The good news is that the infamously leaning and sinking Millennium Tower seems on the way to being fixed. The bad news for homeowners at the tower is they just got hit with an unexpected $6.8 million bill for the repairs, with a due date of October 1.
Shortly after its opening in 2009, the pricey and prestigious mixed-use condominium Millennium Tower was named one of the world’s top residences. But it became a lot less prestigious — and a lot less pricey — upon the 2016 discovery that the tower was tilting and sinking. That structural chaos begat all manner of other inconveniences and foul indignities for the residents who paid so much to live there.
Several fixes were attempted, many of which proved unsuccessful. And yes the saga of the place remained a running joke. But a final fix was approved in August 2022, with down-to-bedrock modifications and retrofits that appeared successfully completed this summer, and we hopefully no longer have to worry that the whole building might fall on us.
Yet that seemingly happy ending comes with a costly twist for the building’s homeowners. NBC Bay Area reports that Millennium Tower residents have received a surprise $6.8 million bill, as the $100 million repair job ran about $20 million over budget, and residents are being forced to split that cost with the project's contractor Shimmick.
NBC Bay Area obtained the email to residents, which said, “The delays and the city’s heightened requirements resulted in significant unforeseen project cost increases.” The residents are being made to cough up $10 per square foot of condo space they own, a bill that’s suddenly due on October 1, and for some, a bill that for some will run many thousands of dollars.
Condo owner Mehrdad Mostafavi told NBC Bay Area his bill was $14,000.
“I don’t know what to do with this place, because it is costly – I cannot live in it,” Mostafavi told the station. “It’s a luxurious building and famous building, but unfortunately it is not like this for me as an owner.”
Mostafavi already had to move out of his unit this summer after what NBC Bay Area describes as (yikes!) “an apparent sewage backup in his kitchen sink.” That story is consistent with the multiple sewer line problems the building has had over the years.
NBC Bay Area says the residents were “notified recently” of their large, unexpected repair bills that are apparently due Sunday. Some will probably pay it, others might not. But if I were a betting individual, I would say this ends up resulting in yet another Millennium Tower lawsuit, as the troubled tower’s legal drama seems likely to last, you know, another millennium.
Image: Frank Schulenburg via Wikimedia Commons
#/media/File:Millennium_Tower,_San_Francisco,_in_August_2016.jpg]){kind=link}