At least nine awards for “excellence in structural engineering"

October 24, 2016 8:49 PM

Pamela Buttery noticed something peculiar six years ago while practicing golf putting in her 57th-floor apartment at the luxurious Millennium Tower. The ball kept veering to the same corner of her living room.

The Millennium Tower in San Francisco's Financial District is sinking, and leaning. And it shows no signs of stopping.

More from Business Insider:

The tower's troubles are apparent in its five-floor underground garage, where Porsches and Lamborghinis sit near walls bearing floor-to-ceiling cracks, many bracketed by stress gauges to measure growth.

Meanwhile, accusations and lawsuits are piling up.

Dodson and other residents blame developers for what they say is a flawed design. The tower's foundation, for instance, uses piles driven 60 to 90 feet into landfill, rather than the pricier option of going down at least 240 feet to bedrock.

The SF Chronicle:

Unlike some downtown high-rises, the Millennium isn’t steel-framed. Instead, the developer chose a concrete design more common to residential buildings. It relies on huge columns, shear walls and beams, and it’s much heavier than steel. What’s more, the building is located on unstable mud-fill, just off the bay’s original shoreline.

The Millennium’s engineers anchored the building over a thick concrete slab with piles driven roughly 80 feet into dense sand. “To cut costs, Millennium did not drill piles to bedrock,” or 200 feet down, the transit center authority said in its statement. Had it done so, the agency said, “the tower would not be tilting today.”

NYT:

“City officials have said it’s at a critical point right now,” Mr. Dodson said of the building. He said the sewage connections to the building may no longer function properly if it continues to sink. And engineers fear that the building’s high-speed elevators may fail if the building tilts farther, he said. He fears that if it continues to tilt, it may become unlivable.

LA Times:

While a paper trail of concern about potential settling leads back to early 2009, even before the Millennium Tower was ready for occupancy, most residents of the building knew nothing about any issue with the foundation until they were summoned in early May to a private meeting in a lounge on the tower’s club level.

Identification was checked at the door. Residents were told that what they were to hear must be kept a secret. A lawyer introduced a structural engineer who delivered, as Buttery and others recall, a simple statement that startled the packed room:

“The Millennium building is too heavy for its foundation.”

Not only had the tower settled by far more than the four to six inches originally forecast for the life of the building but, “most importantly,” recalled Jerry Dodson, a retired patent lawyer and a vocal critic of the tower’s builders, the engineer said “it wasn’t stopping.”

Dodson has since heard estimates that the building could sink anywhere from 30 to 48 inches, “but nobody really knows.”

posted by Existential Dread (71 comments total)

The Millennium’s engineers anchored the building over a thick concrete slab with piles driven roughly 80 feet into dense sand. “To cut costs, Millennium did not drill piles to bedrock,” or 200 feet down, the transit center authority said in its statement. Had it done so, the agency said, “the tower would not be tilting today.”

Worth noting that the transit authority quoted here will likely be sued by the building developers for inadequate shoring, so they have an incentive to denigrate the original design of the building - as noted in the article, most buildings don't go down to bedrock and there aren't problems because they still have enough bearing to support the building. Even this building may have been fine if they went down to say, 160 feet. Everything will probably come down to what the soils report says (I'm assuming one had to have been done for the building department to approve the project), whether the structural engineers followed their recommendations, and whether the soils engineers had a chance to review the structural design of the building - all pretty standard practices.
posted by LionIndex at 9:03 PM on October 24, 2016 [9 favorites]

In a February 2009 letter, a chief buildings inspector, Raymond Lui, wrote to the tower's engineering firm to express concerns about "larger than expected settlements."

To be fair, the residents probably do deserve more money for being misled...
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:09 PM on October 24, 2016 [5 favorites]

DeSimone Consulting Engineers replied 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."

