The Credits, Precisely
Missouri's Historic Preservation Tax Credit was established in 1997 and is administered by the Department of Economic Development with the State Historic Preservation Office. It provides a state tax credit equal to 25 percent of qualified rehabilitation expenditures on certified historic structures in St. Louis and Kansas City. Outside those two cities the rate is 35 percent, subject to conditions about low income housing credits.
The federal Historic Preservation Tax Incentives Program adds 20 percent of qualified rehabilitation expenditures, but only on income-producing certified historic structures. Where both apply the combined total reaches 45 percent in St. Louis.
Does the State Credit Cover an Ordinary House?
Three features make the Missouri credit unusually useful after a fire. It can be carried back three years and forward ten. It can be sold or transferred, so an owner without sufficient Missouri tax liability can still realise the value. And the programme operates under an annual cap, which means timing and application rounds matter.
What Makes a Building Eligible
A property qualifies as a certified historic structure by being listed individually on the National Register of Historic Places, by contributing to a National Register historic district, or by being part of a certified local historic district.
The contributing route is the one owners most often overlook. A building need not be individually notable; it needs to contribute to a district that is listed. In a city with as much surviving nineteenth and early twentieth century fabric as this one, that covers a great deal of ordinary housing.
How Do I Find out Whether My Building Contributes?
The Sequencing Rule
This is the provision that costs fire owners the most, and it deserves its own section.
Applicants to the federal and state programmes are advised to wait for signed approval of the proposed scope of work before undertaking any demolition or construction. The rehabilitation must meet the Secretary of the Interior's Standards for Rehabilitation, and the review exists to establish in advance that the planned work will.
After a fire the natural sequence is the opposite: clear the debris, open up the damage, start making it safe. On an eligible building that ordering can put the credits beyond reach, because work carried out before approval was never reviewed against the Standards.
Does That Mean I Cannot Secure the Building?
We publish no guidance on whether particular work would jeopardise an application. That depends on what was done and on how the reviewing offices treat it, and those offices are the right source. Ask them rather than us or a contractor.
Brick, and Why Securing Matters
After the fire of 1849 St. Louis required new construction in brick, and the clay beds under the city supplied the brickyards that made it. The result is a city built largely of masonry, and a national market for reclaimed St. Louis brick that persists today.
That market has a documented dark side. City building inspectors have described the method plainly: a vacant building is set on fire, the fire department's hoses strip the mortar and bring walls down, and clean brick is collected afterwards. Others ram walls with vehicles to loosen them. Buildings left with walls peeled away are known locally as dollhouses, and the activity has concentrated in the north side neighbourhoods over two decades.
What Protection Exists?
Condemnation Can Move Quickly
Where a fire causes significant structural damage, the City's Building Division can initiate emergency condemnation proceedings under its emergency provisions protocol, which allows it to act quickly where a structure poses an immediate safety concern.
That matters for an owner deciding slowly. A building left open and deteriorating is not simply holding its value while you think; it can be moving toward a condemnation and a demolition order that removes the shell, the credits and the decision all at once.
Two Jurisdictions, and Then Many
The City of St. Louis is an independent city. It is not part of St. Louis County, and has not been since the nineteenth century. They have separate governments, separate records and separate building departments.
St. Louis County in turn is divided among a large number of individual municipalities, many of which run their own building departments and their own ordinances, alongside unincorporated county territory.
How Do I Establish Which Authority Covers My Address?
Your Four Exits, Compared
Rehabilitate with the credits. On a certified historic structure this transforms the arithmetic, and on an owner-occupied house the state credit applies where the federal does not. It requires patience with the approval sequence.
Repair without the credits. Faster and simpler where the building is not eligible or the work would not meet the Standards.
Sell as it stands. Transfers the shell risk, the eligibility question and the securing problem. What a buyer pays reflects whether the brick is still there.
Demolish. Requires a permit, forfeits any credits, and on a masonry building destroys the most valuable thing on the site. Sometimes right, rarely first choice.
Across the City and the County
The historic districts that carry the credits are concentrated in the older parts of the city, covered under the south side brick neighbourhoods and the north side where brick theft is most active. Central and western areas behave differently in a district of substantial historic housing and a belt of preserved brick streets, while the northern county municipalities and the southern county suburbs sit under entirely separate authorities.
Beyond them, Florissant, Ferguson, University City, Kirkwood, Webster Groves, Maplewood, Clayton, Chesterfield, Ballwin and Wentzville each run their own departments with their own requirements.
The full index is on our service area index.
Rules Questions
Who Confirms Whether My Building Is Certified Historic?
The State Historic Preservation Office, working with the National Park Service on the federal side. The City's Cultural Resources Office holds the local district information. Neither charges for the question.
Can I Sell the Credits Rather Than Use Them?
Missouri allows the credits to be sold or transferred, which is how owners without sufficient state tax liability realise their value. The mechanics are a matter for an accountant.
Is the City or the County in Charge of My Address?
One or the other, never both, and the assessor's parcel record settles it. Within the county, the specific municipality matters again.
Primary Sources
- Missouri State Historic Preservation Office — state and federal historic preservation tax credit programmes
- Missouri Department of Economic Development — HTC programme requirements and application process
- City of St. Louis Cultural Resources Office — National Register districts and local certification
- Secretary of the Interior's Standards for Rehabilitation — the review standard for credit eligibility
- City of St. Louis Building Division — condemnation and emergency provisions