would degrade too quickly in San Fran’s salt air. This is clearly a job for zip ties.

—————-
Bailing wire.

[JD_UTDallas]

250 feet to bedrock they went cheap on the initial foundation with friction piles into clay obviously not enough of them.

https://www.builderonline.com/land/local-markets/s-f-s-millennium-tower-to-lean-no-more_o

[Graybeard58]

It’s San Francisco, people; it must lean to the left!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Depends on how you look at it.

When my daughter pulls her car into my driveway, I have observed the wheels on the driver’s side are turning counter clockwise, yet if I observe from the passenger side those wheels are turning clockwise. Seems to me she should be going in circles. I dunno.

[Steve Van Doorn]

said, "friction piles into clay obviously not enough of them"
Think of a pin cushion. You put in a lot of small pins into the cushion the cushion itself will push down when you put something on top of the pins. It's not that they didn't have enough. They where not through the pin cushion into the rock below.

It's down by an inch in the center. That building my not make it before the fix.

[JD_UTDallas]

Im aware how friction piles work. Venice is built on millions of wooden friction piles that never reach anything other than lagoon mud and clay. Wood lasts indefinitely when in water that is oxygen free.

This tower is sinking because they didn’t put enough piles deep enough into competent sediments that when put under compression load is dewatering and compacting. Had they increased the density of the piles and put them deeper into a more competent layer of clay the building wouldn’t be sinking. The alternative is to put your piles all the way to bedrock in the first place that of course costs more in the initial construction. Whoever did their geotechnical sediment analysis failed them or the builder willingly cut corners on costs and ignored his geotech.

[SunkenCiv]

This topic was posted 2/25/2022, thanks vespa300. IMHO, either it gets taken down, or, it will come down unexpectedly, and turn that area into a game of giant dominoes. But, I have no dog in the hunt.

A nearly forgotten underground wall could prove a serious obstacle to reversing the tilt of the Millennium Tower, a major goal of the $100 million fix for the troubled San Francisco high rise, experts tell NBC Bay Area’s Investigative Unit. Jaxon Van Derbeken reports.

Underground Wall Could Be Hitch for
San Francisco's Millennium Tower Fix Plan
| May 12, 2022 | NBC Bay Area

[BenLurkin]

The tilt of San Francisco’s Millennium Tower has deepened as engineers work to reverse lean
By Katherine Donlevy
June 11, 2023 12:27am

https://nypost.com/2023/06/11/san-franciscos-millennium-towers-tilt-deepens-as-engineers-rush-to-reverse-lean/

[vespa300]

oh wow........Timberrrrr! I wouldn’t live there for free.