S.F. backs off threat to yellow-tag troubled building

San Francisco officials signaled Thursday that they’re willing to back down from the aggressive deadlines they set for the managers of the Millennium Tower to comply with a number of safety measures related to the cracked window on the sinking building’s 36th floor.

In a pointed letter on Wednesday, the Department of Building Inspection ordered the building’s management to survey the entire building for other window cracks, complete a comprehensive report on the original fissure and install an “overhead protection system” to guard against glass falling to the sidewalk.

If those demands weren’t met by the end of the week, the department threatened to “yellow-tag” the building, which could limit access until it’s deemed safe.

But after meeting with the tower’s management and its legal counsel Thursday morning, Department of Building Inspection Assistant Director Ronald Tom said the city was willing to be flexible, provided that Millennium’s operators kept in close contact about their progress.

“We always provide the opportunity within the process for the party receiving the letter to work with us,” Tom said.

The department’s Wednesday letter expressed frustration over a lack of communication from Millennium’s management and its lawyers. Tom said Thursday that part of the purpose of the letter was to get management’s attention and said he believed the tower’s operators would be more communicative in the future.

The building’s managers, known as the Millennium Tower Association, still plan to erect the overhead protection system around the entire perimeter of the 58-story highrise, which has sunk 18 inches since it opened in 2009. Installation of the protection system’s scaffolding was expected to begin Thursday afternoon, according to the association’s attorneys, and continue Friday morning.

Tom Miller, an attorney for the association, said in an interview that inspecting the rest of the tower for cracks would require getting homeowners’ permission to inspect more than 400 units by Friday afternoon. DBI seemed sympathetic, he said, to the fact that management would need extra time to complete that task.

Miller struck a more forceful tone, however, in a letter he sent to the department Thursday. He chastised the department for making what he called “negative comments about the association’s responses to their own onerous, expensive and unduly restrictive requests” and criticized the department for threatening the possibility of yellow-tagging the building.

Miller also said it would be “physically impossible” to meet the deadlines laid out in the Wednesday letter. “We implore the DBI to allow the Association to meet these demands in a realistic time frame,” Miller said.

In a statement, Rachel Miller, another attorney for the association, said that after meeting with the department, management was “hopeful that the threat to yellow-tag the building (Friday) will be reconsidered.”