If you are looking at a few months in Minneapolis — a contract, a hospital rotation, a closing date that keeps sliding, a remodel at home — you quickly notice that a “normal apartment” is not really one thing. It is a lease, a deposit, a utility account, an internet appointment, a truckload of furniture you will sell again in the spring, and a jar of quarters for the laundry room.
A furnished studio is meant to remove all of that. Here is what is actually included at Oaklands on 9th, and what it replaces.
What a lease asks for before you have slept there once
Minneapolis is better than most cities about deposits. Under the City’s renter protections ordinance, a security deposit cannot exceed a single month’s rent — and if a property owner asks for more than one month’s rent up front, the deposit is capped at half a month’s rent and must be payable in up to three installments. Worth knowing before you sign anything, along with the Minnesota Attorney General’s plain-English handbook, Landlords and Tenants: Rights and Responsibilities, which covers how deposits, interest, and notice periods really work here.
Even at its friendliest, though, that is money parked in someone else’s account until you move out — on top of the electric bill in your name, the internet install window you have to be home for, a couch you do not want, and a twelve-month term when you need four. There is a longer comparison in our post on furnished month-to-month versus an extended-stay hotel.
What is already in the studio
Every studio is furnished, and the kitchen is a real kitchen — full-size, with cookware and dishes already in the cupboards. You arrive with a suitcase and a grocery bag, and that is the entire move-in. Our walkable grocery guide covers the second half of that sentence.
WiFi, heat, and all utilities are in the rate. Laundry is free — no card, no app, no quarters. There is no lease and no contract: stay a night, a week, or a month, and extend when your project does. Studios come in three tiers, Good, Better, and Best, so you can match the room to the length of the stay. Some studios are pet friendly, which means the dog does not have to sit this one out.
The building itself is a restored 1889 brownstone by architect Harry Wild Jones, so the windows, ceilings, and woodwork are nothing like a new build — you can read about the Richardsonian Romanesque front if that sort of thing interests you. The systems behind the brick are entirely modern.
The bills that never arrive
This is the part people underestimate. Over a three- or four-month stay, a conventional apartment means an electric account, a gas account, an internet contract with an install fee and often a term of its own, renters insurance, and a furniture rental invoice — each with its own start date, autopay, and cancellation call at the end. Every one of those is folded into one nightly or monthly rate here, which also makes expense reports and insurance-claim paperwork considerably shorter. If you are working from the room, our post on working remotely from a downtown studio goes into the desk-and-bandwidth details.
Getting around costs less than you would guess
Downtown is the affordable part. Metro Transit charges a flat $2 adult fare on local buses and METRO light rail at all times, an all-day pass is $4, buses on Nicollet Mall are free, and short hops inside the Downtown Zone are 50¢.
From 215 South 9th Street you can walk to the Skyway — see our guide to how the skyway actually works — plus Target on Nicollet Mall, the Armory, U.S. Bank Stadium, Target Center, Target Field, and Orchestra Hall. Hennepin Healthcare and the University of Minnesota medical campus are close enough that many of the travel nurses who stay with us skip the car entirely. If you do bring one, we have written up overnight parking downtown.
New to the city? A loop with Minneapolis Trolley Tours is a fast way to get your bearings in the first week, dinner at the Pillsbury Club is a good first night out, and when family comes to visit and wants something more of an occasion, 300 Clifton is a restored mansion bed and breakfast about ten minutes away. There is more in our post on making your first weeks in Minneapolis easier.
Come see it
No lease, no deposit gymnastics, no utility hookups — just a furnished studio in a 130-year-old building in the middle of downtown, for as long as you need it. Check dates and rates here, or call us at (612) 314-5124 and we will talk it through.