I'm inclined to agree
posted by beerperson at 9:09 PM on October 24, 2016 [31 favorites]

I sit on my building's strata council. This story gives me nightmares. Our building, while relatively new, is also pretty healthy, but even then we struggle to understand and spend appropriately to address maintenance issues that require an engineer to explain. Leaving aside concerns of catastrophic failure, ongoing spending for the building will be insane. A year of poor elevator maintenance can incur tens of thousands of dollars in previously-unnecessary costs, for an elevator without major defects. For a high speed elevator run at an angle for years on end, that alone is probably worth your condo fees again just to address.

Even if I had confidence that the city and developer would figure out how to fix the issue and not cost me my purchase price, the ongoing costs would be ruinous. The current owners are already sliding down the lip of a money pit. If I couldn't move out and rent it and hope to balance the books that way, I'd just eat the loss now and get out.
posted by fatbird at 9:18 PM on October 24, 2016 [10 favorites]

"Structural engineering is the art of molding materials we don't wholly understand, into shapes we can't fully analyze, so as to withstand forces we can't really assess, in such a way that the community at large has no reason to suspect the extent of our ignorance."
— Attributed to various people
posted by namasaya at 9:32 PM on October 24, 2016 [48 favorites]

One thing I don't understand about Millennium's accusation that a neighbouring excavation caused the sinking by pumping out groundwater: any excavation for a comparable development in the neighbourhood would do the same, so it's totally implausible that it's an unanticipated engineering problem. I don't see how this is at all a mitigating factor for Millennium, because if it is, it implies that no other development could be done around it.
posted by fatbird at 9:32 PM on October 24, 2016 [16 favorites]

I'm inclined to agree.

Residents may be feeling slightly (but increasingly) inclined to disagree...
posted by namasaya at 9:35 PM on October 24, 2016 [18 favorites]

(Just in case it may not be clear from the snippets above, the transit authority has an opinion on this because they are building a massive bus/rail transit hub right next door, with lots of excavation, and the Leaning Tower of Mudville's residents and developers have tried to place the blame there.)
posted by notyou at 9:37 PM on October 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

Granted, the transit authority has a vested interest in diverting attention back on the developers, but by the same token:

Records show the Transbay Joint Powers Authority pumped more than $58 million into an underground buttressing system to shore up the Millennium before beginning excavation in 2010. That’s one of the many reasons for the new transit center’s spiraling costs, which are now at $2.4 billion and counting.

posted by Existential Dread at 9:41 PM on October 24, 2016 [6 favorites]

Transbay Joint Powers Authority pumped more than $58 million into an underground buttressing system

I would have thought something like concrete would be more efficient.
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:50 PM on October 24, 2016 [49 favorites]

That building is an eyesore and blocks the impressive view of the city that you used to get as you came in on the bay bridge.

I'm not a structural engineer but it struck me that SF was a bad location for that sort of building anyway what with the seismic activity and all.
posted by boilermonster at 9:54 PM on October 24, 2016

If I were an owner or tenant of the building at 350 Mission Street I'd be concerned about the Millennium Tower as well, since that's the direction the Tower seems to be leaning. Only six inches now, but if there's an earthquake...
posted by Kevin Street at 10:00 PM on October 24, 2016 [3 favorites]

Instead, the developer chose a concrete design more common to residential buildings. It relies on huge columns, shear walls and beams,

I was wondering why that living room photo had a big column in the middle. This is all sorts of fucked up.
posted by mikelieman at 10:12 PM on October 24, 2016

> I'm not a structural engineer but it struck me that SF was a bad location for that sort of building anyway what with the seismic activity and all.

I'm not either, but if they hadn't decided sand was an adequate foundation (!!!! liquefaction, anyone?) and then on top (or on bottom) of that put a giant empty space for cars to live under the building, it wouldn't be having the problems it's having.
posted by rtha at 10:16 PM on October 24, 2016 [5 favorites]

I find it impossible to read about Millennium Tower's sinking without experiencing enormous schadenfreude. Most of the players here are repellently wealthy, in a city where income inequality has reached a Tale of Two Cities zenith. The whole thing is irresistibly metaphorical.
posted by latkes at 10:27 PM on October 24, 2016 [42 favorites]

(Just in case it may not be clear from the snippets above, the transit authority has an opinion on this because they are building a massive bus/rail transit hub right next door, with lots of excavation, and the Leaning Tower of Mudville's residents and developers have tried to place the blame there.)

