Commercial Masonry and Building Restoration in Cincinnati

A commercial masonry contractor for older Cincinnati buildings

Commercial buildings lose their masonry at the top and at the edges first. Parapets and coping take weather on both faces. Steel lintels over storefront windows rust and push the brick up. Mortar joints wash out under a leaking gutter. Left alone, that water ends up inside a tenant’s space, and loose brick or stone over a public sidewalk turns into a safety problem the city can cite.

Swiss Masonry is a Cincinnati commercial masonry contractor that also works as a general contractor, serving the 50-mile area around the city, from Hamilton County into Northern Kentucky and southeast Indiana. Swiss Masonry has done masonry in Cincinnati since 1993. We repair and restore facades, storefronts, parapets and mortar joints on mixed-use, apartment, office and assembly buildings. Insured. Certificate of insurance on request.

This page covers who we work for, the buildings we work on, the local rules and how a job runs. For trade detail on repointing, parapets and lintels, see our commercial masonry repair page.

Two ways to hire us on a commercial job

Under a GC, we price the masonry scope from the drawings, photos or written scope you send, and stay inside it. When we run the job ourselves, you sign one contract and call one person: the owner, who walks the building first and prices the work himself. Our general contracting page explains how we schedule and coordinate the other trades.

Commercial building types and where they fail

Storefront rows and mixed-use buildings

Brick storefront buildings with apartments upstairs are common in older business districts on both sides of the river. Their weak spots repeat: rusted lintels over the display windows, cracked piers between storefronts, washed-out joints under failed box gutters, and a parapet leaning toward the street. Work on these buildings usually runs while the shop stays open and the tenants above stay home.

Apartment buildings

Walk-up brick apartment buildings and newer brick veneer complexes leak in the same places: around windows, at the roofline and wherever gutters overflow. The first sign is often a stained ceiling in a top-floor unit. We trace the leak, repair the joints, brick and flashing that let water in, and tell you plainly if the cause is not masonry.

Houses of worship, halls and meeting buildings

Older assembly buildings often carry the most ornamental masonry on the block: cornices, corbels, dentil courses and cut stone trim. Restoration there starts with mortar analysis and a trial repair, so new work matches the original, and ornament is rebuilt piece by piece instead of being simplified or capped over.

Offices and older industrial brick

Mid-century office buildings bring brick veneer over block, steel shelf angles and long runs of sealant joints. Older warehouses bring thick solid brick walls and wide arched openings. Both need the same thing first: a diagnosis of why the wall is failing before anyone starts cutting out mortar.

Commercial repair and building restoration work we do

• Facade repair and building restoration: replacing spalled brick with matched or reclaimed units, resetting and pinning loose stone, rebuilding cornices and corbels. Landmark and pre-1920 buildings are covered on our historic masonry restoration page.
• Commercial tuckpointing: spot repointing or whole elevations, in Type N portland cement-lime mortar, or a lime-rich mix on soft historic brick.
• Parapets and coping: resetting coping, and rebuilding leaning or cracked parapets down to sound masonry.
• Storefront openings and lintels: removing brick lifted by rusted steel, treating or replacing the lintel, and relaying the brick above it.
• Masonry cleaning: buffered cleaners and low-pressure water, never straight acid on soft brick.
• Code-enforcement repairs: scoping and pricing the repairs your notice lists, with permits and historic approvals where the work needs them. See our code violation repair page.
• Storm and insurance repairs: rebuilding parapets, chimneys and walls damaged by wind or fallen trees. See storm damage repair.
• Concrete at the entrance: stoops, steps and slabs around the building, covered on our concrete page.

Every job is priced after the owner sees it. Common masonry ranges are on our pricing page.

Facade inspections, historic districts and sidewalk permits

Three sets of local rules often shape a commercial masonry job in Cincinnati and across the river. We plan the job inside them from the first visit.

Cincinnati’s facade inspection program

Cincinnati Ordinance 329-2016 requires periodic facade examinations for buildings five stories or 60 feet tall, whichever is less. The report must be signed and sealed by an engineer or architect registered in Ohio, as the city’s facade inspection program page explains. We are masons, not engineers, so we do not sign those reports. We price and carry out the masonry repairs a report recommends, and we can photograph the finished repairs for your engineer’s file.

Local historic districts

In a Cincinnati local historic district, or on a designated landmark, exterior work needs a certificate of appropriateness from the city’s Historic Conservation Office, even when the work needs no building permit. Covington requires one before exterior alterations in its historic preservation overlay zones. Its design guidelines ask for repointing mortar matched to the original, softer than the brick and low in portland cement, and a test patch, with the city’s Historic Preservation Officer contacted before the test patch goes on. Newport runs its own historic preservation office and commission. We prepare the mortar, brick and repair details those offices ask to see before work starts.

Work that uses the sidewalk

The City of Cincinnati requires a permit whenever work is in or uses the public right of way, and those permits run through the city’s Department of Transportation and Engineering. A scaffold, barricade or covered walkway on a city sidewalk sits in that right of way, so we plan for the permit before setup. Northern Kentucky cities keep their own permit desks, so we check with the city before a scaffold goes up.

How a commercial job runs

1. Walk the building. The owner of Swiss Masonry walks every elevation with you or your property manager, checks the roof side of the parapets where it can be reached safely, and photographs what he finds.
2. Written scope and price. You get a line-item scope: what is failing, why, what we would do and the quantities behind the price. Where more than one fix makes sense, the options sit side by side.
3. Mortar and brick sampling. On older buildings, a sample of the existing mortar goes to a lab for binder, sand gradation and color. We build a trial repair, and the building owner approves it before production work starts.
4. Contract and approvals. A written contract, a certificate of insurance for you or your GC, and the permits and historic approvals the work needs.
5. Work in phases. We stage the work by elevation or storefront bay so entrances stay usable, protect glass and the sidewalk, and control silica dust whenever we cut.
6. Final walk-through. A last walk with you, a punch list, and our one-year workmanship warranty in writing.

Crews are small, usually two masons on a masonry job, which keeps work on an occupied building contained. On a large facade we plan the phases with you at the start. For buildings in Covington, Newport and the river cities, see our Northern Kentucky service area page.