Joe Montana sues Millennium Tower developer

Former 49ers quarterback and four-time Super Bowl winner Joe Montana once teamed with Millennium Tower developers Millennium Partners in 2010 to help promote condos in the skewed superstructure at 310 Mission.

Now the Comeback Kid has comeback at the developer with a team of lawyers scrimmaging for him, filing suit in San Francisco Superior Court alleging fraud and breach of contract.

Montana contends that the company knew about the sinking building’s foundation follies all along but didn’t disclose.

According to the suit, Montana and his wife Jennifer Montana (a co-plaintiff) got a bargain to lease and later buy a home in the off-center obelisk in exchange for their endorsement advertising the building:

Despite the Millennium Partners’ knowledge in 2009 that the building was experiencing greater than anticipated total settlement and unanticipated differential settlement [leaning], the Millennium Parties failed to notify the plaintiffs.

Between 2010 and 2015 the Montanas engaged in extensive promotional work for the tower and other Millennium Parties’ projects. [...] Plaintiffs had no knowledge and no reason to know that unit 41C was unmarketable, uninhabitable, and not of the quality represented to the Montanas.

The suit also names the Department of Building Inspection and the Transbay Joint Powers as defendants, alleging that the construction of the nearby Transbay Terminal contributed to the sinking spire’s situation.

This is just the latest in a motley menagerie of lawsuits at and around the defective tower. The building homeowners association filed their own much anticipated litigation five weeks ago.

Millennium Partners was not immediately available for comment and declined to comment to the San Francisco Chronicle. The Montanas bought the two bed, three bath 41C unit in 2013 for $2.7 million and have subsequently listed it for nearly $4 million.

• Montanas v Millennium Partners [Superior Court]
• Montana Sues Millennium Tower [Chronicle]
• A brief history of the sinking Millennium Tower [Curbed SF]
• Millennium Tower is tilting, sinking [Curbed SF]
• Millennium Tower Homeowners Sue [Curbed SF]