While the city of Pisa is known for its iconic leaning tower, the US city of San Francisco has a tilting landmark of its own – and it's flirting dangerously with gravity.
According to Architectural Digest, the 58-story, 645-foot tall Millennium Tower high-rise in San Fran that was opened to residents in 2009 has already sunk between 17 and 18 inches – and is currently tilting 26 inches.
With the building tilting at a rate of about three inches a year, if the problem causing it isn’t dealt with, the Millennium Tower's elevators and plumbing could soon stop working.
In January, NBC Bay Area reported that some 10 inches of the building’s overall tilt occurred last year during work aimed at halting its sinking.
"The building does continue to settle at a rate of about half an inch per year and to tilt at a rate of about three inches per year," said Hamburger. "It is doing this whether we are conducting work at the site or not. The building remains safe, but although the building remains safe, we believe the project needs to resume construction and complete this construction quickly."
He also admitted that his team did not provide initial guidance to the fix contractor "on ways to limit the impact of the drilling and digging to install steel support piles," the media outlet notes.