I'd like to amend "massive bus/rail transit hub" to "massive office tower with a bus station on the bottom, otherwise unconnected to either of the city's two separate light rail systems, with space (but not enough space) at the bottom for a different heavy rail system, but no source of funding or political will to connect said train station to the train blocks currently above ground and blocks away." The end result is likely to be the world's most expensive bus station, with a huge empty train station in the basement, and no direct connections to other nearby forms of transit.

It's an obnoxiously disconnected incredibly expensive bus terminal designed to be all "see, transit! everybody likes transit so don't ask too many questions" as cover for building the second tallest building west of the Mississippi and handwaving over the fact that we're building far more office space than housing.
posted by zachlipton at 10:37 PM on October 24, 2016 [20 favorites]

If the building had already sank 10" before the transit excavations even started, then I'm not sure how they're to blame.
posted by sbutler at 10:47 PM on October 24, 2016 [8 favorites]

None of the stories have ever seemed complete and it's hard to trust any of them because it's impossible to cut through the liability battle.
posted by rhizome at 10:48 PM on October 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

The NYT article says that "The city now relies on outside experts to verify the structural integrity of proposed skyscrapers because they do not have the technology to verify the computer models used by developers." So it sounds like the Millennium Tower engineers probably said their simulations proved the tower would be fine, and the city didn't have the expertise to dispute that, so they agreed.
posted by Kevin Street at 10:52 PM on October 24, 2016 [7 favorites]

the decision--and its approval--could/should not have been made without knowledge of--and accounting for--subsidence caused by the upcoming Transbay Transit Center excavation

I'm sure something like the discussion you describe took place, but regardless of how it went, wouldn't subsidence generally be an issue for which the Millennium engineers would have to account? If not the Transit Center, wouldn't the next condo going up likewise drain groundwater to create a dry pit? Or was the Transit Center an exceptional excavation and another condo down the street wouldn't cause a similar effect?
posted by fatbird at 11:12 PM on October 24, 2016 [2 favorites]

That building is an eyesore and blocks the impressive view of the city that you used to get as you came in on the bay bridge.

Well, this problem seems to be solving itself... slowly.
posted by rokusan at 11:57 PM on October 24, 2016 [19 favorites]

I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out that kinda everybody's right: it's usually safe to build like this except this time it wasn't.
posted by rhizome at 12:00 AM on October 25, 2016 [1 favorite]

Building more luxury housing that slowly turns into a condemned building full of squatters seems like an inefficient way to solve the affordable housing crisis in SF.
posted by BrotherCaine at 12:26 AM on October 25, 2016 [20 favorites]

On the plus side all those Pisans rushing to photograph themselves pointing at the building and laughing will do great things for tourism in the area.
posted by No-sword at 1:10 AM on October 25, 2016 [17 favorites]

As a minimum wage worker in the bay area, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't at least partially rooting for the fucking thing to fall over.

It would be the symbol this area at some level deserves. As we sow, so do we reap. And I'd kinda chuckle if the Milennium Tower became the Hubris Rubble-Pile.
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 2:14 AM on October 25, 2016 [14 favorites]

"Anyone can build a bridge that doesn't fall down. An enginieer can build a bridge that barely doesn't fall down."
— Attributed to various people
posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 3:11 AM on October 25, 2016 [18 favorites]

einsturzende neubauten

It would be the symbol this area at some level deserves.

and will become fully so when they start trying extremely extensive technical fixes. technology will save us, right?
posted by ennui.bz at 4:08 AM on October 25, 2016 [6 favorites]

If the necessary remediation for the property owners in this building causes their costs to double, they'll still be getting screwed less than the average SF renter.
posted by schmod at 4:32 AM on October 25, 2016 [11 favorites]

And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.

