San Francisco just shut down its $2.2 billion transit terminal weeks after opening when a crack was discovered in a support beam

Greg Sandoval/Business Insider

• Just weeks after it opened, the $2.2 billion San Francisco's Transbay Transit Center was abruptly closed on Tuesday.
• A fissure was discovered in one of the building's steel beams.
• According to a statement from the Transbay Joint Powers Authority, the beam was located in the ceiling of the third-level Bus Deck the closure is "out of an abundance of caution" as officials investigate.

Just weeks after it opened, the $2.2 billion San Francisco's Transbay Transit Center was abruptly closed on Tuesday. A fissure was discovered in one of the building's steel beams.

According to a statement from the Transbay Joint Powers Authority, the beam was located in the ceiling of the third-level Bus Deck the closure is "out of an abundance of caution" as inspectors and engineers inspect other beams at the center and work to repair the problem.

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Firemen were on the scene and an officer of the San Francisco Police Department told Business Insider that the building was being evacuated. Police were not allowing anyone near the four-block-long building.

The Terminal Center, described as the "Grand Central Station of the West," was a building project nearly two decades in the making. The Center was designed to be a central nexus for local transportation.

Eleven bus lines stop at the station, and transit officials plan to eventually connect it to rail lines.

The Bus Deck is above the ground level. The structure's two other levels are below-ground floors that were designed for rail lines but aren't yet in use.