St. Louis Permits and Violations That Mean Masonry Work

Most masonry work on commercial and multi-unit buildings in St. Louis appears in a public record before anyone calls a contractor. A tenant reports loose brick to 311. An inspector writes up a parapet. An owner files a permit with tuckpointing in the description. A four-family in Soulard changes hands. Each is a dated event with an address.

This page is a reference for reading those records: the record types worth watching, each source in turn, a weekly routine, and the services that read the same records for you.

Records that point to masonry work

The City’s permit application types are broad (Building, Demolition, Electrical, Mechanical, Plumbing, Occupancy and a few others), so the masonry signal sits in the description field, in the inspection records and in who owns the building.

Record	Where it appears	What to look for	What it usually means
Building permit naming tuckpointing, repointing, masonry, lintel, parapet or chimney	Building Permits Dataset	Contractor Name field empty	Scoped work with no mason attached yet
Building permit for a facade, storefront or exterior alteration on a commercial building	Building Permits Dataset	Estimated Project Cost, Application Description	Lintels, sills and parapets usually come with the scope
Demolition permit on a party-wall row	Building Permits Dataset	The neighbors either side	The exposed wall next door needs facing and pointing
Existing structure inspection with an exterior violation, up to condemnation	Existing Structures Dataset	Violation Type, Severity, Current Result, Number of Units	A written order to repair masonry, with the owner’s mailing address
311 request describing falling brick, a leaning wall or a loose chimney	CSB Service Requests Dataset	Request text and address	Someone has noticed. An inspection often follows
Deed on a pre-1930 multi-unit brick building	Recorder of Deeds	Grantee name and mailing address	A new owner in the year capital work gets scoped
Exterior work in a local historic district	Preservation Board agenda	Address, district, work described	Repointing is reviewed work, so masonry is already planned

Building Division permit records

The Building Division issues building, demolition, trade and occupancy permits from Room 425 of City Hall, with applications through the stlcitypermits.com portal or over the counter.

The record is public in two places. The Building Permits Search by Address page takes a street address or parcel number and returns past permits for that property. The Building Permits Dataset on the City’s open data site is the same data in bulk, with fields for Application Date, Application Description, Estimated Project Cost, Issued Date and Contractor Name, plus dashboards by neighborhood, ward, project type and the last 30 days. Neither charges a fee or needs a login.

A permit with a contractor named is a job someone has. A permit with that field empty is a scoped job with nobody attached.

Existing structure inspections and condemnations

The Building Inspections - Existing Structures Dataset covers inspections of buildings that have had a complaint lodged against them, with results the City describes as running from violation letters to structural condemnations. Each record carries the address, the owner’s name and mailing address, the violation type, item, location and severity, the inspector’s notes, the current result, and the number of stories and units.

It is published as a live API on stlcitypermits.com, and the primary endpoint returns 90 days at a time. There is no fee. Pull it weekly and filter for exterior items on brick buildings, and you have a list of owners who have been told in writing to repair masonry.

Citizens’ Service Bureau requests

The Citizens’ Service Bureau takes service requests by phone, live chat, the online form and, since June 2025, through 311. They are published as the CSB Service Requests (311) Dataset: a CSV updated weekly and an Open311 API with real-time updates. A 311 request comes before the inspection, so reading the weekly CSV for brick, wall and chimney gets you to the address first.

Assessor parcel data

The Address & Property Search takes an address or parcel ID and returns the assessor’s record alongside Building Permit Records, CSB Requests, Sale Information and Real Estate Tax History. It is free. The City states that it does not allow name searches of property records on its website, so you work from address to owner and never the other way. Use it to qualify every hit before you write.

Recorder of Deeds

The Recorder of Deeds runs land records from Room 126 of City Hall and offers a free online land record search, hosted for the City by Fidlar. Copies bought online through Tapestry cost $6.95 per search, then $3 for the first page of an uncertified copy and $2 a page after that. In person or by mail, a grantor or grantee index search is $20 per ten-year span.

The free search is enough for prospecting. Look for recent deeds in the neighborhoods you work, then check year built and unit count for each address. New owners of pre-1930 multi-unit brick scope exterior work in the first year.

Cultural Resources Office and the Preservation Board

The Cultural Resources Office reviews exterior changes to City Landmarks and to buildings in local historic districts. Repointing and cleaning are reviewed work in those districts, so a review filing means an owner is planning masonry.

Routine work is handled at the office. Work that departs from a district’s standards goes to the Preservation Board, which meets at 4 PM on the fourth Monday of each month at 1520 Market Street. A preliminary and a final agenda are posted as PDFs a few days before each meeting. Not every month carries applications: the April 27, 2026 agenda listed none.