--attributed to some ancient homeless person
posted by Halloween Jack at 4:37 AM on October 25, 2016 [14 favorites]

The NYT article says that "The city now relies on outside experts to verify the structural integrity of proposed skyscrapers because they do not have the technology to verify the computer models used by developers." So it sounds like the Millennium Tower engineers probably said their simulations proved the tower would be fine, and the city didn't have the expertise to dispute that, so they agreed.

That's terrifying. "Here is a computer that agrees with me" is the oldest trick in the book.
posted by enn at 5:13 AM on October 25, 2016 [6 favorites]

but the decision--and its approval--could/should not have been made without knowledge of--and accounting for--subsidence caused by the upcoming Transbay Transit Center excavation.

Trying to accommodate a building that at the time had no final plans is opening up a ridiculous can of worms - what if things changed significantly between when the Millennium submitted their plans for review and actual construction of the transit center? How does liability work then? The far easier thing to do is tell the transit authority when they come in with their plans: "there's this building here already, make sure you don't mess it up". Like sbutler says though, I don't think it's necessarily the transit center's fault - it's probably going to end up something like what rhizome says, where normally this works fine; for some reason it didn't this time. Maybe there's some anomalous soil condition that didn't come up in the soil test borings or something like that.
posted by LionIndex at 5:19 AM on October 25, 2016

I'm not a structural engineer but it struck me that SF was a bad location for that sort of building anyway what with the seismic activity and all.

so, this millennnium tower, it vibrates?
posted by pyramid termite at 5:41 AM on October 25, 2016 [5 favorites]

I'm not a structural engineer but it struck me that SF was a bad location for that sort of building anyway what with the seismic activity and all.

Why, because it's tall? I don't think the last big San Francisco earthquake destroyed any highrises.
posted by ryanrs at 6:03 AM on October 25, 2016

Sounds like the Amazing Mystico and Janet slapped this thing together. Or perhaps a Mason who previously designed slaughterhouses.

I just hope not too many people are inside when the thing gives out.
posted by Queen of Robots at 6:09 AM on October 25, 2016 [2 favorites]

Hmm, lots of rich people in a building that's next to a city Transit Center construction site. Why do I get the sense there'll be a big buyout of all the rich folks by the city that let them off the hook and spread the cost to all the tax payers?
posted by gusottertrout at 6:26 AM on October 25, 2016 [7 favorites]

I worked at Fremont and Mission when that behemoth was being constructed and the endless GONG GONG GONG of the pile drivers still haunts my dreams. To hear that they didn't pound them into the ground far enough is shocking. This is a shitshow of the highest order.
posted by grumpybear69 at 6:26 AM on October 25, 2016 [14 favorites]

There are lots of tall buildings in New Orleans (51 stories is the tallest) and Houston (75 stories). You can dig down 6 miles there and all you will find is more sand. So, it is possible to build with no bedrock.
posted by Bee'sWing at 6:38 AM on October 25, 2016 [3 favorites]

Wait a minute, a differential sinking of two inches from one side to the other (let's say 50 yards) is enough to throw off putting on a carpet?
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 6:41 AM on October 25, 2016

Ha ha grumpybear, I was at 1st and Mission during the pile driving. Yeah, I remember that shit.

How strange that the Millennium's owners are as tormented by the piles as the neighbors were during the construction. I couldn't have been the only one in SOMA that specifically wished that fate upon them.
posted by ryanrs at 6:46 AM on October 25, 2016 [1 favorite]

The sign on the onramp to the road to hell: To cut costs
posted by Splunge at 7:15 AM on October 25, 2016 [6 favorites]

"Pamela Buttery" is the best name. Ever.
posted by Bob Regular at 7:31 AM on October 25, 2016 [8 favorites]

I was curious how common it is that skyscrapers are demolished (if that ends up being necessary here) and it turns out that the answer is not very. The Millennium Tower would be the second tallest (unless you count the spire, then first) peacefully demolished building ever.

