Thanks to the New York Post we now know that San Francisco’s Saga of the Sinking Condo has a kindred building in New York City.
According to the Post, “A brand-new, 58-story condo in the Financial District is listing north like a drunken investment banker due to a faulty foundation — a defect that could cause bits of the tower to fall to the street, a Manhattan civil suit claims.”
NYC’s Financial District fubar is really a mild example of slantery when compared to San Francisco’s 58-story Millennium Tower, although the number of stories is exactly the same. In New York the unoccupied building is not yet complete and it’s currently leaning 3 inches toward the North. In San Francisco the Millennium Tower is tilting 6 inches with the richest residents, those in the penthouse, having the most tilt.
As bad as that sounds it doesn’t compare with the Leaning Tower of Pisa that was leaning (hence the name) 15 feet from the perpendicular in 1990.
All three tilty towers have a common problem — the foundation wasn’t correctly stabilized and anchored before the aboveground construction began. The Pisa construction crew certainly didn’t do a good job of testing the soil, but that was in 1173.
Our two modern examples don’t have that excuse. In San Francisco residents suing the developer (lawsuits are something both modern-day towers have in common) contend that instead of extending the foundation piles 240 feet to hit bedrock, the developer stopped driving the piles at approximately 60 to 90 feet. (For complete details on the SF saga click here and here.)
In New York the developer didn’t drive any piles into the soft soil, saving $6 million while endangering the entire investment in the project.
We know all this because the contractor on in New York, Pizzarotti, is suing the developer, Fortis Property Group. Pizzarotti is suing because it wants to break its contract and leave the project entirely.
Fortis contends the contractor wants out so it won’t be blamed for what Fortis contends is shoddy work. The spokesperson for the developer was unintentionally funny when he claimed engineers say the building is safe in spite of the “misalignment issue.”
The bright spot in the saga is all this is playing out before anyone has purchased a condo and moved into the building. The San Fransisco buyers weren’t so fortunate. But that doesn’t mean there has been no impact (no pun intended) on the New York public.
As area resident Tom Butler told the Post, “The building is already ugly, and now I need to walk my dog in the other direction so I’m not killed by falling debris.”
Michael Reagan, the eldest son of President Reagan, is a Newsmax TV analyst. A syndicated columnist and author, he chairs The Reagan Legacy Foundation. Michael is an in-demand speaker with Premiere speaker’s bureau. Read more reports from Michael Reagan — Go Here Now.
Michael R. Shannon is a commentator, researcher for the League of American Voters, and an award-winning political and advertising consultant with nationwide and international experience. He is author of "Conservative Christian’s Guidebook for Living in Secular Times (Now with added humor!)." Read more of Michael Shannon's reports — Go Here Now.