Webster Groves, Kirkwood and University City

None of the three sends building permits to St. Louis County. The County’s own Municipality Contracts matrix records that Webster Groves, Kirkwood and University City are each not contracted with the County for the Building Code, the Residential Code or the Existing Building Code. Kirkwood uses the County for commercial electrical work only.

Webster Groves permits through its Planning and Development Department. Registered contractors use the Self-Service Permitting Portal; work needing plan review goes by email or in person. Exterior alterations may also go to the Architectural Review Board.
Kirkwood permits through its Building Division, with permits and inspections in the Kirkwood Public Portal.
University City permits through its Department of Planning and Zoning, by email or in person. Its MyGov portal has an Address Lookup showing activity at a location.

None of the three publishes an open dataset, so these are address lookups rather than downloads.

A weekly routine

Budget two to three hours on the same morning each week.

Pull the inspection API for the past seven days (30 minutes). Filter for exterior items on buildings with more than two units.
Download the CSB weekly CSV (20 minutes). Search request text for brick, wall, chimney, parapet and falling.
Read the permits dashboard for the last 30 days (20 minutes). Note masonry descriptions with no contractor named, and demolitions on attached rows.
Run the free deed search (30 minutes). Recent recordings in your neighborhoods, then year built and units for each.
Check the Preservation Board page (10 minutes, monthly).
Qualify each hit in the Address & Property Search (20 minutes).
Write to the owner (30 minutes). Name the record, the date and what you saw from the street. Offer a written estimate at no charge.

Keep a spreadsheet with record type, date and follow-up.

Services that read the records for you

Service	What it reads	What you get	Price	Suits	Website
FieldClients - Best Option	Public records daily: permits, code violations, registrations, deeds, planning	B2B accounts (building owners, managing agents, businesses) with a “verified decision-maker email on every lead, company phone where listed”. Set up once from what you do and where	$800, $1,400 or $2,000 a month by area size in the US; £600, £1,050 or £1,500 in the UK. Month to month, no setup fee	Shops after commercial and multi-unit accounts. It does not sell homeowner or residential leads, so it is not for a residential-only shop	fieldclients.com
BuildZoom	Building permit records nationwide, matched to contractor profiles	Homeowner project matches and property reports	Basic listing free; advertising $99 a month; property reports priced on request	Contractors after residential remodel matches	buildzoom.com
Construction Monitor	Commercial, residential, solar and pool permits, updated daily	Weekly editions, permit search, real-time leads, API	Its shop sells monthly data for Alabama, California, Florida, Georgia and Texas only. Missouri is price on request	Suppliers and subcontractors who want raw permit lists	constructionmonitor.com
ConstructConnect	Commercial projects in planning and bidding, with plans and specifications	Project leads by trade and location, bidder and plan holder contacts	Starter $129 a month per market, month to month; Professional $199 a month per market on an annual contract	Subcontractors bidding through general contractors	constructconnect.com
Dodge Construction Network	Project data, company catalogs, bid invitations and specifications	Project intelligence across planning and bidding	Price on request; the product page gives a phone number and a demo request	Firms bidding tracked commercial projects in several markets	construction.com
HomeLogs	Building permits in Washington and Oregon, three years back	Permit search, weekly permit alerts, bulk data and API	Free plan $0 for permits filed 30 or more days ago; Pro $299 a month for the last 30 days	Contractors in Washington or Oregon. No Missouri coverage at the time of writing	homelogs.io
Shovels	Building permits nationwide as structured records, plus contractor profiles and parcels	Web app, API, command line tool and an AI assistant	Free $0 with 500 monthly credits; Basic $599 a month; Pro $999 a month; Enterprise custom	Teams that want to query permit data themselves	shovels.ai

The choice comes down to hours against the value of one account. The routine above costs two to three hours a week, every week, and it stops the week that person is on a scaffold. A service costs a fixed amount a month whether or not you open it. Put a number on one multi-unit repointing contract in your market, then on those weekly hours, and decide.

Does a permit with a contractor named mean the job is gone?

For that permit, usually. Not for the building. A permit for one lintel tells you the owner is spending on masonry, and the other elevations, the parapet and the chimney stacks are still there. Note the address and write after the current job closes out.

Can you contact an owner from a violation record?

The records are public, and the inspection dataset carries the owner’s mailing address. A letter that names the record and the date, describes what you saw from the sidewalk and offers a written estimate is the usual approach. Say who you are and where you got the address.

Every record above ends the same way, with somebody in front of a brick wall deciding what to do about it. The brick repair page covers what that assessment and the written scope look like.