Joe Montana Sues San Francisco Sinking Luxury Tower Developer

Former San Francisco 49er Joe Montana has filed a lawsuit against the developers of a luxury high-rise condominium tower that is sinking at an unexpected rate.

San Jose television station KNTV reports Montana filed the last suit last week alleging Millennium Partners hid the building’s troubles when he and his wife bought a unit in 2013.

The high-rise that opened its doors in 2009 has sunk about 16 inches into landfill and is tilting several inches to the northwest.

Last year, Chris Jeffries, a founding partner at Millennium Partners, told a news conference, “the building is 100 percent safe.”

Jeffries blames the building’s problems on an adjacent construction site where a city rail terminal is being built. He says the Transbay Joint Powers Authority, the public agency building the $4.5 billion transit hub, dug a 60-foot hole to create a dry construction site and pumped out millions of gallons of groundwater that wound up compressing and weakening the soil under the Millennium Tower.

Montana’s is the latest in a string of lawsuits against the tower that became a haven for the well-heeled. Tenants have included the late venture capitalist Tom Perkins and Giants outfielder Hunter Pence.

The building has a sprawling indoor lap-pool, a health club and spa, an in-house cinema, and a restaurant and wine bar run by celebrity chef Michael Mina. Penthouses have sold for more than $13 million.