Further issues for S.F. transit hub
Second beam in terminal shows signs of cracking
SAN FRANCISCO — A second beam in San Francisco’s $2 billion transit terminal shows signs of cracking, an official said Wednesday, a day after a crack in a nearby support beam shut down the building that opened just last month.
The first crack found by workers installing roof tiles Tuesday spans a beam holding up a park over the three-block-long Salesforce Transit Center and runs over a downtown street, said Mark Zabaneh, executive director of the Transbay Joint Powers Authority, which operates the facility.
He said the problems were localized to that area of the transit hub but it would remain closed “at least through the end of next week” as inspections continued. It’s not yet clear what caused the cracks at the facility that includes a bus deck, a towering sky-lit central entrance hall and a rooftop park with an outdoor amphitheater.
“We’re working hard to rectify the situation,” Zabeneh said.
Mayor London Breed said the building would stay closed until it was safe to reopen. Its role in the broader transportation system is too important “not to act quickly to have definitive answers for the public, and someone needs to be held accountable once the cause is determined,” she said in a statement.
The transit hub, a commanding presence in the city’s South of Market neighborhood, sits adjacent to the so-called sinking condominium, Millennium Tower, which has settled about 18 inches since it opened over a former landfill in 2009.
Homeowners have filed multiple lawsuits against the developer and the city, some alleging construction of the transit center caused the Millennium Tower to sink.
Zabaneh said he did not believe the cracked beams are connected to ongoing problems at Millennium Tower.
Engineer Joe Maffei also said the troubles at the terminal appear “completely unrelated” to the Millennium Tower’s sinking and tilting. He said there have been no public reports of similar problems with the terminal.
The first crack was found near a weld on a stress-bearing horizontal beam and the second on a parallel beam, Zabaneh said. American steel was used in the center’s construction, he said.