Why Nobody Can Fix This New York Skyscraper

This is One Seaport, a luxury tower that was meant to be a symbol of ambition. Now, it's an abandoned eyesore, a multi-million-dollar testament to a construction nightmare. Lawsuits swirl, engineers scratching their heads, and potential residents turn away in disbelief.

How did a state-of-the-art skyscraper mega project end up tilting before it was even finished?

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[TheImpossibleBuild]

A nightmare for New York, will this ever get fixed?

[UVB]

The additional $6 million to properly prepare the foundation when spread across the cost of units in that building would probably not have affected the occupancy rate. It's an example of pure greed on the part of the developer and it looks good on them that their gamble failed.

[spacecadet]

I have discovered that most engineering disasters are caused by some manager going "we could save a bit of money by...." They don't realise that good engineers have already designed the structure to be as cheap as possible, but still meet all of the engineering requirements. Usually the management's cost cutting comes straight out of the structures safety margin.

[johnkeviljr]

“Caissons to bedrock”. Three words that would have saved the building. I learned those three words 50 years ago in architecture school. Damn.

[lingeng]

They took the risk for the 6 million additional return. Now the risk is being realized.

[BOBBOB-txox]

As an architect I would have gotten fired from this job in the design phase because I would have insisted that the foundation be set in bedrock. I hate cheap clients trying to save a buck instead of doing it the correct way in the first place. Also, these super thin towers defy logic, the structure required to keep them standing is unreal.

[wacokidjim]

"A scenic esplanade bustling with walkers and cyclists"
Shows elevated highway

[BlueGoat]

This problem reminds me of a similar problem with the Millenium Tower in downtown San Francisco.

[Leftfield]

Those ultra-thin skyscrapers freak me out.

[germansniper]

finally someone admitting that 3 inches is a lot

[grantdennis]

should have spent the $6mil on the foundations to bedrock. DOH!!!

[PxThucydides]

A few years ago a large waterfront convention centre project here in Vancouver was publicly noted as behind schedule in the press, and I happened to remark to a family friend who was an accountant with the crown corporation that was building it, "so, what- they couldn't find bedrock?" And he replied, "how did you know that?"

[BEdwardStover]

Yup, they screwed up. Saw the cost, went cheap. The cost wasn't even that much 166 feet is done all the time.

[billhammett]

Thus being the Big Apple, the obvious questions are:
Which NY City politicians reaped contributions/favors from the developer?
Which NY City building inspectors received favors/jobs from the developer?
Which consulting firms received contracts/favors from the developer?

[Giggiyygoo]

All the high tech computer designs and engineering, but the ones built in the 30s with guys throwing hot rivets are still standing strong.

[artistny]

In the building next door 181 Maiden Lane most of the piles are driven to “the “point of refusal” with large pile caps. It has not tilted at all in 43 years.

[tobygoodguy]

180 Maiden built 40+ years ago never has any of these foundation problems ... because back then, we knew how to build.

[madratter]

U Mass Amherst built a 26 story library with brick facade. They didn't estimate the weight of the books correctly. When they started to fill it, bricks under compression started blowing off the sides... Their fix was to wrap the entire building in fence 30' away from the building and make one entrance under a covered roof while only using half the floors. There are entire floors with no access and no books. Other floors are empty except cubicles for people to study.
On the same campus the residential buildings known as, "the towers" were built in swamp land and have continued to sink since they opened. Over the years they have had to remove and lower the stairs at the entrances to accommodate the new depth of the buildings

[LouisPassau]

Everybody knows pilings need to go down to bedrock if you build a tower on land created by fill. The owners and engineers on the job were incompetent, crooks, or both. New York had better arrange to remove the structure and do it soon.

[IKhanNot]

Good video. There's nothing more expensive than cutting costs. Time in and time out people still make that mistake.