Also, it seems like a kind-of similar situation was The Harmon in Las Vegas, though it was never completed and seems to have maxed out at 20-some stories.
posted by ghharr at 7:35 AM on October 25, 2016

The whole tower is a metaphor for SV and its businesses practices.
posted by kadmilos at 7:40 AM on October 25, 2016 [3 favorites]

enn: "Here is a computer that agrees with me" is the oldest trick in the book.

The oldest trick in the e-book, maybe.
posted by Hot Pastrami! at 7:52 AM on October 25, 2016 [6 favorites]

If all the residents liked Pizzas, would it be "The Leaning Tower of Pizzas"

OK I'll leave now!!
posted by Burn_IT at 8:58 AM on October 25, 2016 [2 favorites]

Delighted we'll be able to stage our own sequel to High-Rise right here in San Francisco...
posted by twsf at 9:17 AM on October 25, 2016 [2 favorites]

PedantFilter: Isn't the corner of Mission and Fremont in South of Market, not the Financial District?
posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 9:23 AM on October 25, 2016 [1 favorite]

Well, there are a bunch of financial firms there, so.
posted by grumpybear69 at 9:29 AM on October 25, 2016

latkes: I find it impossible to read about Millennium Tower's sinking without experiencing enormous schadenfreude. Most of the players here are repellently wealthy, in a city where income inequality has reached a Tale of Two Cities zenith. The whole thing is irresistibly metaphorical.

This is one of the few times that the Bible has something useful to say about a modern structural engineering problem.
posted by clawsoon at 9:46 AM on October 25, 2016 [2 favorites]

That building is an eyesore and blocks the impressive view of the city that you used to get as you came in on the bay bridge.

Well, this problem seems to be solving itself... slowly.

Slowly for now, but later it might get better all at once.
posted by Aizkolari at 9:51 AM on October 25, 2016 [4 favorites]

I don't know from San Francisco or structural engineering but I for some reason find this story absolutely captivating.
posted by rabbitrabbit at 10:23 AM on October 25, 2016 [1 favorite]

PedantFilter: Isn't the corner of Mission and Fremont in South of Market, not the Financial District?

Yes and no. The highrises of the financial district have been spreading south and that area feels a lot more like the financial district than the neighborhoods further southwest along mission, which is more low/mid-rise. The Millennium Tower and the Transbay development are part of this change. Check out that intersection in Google Street View and you'll see what I mean.
posted by ryanrs at 10:35 AM on October 25, 2016

"Wait a minute, a differential sinking of two inches from one side to the other (let's say 50 yards) is enough to throw off putting on a carpet?"

If you're up high enough. Then again, maybe she's just a bad putter.
posted by howling fantods at 10:46 AM on October 25, 2016 [1 favorite]

Phil Mickelson won all three Masters titles by successfully arguing that the golf course kind of slanted down to one side
posted by beerperson at 11:14 AM on October 25, 2016 [6 favorites]

I can't wait for some genius to spend 50 million pumping water in and out on the other side to try and make the sinking even only to have it start leaning the other way.
posted by BrotherCaine at 11:16 AM on October 25, 2016 [1 favorite]

The whole tower is a metaphor for SV and its businesses practices.

Well, in a sense I get it, but SF is not Silicon Valley... and luxury/hateworthy or no, it's still a residential building; if it becomes unoccupiable, that's over 400 units suddenly off the market.

PedantFilter: Isn't the corner of Mission and Fremont in South of Market, not the Financial District?

