Source: SF Curbed
The homeowner association has filed at least one class-action lawsuit against Millennium Partners and the Transbay Terminal developers so that residents can recover their losses in property value. The multimillion-dollar condos have dropped $320,000 in value on average.
People attempting to sell their condos have slashed listing prices — or disappeared from the market entirely — since their skyscraper-home made international headlines last year.
Late in 2016, the building's homeowner association hired firm Allana, Buick and Bers to investigate a unit owned by Paula Pretlow. Pretlow and several other residents complained in the past of "unexplained odors permeating their luxury units," NBC Bay Area reported.
The consultants discovered openings arounds pipes and ducts in the walls. Typically, gaps like these are sealed with fire-resistant caulking to make sure fires are contained where they start.
If a small fire was to break out in the unit below where Pretlow lives, the flames could more easily spread to her condo or cause smoke damage in the walls, according to NBC Bay Area.
The report only pertained to the unit owned by Pretlow, though others could be susceptible.
Source: Business Insider
"There was no evidence of life-safety concerns observed during the inspection," the report said.
For years, scientists have warned that the Bay Area is overdue for a devastating earthquake.
Millennium Tower sits on land that is prone to liquefaction, the process by which loose sand and silt behaves like a liquid in the event of an earthquake. The seismic activity causes water pressure in the sediment to increase and grains of sand to lose contact with each other, the US Geological Survey (USGS) explains. The soil may give out under large and heavy structures.
Oftentimes, the solution for tall buildings built in liquefaction zones is drilling down to bedrock. Millennium Tower's neighbors, the $1.1 billion Salesforce Tower and the luxury high-rise 181 Fremont, are both anchored to bedrock. They're still under construction.
Millennium Tower sits on an array of nearly 1,000 pillars shoved into the ground.
Its own weight combined with the resistance of the soil underneath should keep it in place under most conditions, a professor of architectural design told real-estate blog Curbed.
The design isn't all that unusual. Some of the city's best known buildings, including the Embarcadero Center and SF MOMA, were built on sand instead of bedrock.
The agency released a statement on its website in fall 2016 condemning the allegations against it as a "distraction from the exclusive cause" of the tower's tilt: "inadequate foundation."
The statement also points out that Millennium Tower's vertical settlement began two years before the Transbay Joint Powers Authority began doing any underground work.
"Dewatering" is the process of removing groundwater or surface water from a construction site to provide a safe work environment and prevent erosion of the soil.
When the water levels under the Millennium Tower dropped, the sand compressed and caused the building to settle, according to Chris Jeffries, a founding partner at Millennium Partners.
The issue came to light in 2010, five years before tenants were notified, when the Transbay Joint Powers Authority hired a consultant to find out how excavation could affect the tower.
Source: San Francisco Business Times
Source: Business Insider
Source: NBC Bay Area
Source: Business Insider
Source: San Francisco Chronicle and San Francisco Chronicle
Source: Millennium Tower
Source: Wikipedia
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