What’s the new problem? Construction on the fix stopped last week after analysis discovered that the building was now sinking even faster. The whole shebang costs about $100 million, some of it public money. Then, about a decade from now, when the other sides have sunk enough to even out, additional piles will connect the entire building to bedrock all the way around, and there will be much rejoicing. What’s the fix? The plan is to drive in over 50 new piles–the long, post-like structures that prop up tall buildings–to connect the sinking northwest sides down to bedrock. Note that this is actually not unusual–lots of other downtown buildings were constructed the same way and evidently never had a problem, although we’d guess it’ll be a long time before anyone tries it again. Ultimately, the structural issue is that the tower’s foundations are rooted not in bedrock but instead in very deep sand. What’s the cause? Even after all these years, it depends on who you ask–the city, the developer, and the homeowners were suing and cross-suing each other in a huge tangled hydra’s nest of lawsuits, splitting the blame every which way before eventually settling everything out of court in one blanket amnesty agreement in 2018. (Note that Millennium Tower is actually two buildings–the shorter “podium” structure next to the tower never reported any problems.) Not enough to threaten its structural stability, but enough to cause visible cracking in some areas, and (as one homeowner eagerly demonstrated for me five years ago) to make the floors uneven enough in some units to roll a golfball. But the rate of Millennium Tower’s descent was many times what it should be, and worse, it was uneven, causing the building to tilt. What’s the problem? As nearly everyone in the world knows (the story got a lot of exposure when it broke in 2016), the ultra-luxe San Francisco condo tower at 301 Mission has been slowly sinking into the earth.Īll buildings sink–it’s part of their design. For the sake of clarity, here are the facts: UC Berkeley engineer Rune Storesund told NBC Bay Area that attempts to repair the sinking luxury highrise’s foundations might actually now be making the issue worse, as the building’s tilt has gotten significantly more drastic in recent months.Īt this stage, that’s still technically speculation.

Original article on Tower, the home of multi-million dollar condo views and $100 million headaches at 301 Mission Street, has got that sinking feeling again, as the city has pushed pause on attempts to fix the tilting tower’s structural woes. In addition to monitoring land subsidence, the two Earth-observing satellites can also be used to map Arctic sea ice, survey forested environments and more.įollow Samantha Mathewson Follow us Facebook and Google+. What's more, the use of the twin Sentinel-1 satellites provides a 'cost-efficient' method for studying ground movement, compared to localized case studies.

'Experience and knowledge gained within the ESA's Scientific Exploitation of Operational Missions program give us strong confidence that Sentinel-1 will be a highly versatile and reliable platform for operational deformation monitoring in Norway, and worldwide,' John Dehls, from the Geological Survey of Norway, said in the statement from ESA. For example, newer buildings, such as the opera house in Oslo, have a proper foundation that was built into bedrock, while subsidence has been observed in older areas around the city's train station without such a foundation. Much like the sinking of the Millennium Tower, the subsidence in Norway is believed to be linked to the buildings' structural integrity. (Image credit: Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2014–16) / ESA SEOM INSARAP study / InSAR Norway project / NGU / Norut / PPO.labs) 28, 2016, show parts of the Oslo train station (center) sinking by 10 to 15 mm per year in the direction the satellite is looking - translating to 12 to 18 mm per year vertically.

Millennium tower sinking pictures