Concrete Contractors in St. Louis, MO

St. Louis is our home market, and concrete contractors working inside the city limits deal with conditions you do not find in most suburbs. St. Louis is an independent city. It separated from St. Louis County in 1877, so the city runs its own Streets Department, its own permits and its own sidewalk program, apart from St. Louis County and its municipalities. The 2020 census counted 301,578 residents spread across 79 officially recognized neighborhoods. We pour and replace driveways, public and private sidewalks, back patios, front stoops and steps, alley garage slabs, and we repair concrete that has settled, cracked or scaled.

A city built for far more people

St. Louis reached its peak population of 856,796 at the 1950 census, and Wikipedia notes it has lost 64.8 percent of that population since. In practice that means a huge stock of older homes on narrow lots, many with concrete that has been patched by several owners over several decades. A typical city job is rarely a clean new pour on open ground. It is a tear-out between a brick foundation and a property line, often with an alley on one side and a gangway on the other, and with a public walk that may be older than everything else on the lot.

On those lots we plan access first. Where can the truck park? Will the concrete be pumped, wheeled or chuted from the alley? How will water leave the new slab when the neighbor's yard sits higher? Answering those questions before demolition keeps the job tidy and keeps the new work from trapping water against a basement wall.

Karst ground and old sinkholes

Wikipedia notes that limestone and dolomite underlie the area, that parts of the city are karst, and that the area south of downtown has numerous sinkholes and caves, most of them now sealed. Ground like this can settle unevenly, and old fill placed decades ago does not always stay put. When a walk or patio has dropped in one spot, we look at why before we price a replacement. Soft or wet subgrade gets dug out and replaced with compacted rock so the new slab has something firm to sit on.

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City permits, sidewalks and the 50-50 program

The City of St. Louis Department of Streets requires a driveway permit to construct, reconstruct, widen, narrow or relocate a driveway. Its posted fees are $25 to reconstruct a residential driveway and $50 for a new one, and the application asks for curb dimensions, concrete thickness and a Board of Public Service Public Improvement permit. Replacing a public sidewalk yourself also takes a permit from the Streets Department.

The city's 50-50 Sidewalk Program splits sidewalk repair costs with eligible owners, and the city pays 100 percent where a city street tree has damaged the slabs. The city says the waiting list can be long, because each ward funds it from its own capital allocation, and work you pay for privately cannot be reimbursed through the program. If your problem is a public walk, it is worth asking the city first. If you need it done on your timeline, we pull the permit and do the work.

Weather the concrete has to survive

At Lambert Airport, Wikipedia's 1991 to 2020 normals show 41.70 inches of precipitation and 16.6 inches of snow in an average year, with about 48 thunderstorm days. Heavy summer storms and winter freeze-thaw cycles are both hard on flatwork. We use air-entrained mixes outdoors, cut control joints at sensible spacing, and pitch every slab so it sheds water toward the alley, street or yard instead of the foundation.

What we pour in the city

• Driveways and parking pads: front drives, alley-side pads and widened approaches with the city permit
• Sidewalks: public walks along the street and private walks to the side or back door
• Steps and stoops: front stoops on brick homes and back steps to the yard
• Patios: plain and stamped patios for small city yards
• Garage slabs: floors for detached alley garages
• Repairs: trip edges, sunken sections and scaled surfaces

Call (314) 886-6738 to set up a visit anywhere in the city, from the riverfront to the western city limits.