Description
Salary: $104,078 - $163,332
Position Grade: 20M
Department: Building Division
Job Type: Full-Time (Permanent)
Examination Number: EX1611
Location: Downtown - St. Louis, MO
The Commissioner of Building Operations & Code Administration serves as the executive leader responsible for the City’s building regulatory, permitting, and inspection functions. This role is accountable for ensuring public safety through code compliance while advancing efficient, transparent, and customer-focused service delivery that supports economic development and community recovery in the May 16th tornado-impacted areas and across the city.
The City is seeking a transformational leader to join its team in this pivotal moment in history, to address its decades of blight, accelerate demolitions in the tornado zone, and reform the Division’s permitting process to make St. Louis a predictable and attractive place to do business.
The Commissioner will also lead the Zoning Section of the Building Division’s historic role in overhauling the City’s zoning code—the Zoning Upgrade: a modern code to meet the moment—marking the first major rewrite and map update since the mid-twentieth century.
The Commissioner operates as a division-level executive, overseeing strategy, operations, and performance across building code enforcement, plan review, permitting, and inspection services with a team of 200 employees. This position requires a leader who can balance regulatory integrity with operational efficiency, modernize legacy processes, drive measurable improvements in service delivery, and manage people.
Why Be the Commissioner of Building Operations & Code Administration for the City of St. Louis?
Drive City-Wide Transformation and Economic Recovery. The Commissioner role is central to the City's strategic priorities:
- Addressing Decades of Blight: Take direct action to accelerate demolitions and address structural challenges that impede community growth and safety.
- Leading Tornado Recovery: Play a crucial role in the post-disaster recovery efforts in the May 16th tornado-impacted areas, ensuring safe, efficient, and rapid rebuilding.
- Fueling Economic Development: Reform the permitting process to eliminate inefficiencies, increase transparency, and make St. Louis a predictable and attractive place for developers and businesses to invest.
Lead Major Modernization and Process Reform. This is an opportunity to leave a lasting legacy by:
- Modernizing Operations: Championing the overhaul of legacy processes, including the implementation of new digital platforms for permitting and plan review.
- Driving Operational Excellence: Establishing and enforcing new performance metrics (e.g., permit cycle times, inspection turnaround) to transition the division into a high-performing, customer-focused service provider.
- Engaging in Policy: Directly influence the regulatory environment, supporting initiatives like the "ZOUP" (Zoning Upgrade) overhaul and drafting new codes that reflect modern industry standards, equity, and sustainability goals.
High-Visibility Executive Leadership. The Commissioner is a division-level executive with significant authority and strategic influence:
- Direct Impact: Lead a multidisciplinary team and oversee all regulatory functions (permitting, inspections, code enforcement) essential to public safety and development.
- Strategic Stakeholder Role: Serve as the primary liaison to elected officials, developers, design professionals, and community leaders, navigating complex political and industry relationships.
- Organizational Development: Lead the mentorship, development, and strategic alignment of the division's staff and resources, fostering a culture of accountability and professionalism. In short, this position is not just about enforcing codes—it's about leading fundamental change, accelerating recovery, and setting the standard for transparent, efficient, and equitable building operations that will define St. Louis’s future.
Essential Functions and Responsibilities:
Operational Leadership & Performance Management
- Lead and manage all building operations, including permitting, inspections, and code enforcement, ensuring alignment with City priorities and regulatory requirements.
- Establish and drive performance metrics (e.g., permit cycle times, inspection turnaround, backlog reduction, customer satisfaction).
- Implement accountability systems to ensure consistent, timely, and high-quality service delivery across all functional areas.
Process Improvement & Modernization
- Lead modernization of permitting and plan review systems, including digital platforms and workflow optimization.
- Identify inefficiencies and implement process improvements to increase speed, transparency, and accessibility.
- Integrate data analytics and reporting tools to support real-time decision-making and performance tracking.
Regulatory Oversight & Policy Development
- Ensure compliance with all applicable local, state, and federal building codes and regulations.
- Oversee the development, interpretation, and implementation of building codes, ordinances, and design standards.
- Lead or support drafting of new ordinances and code updates to reflect evolving industry standards and City priorities.
Strategic Stakeholder Engagement
- Serve as the primary liaison to developers, contractors, design professionals, community stakeholders, and elected officials.
- Respond to inquiries from Alderpersons and provide technical and operational guidance on building-related issues.
- Represent the City in hearings, including Board of Adjustment and Appeals, and provide expert testimony as needed.
Interagency Coordination
- Collaborate with internal departments (Public Safety, Planning, Legal, IT, etc.) to ensure coordinated service delivery and regulatory alignment.
- Facilitate cross-functional solutions to complex development and compliance challenges.
