Millennium Tower
Four hundred and nineteen condominiums at 301 Mission Street, on 990 piles that never reached bedrock. The building settled about fourteen inches and tilted; eighteen new piles were driven into rock at a cost of a hundred million dollars; and whether the tilt has stopped is still argued by engineers.
The building, as its architect describes it. Handel Architects: “301 Mission consists of a 60-story tower, a nine-story mid-rise portion with apartments”, and “In total the project includes 419 condominium units”, “Completed in 2009”, for Mission Street Development LLC. The facade contractor Enclos gives 60 storeys and 645 feet and calls it “the tallest luxury residential property in San Francisco” — a superlative from a curtain-wall contractor. The retrofit engineer and the trade press both say 58 storeys. The architect's page does not mention the settlement or the retrofit at all.
What was measured, and by whom. Simpson Gumpertz & Heger, who designed the foundation upgrade, state that predicted settlement was four inches over the building's life; that settlement before completion in 2009 was nearly ten inches; and that by 2016 there was about fourteen inches of settlement, with the tower tilting northwest “an equal amount”. The original foundation was 990 prestressed precast concrete piles reaching dense sand about ninety feet down, with bedrock more than two hundred feet below the street. SGH do not say who took the measurements. The same engineers' professional body, citing them, says the tower “settled more than 18 inches and tilted by a similar amount” — which does not reconcile with SGH's own fourteen, and the register prints both with their speakers.
At the roof the numbers are larger, because a tilt multiplies with height. Ronald O. Hamburger of SGH, the engineer of record, gives thirty inches north and west measured horizontally at the roof, of which about seven inches occurred during the pile upgrade itself. The first public reading in 2016 was twenty-four inches west and 7.9 inches north; a 2023 television report put the northwest corner beyond twenty-nine inches. Neither of those two carries a named measurer. Weekly monitoring is done by Slate Geotechnical Consultants, addressed to the Millennium Tower Association and published by San Francisco's Department of Building Inspection, and the permit requires ten years of it. The register could not read the reports themselves — the city's document server refused them — so no current figure is published here.
The repair, and its arithmetic. Eighteen piles in the final scheme, down from fifty-two studied: six along Mission Street to the north, twelve along Fremont Street to the west, socketed more than thirty feet into rock beginning two hundred and twenty feet below grade, each loaded to a thousand kips — five hundred tons — in the final stage, jacked at a hundred kips a day, together carrying about a tenth of the building's two-hundred-thousand-kip weight. The Millennium Tower Association's own October 2020 release described a then-current fifty-two-pile scheme to bedrock about two hundred and fifty feet down; that design was superseded. Load transfer finished 19 June 2023 and the work in September 2023, with the building occupied throughout. Cost: a hundred million dollars per the trade press and the city's paper, “nearly $100 million” per the Association itself; a later television report said a hundred and twenty. Prime contractor Legacy Foundations, a division of Shimmick Construction; independent reviewer Gregory Deierlein, chair of the Department of Building Inspection's engineering design review team.
Has it stopped? The honest answer is that settlement has and the tilt is disputed. Hamburger: “survey data reveals that settlement has indeed been arrested”, the building “has risen slightly out of the ground”, and “We anticipate this tilt recovery will continue, slowly over a period of many years.” SGH say the first eighteen months of monitoring indicate the project has been successful. Against that, reporting on the monitoring data records about one inch of recovery against a computer simulation predicting up to four inches in six months; Harry Poulos, reviewing the data, puts continuing settlement at the centre at about a tenth of an inch a year — “A tenth of an inch is not that much but it's not heading in the right direction” — and Robert Pyke expects more cracking from a fix of this kind. The most careful formulation available belongs to the city. The Department of Building Inspection: “Any recovery is welcome news but is not the primary objective of the retrofit.” The register adopts that line.
The money that settled the homeowners' claims has never been published, by anyone. The case settled in October 2020. The Association's own release says the work would be funded by the parties who settled and their insurers and names no figure and no payer. Terms went to confidential mediation. The Transbay Joint Powers Authority, a public body, had in August 2016 denied responsibility outright, stating that “full responsibility for the tilting and excessive settlement of the building lies with Millennium Partners” on the basis of “data collected over more than seven years” — a release that gives no measurements at all. Judge Charlene Kiesselbach: “The matter has, in principle, reached a resolution.” The register records no settlement amount, because there is none to record.
Named in Forbes Travel Guide's inaugural VERIFIED Luxury Residences collection, 2026. Forbes certifies service culture, operations and service delivery after a training and verification programme, and this card is the clearest statement of what that does and does not cover. A designation about how a building is run is not a statement about how it stands up, and the register prints the service recognition and the fourteen inches on the same page because a reader deserves both.
Who it is not for
Not for a buyer who reads a service designation as a condition report: these are different instruments and this building is why the register says so. Not for anyone who wants a current tilt figure here — the city publishes weekly monitoring the register could not retrieve, and no number is carried without its measurer.