That's the funny thing about the New San Francisco: as ryanrs says, most of the new skyscrapers are in SoMa, to the point that it's actually dwarfing the historic Financial District. My office (in the "real" FiDi) towers over its surroundings at an ostentatious 15 floors.
posted by psoas at 11:35 AM on October 25, 2016

I consider South of Market east of 2nd St to be "honorary FiDi."
posted by rhizome at 1:01 PM on October 25, 2016

The offices for BGI, Betchtel, Blue Cross / Blue Shield and Wells Fargo were all south of Market back in 2003, right near Fremont. SOMA has historically referred to stuff west of 2nd St. and/or south of Howard. Kate O'Brien's is on the cusp of SOMA, for example.
posted by grumpybear69 at 1:04 PM on October 25, 2016

There are so many new buildings going up in that area it seems hard to believe that there won't be substantial changes to the water table in the surrounding ground. I bet none of that's been modeled...just the impact of individual buildings.
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 3:21 PM on October 25, 2016 [3 favorites]

There are lots of tall buildings in New Orleans (51 stories is the tallest) and Houston (75 stories). You can dig down 6 miles there and all you will find is more sand. So, it is possible to build with no bedrock.

Typically they would use friction piles which is a well understood and tested method. It sounds like they did something else here. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say it was less well understood.
posted by fshgrl at 3:58 PM on October 25, 2016 [1 favorite]

Queen of Robots: "Sounds like the Amazing Mystico and Janet slapped this thing together. Or perhaps a Mason who previously designed slaughterhouses. "

METAFILTER REFERENCES EXPLAINED: These are both Monty Python bits. The Amazing Mystico and Janet (episode 35) build apartment buildings through hypnosis. Episode 17 features the would-be Mason who adds an abattoir to his residential building design.
posted by Chrysostom at 4:31 PM on October 25, 2016 [2 favorites]

And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.

--attributed to some ancient homeless person

"So I built a third. That burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp. "
posted by sebastienbailard at 5:31 PM on October 25, 2016 [5 favorites]

The Leaning Tower of Fawlty.
posted by clavdivs at 5:32 PM on October 25, 2016 [1 favorite]

it is off by six inches at the top
posted by jb at 6:27 PM on October 25, 2016

technology will save us, right?

Introducing Propr! Make money and support local infrastructure in your spare time!
We've all seen the photos of people pretending to 'prop up' the famous tower at Pisa, and thought, "I wish my life-choices allowed me to do that professionally."
[business_cat.gif]
You may not be aware, but many business premises in the Bay area are in fact founded on quicksand, often requiring external support. This is where you come in...
[snip]
So if you've got an inclination for a change of direction, slide on over to theproprfoundation.org and sign up to prop up!
posted by quinndexter at 8:37 PM on October 25, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'm sure there's a solution.

Probably a solution of epoxy resin.

Unprecedented amounts of epoxy resin. Injected under the foundation at hitherto unheard-of pressures.

Extensive computer modelling clearly demonstrates that there is no possibility whatsoever of associated groundwater contamination.
posted by flabdablet at 1:42 AM on October 26, 2016

Building more luxury housing that slowly turns into a condemned building full of squatters seems like an inefficient way to solve the affordable housing crisis in SF.

This is kind of the exact plot of JG Ballard's High Rise.
posted by lollymccatburglar at 3:55 AM on October 26, 2016 [1 favorite]

we don't need to look to fiction: it already happened in Venezuela, albeit with an incomplete building rather than a condemned one.
posted by jb at 5:41 AM on October 26, 2016 [1 favorite]

Images from inside the "Tower of David" in Caracas, Venezuela.
posted by jb at 5:44 AM on October 26, 2016

we don't need to look to fiction: it already happened in Venezuela, albeit with an incomplete building rather than a condemned one.

Reminds me of Peach Trees.
posted by urbanwhaleshark at 7:19 AM on October 26, 2016 [2 favorites]

Owners Of $4M Millennium Tower Apartment Detect Tilt With A Marble. A friend of mine made a simple video showing a marble rolling "downhill" in his apartment. It got picked up on a bunch of local media outlets.
posted by Nelson at 9:55 AM on November 2, 2016