High within were the lairs of luminaries like Giants outfielder Hunter Pence (Pablo Sandoval, too, before he decamped for the Boston Red Sox). But on that day, it was still the tallest building in SoMa, a flashy heavyweight champ draped in architectural awards. Within weeks, the Millennium would be surpassed in height by the ascending Salesforce Tower and 181 Fremont. Suddenly, the warped, cracking sidewalk at the monolith’s base-like the leaks in the basement and the splintering interior ramp purportedly marbled over by the developer-signaled that something was amiss. Like many of her neighbors, Pat had only learned in May that the Millennium was in a different state than when she’d bought her unit back in 2009 for $2.1 million-namely 16 inches lower and listing several inches to the northwest. It was August 1, the day the news hit the front page of the Chronicle that the 58-story luxury condo building that the Dodsons called home was settling and tilting. Jerry and Pat Dodson’s problems with Millennium Tower-not of the sinking-into-the-earth sort, but of the social variety-started with a walk around the block. How San Francisco’s ultimate power tower became “a modern-day La Brea tar pit” and, potentially, the city’s costliest real estate battle.