Sources
- handelarchitects.com (the architect: “301 Mission consists of a 60-story tower, a nine-story mid-rise portion with apartments”; “In total the project includes 419 condominium units”; “Completed in 2009”; client Mission Street Development, LLC; Glenn Rescalvo; no mention of the settlement or the retrofit
- sgh.com (Simpson Gumpertz & Heger, who designed the upgrade: predicted settlement of 4 in. over the building's life; nearly 10 in. before completion in 2009; about 14 in. of settlement by 2016 with the building tilting northwest “an equal amount”; 990 prestressed precast concrete piles to dense sands about 90 ft down with bedrock more than 200 ft below street level; 18 piles in the final scheme socketed more than 30 ft into rock from 220 ft below grade; “The work was completed in September 2023, with occupancy continuing throughout the two-year process”; the first eighteen months of monitoring indicating success; a ten-year monitoring requirement
- ncsea.com (the engineers' professional body, citing SGH: the tower “settled more than 18 inches and tilted by a similar amount over about ten years”, and “the upgrade has proven effective” with no supporting data on the page — a figure that does not reconcile with SGH's own 14 in.
- enr.com (Engineering News-Record, quoting Ronald O. Hamburger of SGH, engineer of record: 30 in. of tilt north and west measured horizontally at the roof, about 7 in. of it during the upgrade work; six piles on Mission Street and twelve on Fremont; 1,000 kips per pile in the final stage, jacked at 100 kips a day, carrying about 10 per cent of the building's 200,000-kip weight; load transfer completed 19 June 2023; “survey data reveals that settlement has indeed been arrested”; “We anticipate this tilt recovery will continue, slowly over a period of many years”; “I reviewed this data, daily, before authorizing the next load increment”; Legacy Foundations, a division of Shimmick Construction; Gregory Deierlein as independent reviewer; a cost of USD 100 million; 58 storeys
- millenniumtowersf.com (the Millennium Tower Association's own releases: an October 2020 scheme of 52 piles to bedrock about 250 ft down, since superseded, at “nearly $100 million”, funded by the parties who settled homeowner claims and their insurers, with no figure and no payer named; mediators retired Judge Daniel Weinstein, Judge Ronald Sabraw and Gerald Kurland; counsel Roger Grant and Charles Litt of Fenton Grant Mayfield Kaneda & Litt LLP; a 21 June 2023 release stating the remaining work was non-structural; Howard Dickstein, President: the Association and homeowners “are confident that the engineering upgrade will restore our building's reputation and the value of condominiums”
- sf.gov (the Department of Building Inspection: “Weekly monitoring reports for the 301 Mission foundation retrofit” and “Weekly status of monitoring data from various instruments installed on the Millennium Tower”, produced by Slate Geotechnical Consultants and addressed to the Millennium Tower Association; the individual reports were refused by the document server and no figure from them is published here; DBI's statement that “Any recovery is welcome news but is not the primary objective of the retrofit”
- tjpa.org (the Transbay Joint Powers Authority, 1 August 2016: “full responsibility for the tilting and excessive settlement of the building lies with Millennium Partners, the developer of the Tower”, based on “data collected over more than seven years”, calling residents' claims “misplaced”; no measurements given, no individual named
- nbcbayarea.com (reporting on the monitoring data: about 1 in. of recovery against a simulation predicting up to 4 in. within six months; a possible permanent 29 in. at the northwest roof corner; Harry Poulos on about 0.1 in. per year of continuing centre settlement — “A tenth of an inch is not that much but it's not heading in the right direction”; Robert Pyke on the likelihood of increased cracking; a cost figure of USD 120 million
- sfchronicle.com (the October 2020 settlement: terms in confidential mediation; the Transbay Joint Powers Authority expected to pay a large part, amount undisclosed; Judge Charlene Kiesselbach, “The matter has, in principle, reached a resolution”
- forbestravelguide.com (the inaugural 2026 VERIFIED Luxury Residences list of thirteen, earned by “completing a comprehensive training and quality program”; no star level or numeric rating shown for any property — https://forbestravelguide.com/residences/verified-luxury-residences/residences)
Pages read are linked.
Verification
- Official source
- Checked
- Inventory
- From official source
- Property confirmation
- Pending
- Last verified
- —
Booking
Private Residences records addresses; it does not broker them. Enquiries are passed to the party named in the record, and nothing on this site is an offer.
Make an enquiryClassified by The Resort Collection House · Edition 2026 · PR-D-494
In the journal
The card that justifies the whole separation is Millennium Tower. Four hundred and nineteen condominiums at 301 Mission Street, on 990 piles that stopped in sand ninety feet down with bedrock two hundred feet below. Predicted settlement over the building's life: four inches. By 2016: about fourteen, tilting northwest by as much, thirty inches at the roof. Eighteen new piles into rock, a hundred million dollars, finished September 2023. The engineer of record says settlement is arrested and the tilt recovering; independent engineers reading the same monitoring data put recovery at a quarter of prediction. The city's formulation is the one the register adopts: “Any recovery is welcome news but is not the primary objective of the retrofit.” A designation about how a building is run is not a statement about how it stands up, and both belong on the page.
Investment migration — the facts the rule turns on
The rule for USA: No property route — checked 24.09.2026.
| Entry price | Not established | 19.10.2026 · searched in the record's sources; not published |
The register publishes the facts and the rule; it does not say whether any purchase qualifies. Eligibility attaches to a sale, not to a building, and the register is not immigration counsel.