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The Millennium Tower in San Francisco. The ultra-luxe residential skyscraper is sinking and leaning, triggering a $500-million lawsuit against the developer, Millennium Partners. / Google Images
The tilting tower near Transbay San Francisco’s tallest and most luxurious residential skyscraper is sinking, leaning, and setting the stage for an epic, and even precedent-setting, bayside court battle.
By RICHARD MASSEY Managing Editor W hen it was completed in 2008, the 58-story Millennium Tower in San Francisco was the toast of the town – ultra luxurious condos, exorbi- tantly expensive, a symbol of the city’s emergence as the center of the venture capital universe. By 2013, the building had sold out. Penthouses went for nearly $10 million, and at one point, NFL icon and former 49er Joe Montana owned a condo there. According to press accounts, the project net- ted a healthy 25-percent profit.
rock, will continue to sink and shift. Those are the claims behind a blockbuster, $500-million class-ac- tion lawsuit filed against the building’s developer, Millennium Partners, by building resident John Eng. “It’s made headlines and people are talking about it. It’s a concerning issue.” In the notice of claim, plaintiff’s attorney Ron Fore- man says, “The subsidence and the threat of fu- ture subsidence obstruct Claimant’s and the other homeowners’ free use of, and interfere with their enjoyment of, their homes, and thereby cause them to be annoyed and/or disturbed.” The suit also names as defendant the Transbay Joint Powers Authority, the multi-agency pub- lic entity that dug a 60-foot excavation next to the Millennium as part of the over-budget,
But that was then and this is now.
The gleaming tower in the SOMA district has sunk at least 16 inches since it was built, and a tilt at the base has resulted in an alarming 15-inch lean at the top. Pavement has already buckled in several areas, and there have been complaints of water intrusion. The tower, built on landfill but not anchored in bed-
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