Six years ago, St. Louis became the first city in the Midwest—and just the fourth in the nation—to mandate that all big buildings within its limits hit standards designed to reduce energy use. The city’s 2020 ordinance applied to all buildings larger than 50,000 square feet and came with a deadline of May 2025 for most of them (houses of worship and affordable housing got another two years). Building owners who failed to meet the city’s standards could face fines of up to $500 per day.
When the city kicked off its first cycle in 2021, 65 percent of buildings were not in compliance. Katarina Michalova, the program manager for the city’s Office of Building Performance, says that number has since decreased to 50 percent. “It is a huge improvement,” Michalova says.
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In addition to the buildings that are out of compliance, however, some haven’t even submitted their energy use data. Currently, a little over 85 percent are reporting their usage and 65 percent of those have submitted the required third-party verification. That leaves numerous buildings that have to start reporting, verifying, or get compliant—some, potentially must do all three.
St. Louis is now pushing for more buildings to get compliant. But they are not assessing fines—not yet, at least.
“We decided to give these buildings more time and flexibility,” Michalova says. “Instead of issuing the fines, we want to work with building owners and we’re still accepting custom alternative compliance plans to bring building owners into compliance. We are here to assist them to get into compliance.”
Custom plans often involve performing an energy audit, Michalova says, to find the building’s deficiencies. Once that’s determined, Michalova’s office can help the building’s owner figure out an action plan. It’s ultimately up to the city’s building commissioner to decide how much leeway—and how much time—each structure gets.
Compliance has its benefits even beyond getting the city off your back. John Wolf, the vice president of operations for the Fox Theatre, says the historic theatre has steadily made improvements to its energy efficiency since 2011. As a result, the 1929 building easily met the city’s standards.
He says many of their improvements simply followed suggestions from its contractors—and in some cases, they helped The Fox connect with incentives from Ameren that helped make the upgrades more affordable. “We didn’t go into these projects looking for a handout,” he says. “It was just the contractor saying, ‘Oh, by the way, if you fill this out, you might get this.’”
These days, the improvements are saving the theater not only money, but time as well. The theater has 1,500 lightbulbs around the perimeter of its ceiling and replacing them used to be a major ongoing hassle. “Workers could spend a day with a bucket of bulbs, replacing burnouts, and start all over again next week,” he says. The switch to LED bulbs 14 years ago changed that paradigm: Not a single bulb has burned out yet. Replacing the original 1929 windows on the building’s north side had a similar effect. “The difference is amazing,” Wolf reports. “I mean, to the point where I don’t even turn the steam on in the dressing room sometimes because it’s so hot already.”
Another entity subject to the building standards is the City of St. Louis itself, which has managed to achieve compliance, despite being the owner of numerous older buildings. That cost $1.4 million, as then-Alderwoman Cara Spencer told St. Louis Public Radio in 2022—but helped cut energy bills by $435,000 annually. “The payback,” she said, “was less than three years.”
But even buildings that are currently in compliance will have to stay on top of potential upgrades. Under the city’s 2020 ordinance, standards get tougher every four years. The city’s Building Energy Improvement Board is set to decide on new standards at its April 23 board meeting.
In connection with the Building Energy Exchange St. Louis, a nonprofit designed to help buildings get into compliance, the city is hosting public meetings about shaping the new standards beginning this week. Meetings are planned for the O’Fallon Rec Center, the old Municipal Court building downtown, and the Carondelet Rec Center. More details online.
