San Francisco’s Millennium Tower fix approved, moving forward

Since completing construction, the 58-story Millennium Tower has become San Francisco’s most infamous building.

The tower is founded on piles driven through soft, compressible clay soils deposited by San Francisco Bay and extending into a dense sand layer over ancient marine deposits of clays, silts, and sands, according to engineering firm Simpson Gumpertz & Heger (SGH). The building’s weight and nearby construction projects caused consolidation and lateral displacement of the soils, which led to the tower settling more than 17 inches and tilting four inches across its footprint. Needless to say, this tilting began to worry residents and thrust the building into the national spotlight.

After a two-year permitting and approval process, a fix is finally set to move forward with SGH as the engineer-of-record. SGH evaluated whether the building required structural reinforcement to restore its integrity or seismic resistance to original levels. SGH lists the outcomes of the evaluation as:

– Developed detailed nonlinear models of the structure, its foundations, and underlying soil to simulate the effects of settlement and tilting

– Conducted detailed nonlinear analyses of the structure’s response to earthquake shaking

– Designed an underpinning retrofit for the structure, consisting of jacking approximately 20% of the building’s weight onto new foundation piles (52 piles to be exact) extended to rock along the structure’s north and west sides

The fix will prevent any future settlement and reverse the current tilting over time. The project is expected to begin this fall.

The line separating hospitality and residential living keeps getting thinner. Multifamily developers are attracting renters and owners to their properties with hotel-like amenities and services. Post-COVID, more business travelers are building in extra days to their trips for leisure. Buildings that mix hotel rooms with for-sale or rental apartments are increasingly common.

MFPRO+ New Projects | Aug 10, 2023

Atlanta’s Old Fourth Ward gets a 21-story, 162-unit multifamily residential building

East of downtown Atlanta, a new residential building called Signal House will provide the city with 162 units ranging from one to three bedrooms. Located on the Atlanta BeltLine, a former railway corridor, the 21-story building is part of the latest phase of Ponce City Market, a onetime Sears building and now a mixed-use complex.

Senior Living Design | Aug 7, 2023

Putting 9 senior living market trends into perspective

Brad Perkins, FAIA, a veteran of more than four decades in the planning and design of senior living communities, looks at where the market is heading in the immediate future.

Affordable housing multifamily development with artistic exterior at night

Multifamily Housing | Jul 31, 2023

6 multifamily housing projects win 2023 LEED Homes Awards

The 2023 LEED Homes Awards winners in the multifamily space represent green, LEED-certified buildings designed to provide clean indoor air and reduced energy consumption.

Eagle + West tower, Brooklyn, by OMA, Beyer Blinder Belle Photo: John Cole

MFPRO+ New Projects | Jul 27, 2023

OMA, Beyer Blinder Belle design a pair of sculptural residential towers in Brooklyn

Eagle + West, composed of two sculptural residential towers with complementary shapes, have added 745 rental units to a post-industrial waterfront in Brooklyn, N.Y. Rising from a mixed-use podium on an expansive site, the towers include luxury penthouses on the top floors, numerous market rate rental units, and 30% of units designated for affordable housing.

Designed by Gensler to feel like a college campus, The HAY Center includes 50 efficiency-style apartment units with full kitchens as well as washers and dryers. Rendering: Gensler

Affordable Housing | Jul 27, 2023

Houston to soon have 50 new residential units for youth leaving foster care

Houston will soon have 50 new residential units for youth leaving the foster care system and entering adulthood. The Houston Alumni and Youth (HAY) Center has broken ground on its 59,000-sf campus, with completion expected by July 2024. The HAY Center is a nonprofit program of Harris County Resources for Children and Adults and for foster youth ages 14-25 transitioning to adulthood in the Houston community.

Adaptive Reuse | Jul 27, 2023

Number of U.S. adaptive reuse projects jumps to 122,000 from 77,000

The number of adaptive reuse projects in the pipeline grew to a record 122,000 in 2023 from 77,000 registered last year, according to RentCafe’s annual Adaptive Reuse Report. Of the 122,000 apartments currently undergoing conversion, 45,000 are the result of office repurposing, representing 37% of the total, followed by hotels (23% of future projects).