Leadership & Organizational Development
- Lead, mentor, and develop a multidisciplinary team of managers, inspectors, and technical staff.
- Foster a culture of accountability, professionalism, and continuous improvement.
- Align staffing, structure, and resources to meet operational demands and long-term strategic goals.
Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities:
- Executive Leadership: Ability to lead large, complex operations with multiple functional areas and stakeholders, and manage subordinate leaders and employees.
- Operational Excellence: Proven ability to improve performance, streamline processes, and deliver measurable results.
- Regulatory Expertise: Strong understanding of building codes, compliance frameworks, and enforcement practices.
- Strategic Thinking: Ability to align operational priorities with broader City objectives, including economic development and community impact.
- Stakeholder Management: Skilled in navigating political, community, and industry relationships.
- Change Management: Experience leading organizational and technological transformation initiatives.
- Data-Driven Decision Making: Ability to leverage data and analytics to inform strategy and improve outcomes.
- Ability to review technical documents, plans, and reports.
- Data Utilization: Requires the ability to perform upper-level data analysis, including the ability to hypothesize, theorize and assimilate, to modify or adapt existing policies/methods to meet unusual conditions within the context of existing theories and management principles.
- Human Interaction: Requires the ability to direct a major organizational unit requiring significant internal and external interaction with subordinate employees, city officials, state/national officials, media representatives and building professionals.
- Equipment, Machinery, Tools and Materials Use: Requires the ability to operate, maneuver and/or provide simple but continuous adjustment on equipment, machinery and tools such as motor vehicle, computer terminal, fax machine, photocopier, telephone, and/or materials used in performing essential functions.
- Verbal Aptitude: Requires the ability to utilize a variety of reference, descriptive and advisory data and information such as budget reports, billing invoices, section activity reports, architectural drawings, performance appraisals, management reports, building and zoning codes, ordinances, design standards, statutes, procedures, guidelines and non-routine correspondence.
- Mathematical Aptitude: Requires the ability to perform addition, subtraction, multiplication and division; calculate percentages, fractions and decimals; perform mathematical operations involving algebra, geometry and trigonometry; develop and interpret descriptive statistical reports.
- Functional Reasoning: Requires the ability to apply principles of logical or synthesis functions involving planning and directing of interrelated activities or multiple departments. Ability to deal with several concrete and abstract variables in working out approaches to major problems.
- Situational Reasoning: Requires the ability to exercise the judgment, decisiveness and creativity required in situations involving the direction, control and planning of an entire program or multiple programs.
- Environmental Factors: Work is normally performed in an office environment under generally safe and comfortable conditions where exposure to irate individuals poses a very limited risk of injury.
- Physical Requirements: Requires the ability to lift, push and pull up to files and papers up to twenty pounds. Requires the ability to stoop in performing normal office activities.
- Sensory Requirements: Requires the ability to sustain prolonged visual concentration required for computer work, to review plans, documents and other written materials.
Qualifications
A Bachelor’s degree in Architecture, Engineering, Public Administration, or a directly related field, with Certified Building Code Official (CBO) status; OR a Master’s degree in Architecture, Engineering, Public Administration, or a directly related; plus five years of experience managing building code enforcement at a senior management level; OR Registration as a Professional Architect in the State of Missouri; OR Registration as a Professional Engineer in the State of Missouri. OR an equivalent combination of education, training and experience. (Pursuant to 25.103.2.1 of the City’s Revised Codes.)
Scoring Components and Their Weights
Experience and Training: 100%
May be Subject to:
Background Investigation: Pass/Fail
Medical Examination: Pass/Fail
Documentation of Academic Credentials must be Submitted Upon Request
When completing the Employment History and the Educational/Training History sections of the Employment Application, please be as thorough as possible when describing your education, training and experience relating to this position. Applicants will only receive credit for their experience, training and education as shown on the application. Resumes will not be accepted as a substitute to a fully completed application. Incomplete applications will not be considered.
Veterans Preference Points
To be eligible for veteran's preference points, the applicant must submit a copy of their DD 214 Certificate of Release or Discharge from Active Duty with the Employment Application or upon request. The Director of Personnel may, in their discretion, accept alternate documentation.
City Residence Preference Points
City residents who pass an examination for a position in the classified service and do not receive any other preference will receive a five (5) point preference on a scale of 100 points on the exam. An additional one (1) point shall be added to the passing score of City residents who receive any other preference on a scale of 100 points. City residents must have resided in the City for at least one (1) year at the time of filing their application to be eligible for the preference points.
Accommodations
If assistance with the job application is necessary based on a physical impairment, mental impairment, or otherwise, they should reach out to the Office on the Disabled with contact information. This office will not disclose any information that an applicant or employee has a disability or has discussed possible accommodations without the applicant's or employee's prior consent.
