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San Francisco’s ill-fated Millennium Tower is making headlines once again for problems taking place beneath its turbulent foundation. This time, the 58-story skyscraper is sinking even further on its vertical axis as it settles to the north and west, alarming some building scientists who... View full entry
Work to prevent the collapse of a leaning medieval tower in the heart of the northern Italian city of Bologna will cost €20m ($21.5m) and take 10 years at least, its mayor has said. Last weekend, the city unveiled a €4.3m (£3.7m) project to shore up the Garisenda tower – one of the city’s two towers that look out over central Bologna, providing inspiration over the centuries to painters and poets and a lookout spot during conflicts. — The Guardian
The Garisenda Tower, like the Tower of Pisa, has leaned for centuries as the ground on which it was built gave way soon after its construction. It slants at four degrees compared to 3.9 degrees the Tower of Pisa leans at. Last month, the area around the Garisenda Tower was cordoned off due to... View full entry
Despite initial progress in the first phase of the so-called fix earlier this year, the sinking and leaning Millennium Tower in San Francisco is now tilting more to the west than ever, according to monitoring data reviewed by NBC Bay Area’s Investigative Unit.
The tower is currently leaning more than 29 inches at the northwest corner of Fremont and Mission streets, much of the added tilt occurring during the digging needed to prepare to support the tower along two sides.
— NBC Bay Area
The data came from a rooftop monitoring system, which the fix’s chief engineer Ron Hamburger said was less reliable than the one contained in its foundation before stating the half-inch tilt recorded was "negligible." A geotechnical engineer working on the $100 million project expressed his... View full entry
You’ve heard of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, but did you know New York has its very own leaning tower? Manhattan’s “Leaning Tower of FiDi,” developed by Fortis Property Group, has this dubious distinction: It is tilting by three inches to the north, and has been beset by numerous construction delays, disputes with lenders and more.
How did this engineering blunder ever come to pass?
— The Real Deal
One Seaport (aka “161 Maiden Lane”) is now the subject of a contentious lawsuit between Fortis and the project’s construction engineer Pizzarotti. Pizzarotti claims the developers are at fault owing to shoddy preparatory work on its foundation, which left the tower at risk for... View full entry
Results from the Leaning Tower of Pisa’s annual checkup are in, as of November 30. After a stabilization project, begun in 1990, reduced the quirky monument’s dangerous lean by a full 15 inches, the tower has straightened itself out by an additional 1.6 inches since 2001.
Some Italian officials are taking that optimism further, claiming the Tower could stand all the way straight on its own some day.
— Artnet News
This is the second update to the engineering project since 2018. The tower is expected to last at least another 300 years. In a statement to the press, the Italian heritage group Opera Primaziale Pisana said the nearly 850-year-old monument's overall health was "excellent." Repeated... View full entry
It’s doing it (again). San Francisco’s Millennium Tower is on the move once more, this time in an entirely different dimension as the 13-year-old building is sliding while it sinks and tilts. Now the tower is said to be moving to the east, specifically. The firm in charge of stabilizing the... View full entry
[...] Millennium Tower – a luxury condominium where star athletes and retired Google employees bought multimillion-dollar apartments before they realized it was sinking – is continuing to sink and tilt to the side by about 3in (7.5 cm) a year, according to the engineer responsible for fixing the troubled building. — The Guardian
At that rate, the building’s elevators and sewage systems would cease to function within a few years according to engineer Ron Hamburger’s report to the city’s municipal Board of Supervisors last week. He also told the 11-member body that the movement was inevitable, adding that, based on... View full entry
Work on the $100 million fix of the Millennium tower has halted as engineers scramble to figure out why the building has suddenly sunk an inch in a matter of weeks since construction began, NBC Bay Area’s Investigative Unit has learned. — NBC Bay Area
The “perimeter pile upgrade” project, paid for as part of a confidential settlement reached last year, is designed to reinforce the foundation of the 58-story, luxury Millennium Tower after it had been discovered in 2016 that the northwest corner of the structure had sunk 16 inches since its... View full entry
Construction at One Seaport, aka 161 Maiden Lane, has been noticeably paused for the past several months.
[...] new reports have revealed the 670-foot-tall building is actually leaning three inches to the north, leading to a series of legal disputes between Fortis Property Group, LLC, the developer, and Pizzarotti LLC, the current contractor. The project is being designed by Hill West Architects while Groves & Co is serving as the interior designer.
— New York YIMBY
"It remains unclear how this will affect the plans for 80 South Street directly next door," writes Michael Young for New York YIMBY about the unclear fate of the 670-foot-tall tower which structurally topped out last September. "There is a question of whether One Seaport should remain standing or... View full entry
The Leaning Tower of Pisa is known worldwide for its precarious tilt - but now experts have revealed it's going straight.
The tower's Surveillance Group, which monitors restoration work, said the landmark is "stable and very slowly reducing its lean."
The 57m (186ft) medieval monument has been straightened by 4cm (1.5in) over the past two decades, the team said.
"It's as if it's had two centuries taken off its age," Professor Salvatore Settis explained.
— BBC
Meanwhile in San Francisco, owners of the leaning Millennium Tower are far less eager to turn their tilting property into a tourist magnet. View full entry
In a December 2016 assessment of the issue obtained by NBC Bay Area, Palo Alto-based building consultants Allana Buick & Bers Inc. trace the odors to openings between the building’s façade, or curtain wall, and the core structure.
The consultants point to the “excessive” settlement as a likely source of the issue, adding, “This condition may be more widespread than these two test areas and may be present in the entire stack. We recommend further investigation of this issue.”
— NBC Bay Area
New fire hazards have been found in San Francisco's infamous Millennium Tower, making the luxury high-rise that has sunk 17 inches since 2009 even less safe than previously thought. According to a December 2016 assessment carried out by building consultants Allana Buick & Bers Inc., gaps... View full entry
A fix appears to be in the works for San Francisco’s sinking and tilting Millennium Tower — just as a new report estimates the 58-story luxury high-rise has sunk yet another inch in the past seven months. [...]
That lean is now up to nearly 14 inches at the building’s roof — an additional 2-plus inches more than the tilt measured in January.
— San Francisco Chronicle
A pair of engineering firms hired by developer Millennium Partners think there's still hope to save the troubled structure and straighten it up again: "The LERA firm and DeSimone Consulting Engineers say the problem can be remedied by drilling 50 to 100 new piles down to bedrock from the... View full entry
Pamela Buttery lives on the 57th floor. To demonstrate how her home tilts slightly to the left, Buttery hits a golf ball straight ahead toward the window. [...]
The ball takes a sharp left turn toward the direction of the tilt, and it ends up in the northwest corner of her living room. [...]
How to fix the tower, or at least keep it from leaning even more?
Some solutions include pouring a concrete collar around the foundation or building a buttress.
— npr.org
Representatives of the sinking luxury condo tower put the blame on the Transbay Transit Center, a sizable new train and bus terminal currently under construction nearby: "Millennium spokesman P.J. Johnston says workers have been pumping out huge amounts of water as they tunnel through the soil... View full entry
