In unsurprising news, the engineers shoring up San Francisco's leaning Millennium Tower have decided to skip steps in the repair process and get it done fast. Perhaps they do not want to be under the building when it fails.
I would not think cutting corners and making questionable decisions would still be a part of the Millennium Tower's planning process, but I guess they are sticking with what they know.
Millennium Tower fix engineers have scrapped an elaborate strategy designed to prevent more tilting at the troubled high-rise as they push to complete the project – a shift in strategy that critics say amounts to gambling, but monitoring data suggests is paying off so far.
Back in June, after the building tilted nearly three more inches to the west toward Fremont Street in a matter of months, engineers halted work on an underground support wall along Fremont. They proposed continuing to work around the corner along Mission Street, then propping up the building on one corner by extending the foundation and attaching it to piles already sunk to bedrock. The prop-up strategy, engineers said, would support the tower enough to prevent any more tilting to the west when work resumed on that shoring wall designed to protect Fremont Street.
But monitoring reports on file with the city show last month, crews resumed digging along Fremont Street – without first propping up the structure at the corner.
