The money is coming from the "Phase 1" budget of the Transbay Transit Center, the construction of which was blamed by Millennium's developer for destabilizing nearby soils and causing the tower to sink and tilt. Supervisor Aaron Peskin assures the Chronicle this week that none of the settlement price tag is coming from the city's general fund, but the paper explains that $30 million is still being chipped in by a city entity, the Transbay Joint Powers Authority (TJPA). But we do know that the proposed fix to the tower itself will cost $100 million. We don't yet know the full amount of this settlement, which involves individual payouts to condo owners in the tower to compensate for loss of property value. The disaster of San Francisco's "leaning tower" that began unfolding nearly a decade ago but which was only made public in 2016 is coming to a close, legally speaking with the settlement of nine separate lawsuits involving some 400 individual parties. The final report from the glass experts into what triggered window failures in seven separate San Francisco high-rises is due out later this summer.Alas, a new detail has emerged in the as-yet-not-fully-disclosed settlement of multiple lawsuits related to the sinking and tilting Millennium Tower in downtown San Francisco, and it's the fact that SF taxpayers will be footing a piece of the overall bill. The Millennium Tower homeowners association initially said the second window failure was unrelated to the weather event, but now says the independent firm commissioned by the city confirmed the 47th floor failure concluded the failure was, in fact, due to winds. “That’s the last thing you want is any glass shifting in your frames,” Thomas said. Jaxon Van Derbeken reports.įortunately, Thomas says, the cracked outer window that failed had a protective layer that prevented the pane from breaking completely, so no shards fell onto the street – and people – below.īut Thomas says that layer wouldn’t be much protection if an entire window broke loose from its frame and fell – a potential danger if the glass should become loose enough in a frame. San Francisco’s millennium tower has been sinking and leaning for years, and though it appears further leaning and sinking has stopped, there's a different concern: the windows. The engineer’s report to Millennium management indicates the second window failed because it was loose in its steel frame and shifted, causing it to crack. Meanwhile, the same report written by Millennium engineers shows that a second window, on the 47th floor, failed during the same windstorm. “I have serious questions at this point as to whether or not the stay arms are actually going to even fix the problem.” “This seems to be part of an ongoing pattern at the Millennium as it relates to their operable windows,” Peskin said.Īnd while Millennium officials say they’re installing more than 3,000 new stay arms to better secure the windows, Peskin says he remains skeptical. San Francisco Supervisor Aaron Peskin, who has held several hearings on the status of the troubled Millennium Tower, says the risk of glass hitting someone in a unit is unacceptable. That’s because windows that are 18 inches high or more are considered less of a risk to children. Normally, windows that open in high rises have to be safety glass, so the inner pane will either hold together or break into small harmless pieces if something goes wrong.īut Thomas says safety glass is not required for windows that are 18 or more inches above floor level, like the one on the 49th floor. Inspectors Cite Millennium Tower in Window Failure
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