Downtown Minneapolis runs on projects. Tower retrofits, stadium turnarounds, data-centre fit-outs, electrical and mechanical work in buildings that never really close — and behind every one of them is a crew that flew or drove in and needs somewhere to sleep for six weeks.
Hotels are the default answer and they are a bad one. Here is what a travelling work crew actually needs in downtown Minneapolis, and how a furnished month-to-month studio compares.
What crews need that a hotel room does not give them
Ask anyone who has spent a long project living out of a hotel and you get the same list of complaints. It is never the bed. It is everything around the bed.
- A real kitchen. Per diem goes a long way further when breakfast and dinner do not have to be bought. The federal per diem lookup will tell you what the Minneapolis M&IE rate is; a full kitchen is what turns that number into money kept.
- Laundry that is not coin-operated. Work clothes get filthy. Doing that in a hotel means a bag of quarters or a service charge.
- No lease and no fixed end date. Projects slip. A crew that signs a twelve-month lease for an eight-week job has made an expensive mistake.
- One predictable number. Utilities, heat, WiFi and laundry rolled in beats a nightly rate plus fees plus parking plus a laundry line item.
- Somewhere to be a person. After a fourteen-hour shift, a studio with a desk and a couch is not the same thing as a room with a TV bolted to the wall.
What Oakland’s on 9th is
We are a furnished, month-to-month apartment hotel at 215 South 9th Street, in an 1889 brownstone that was restored in 2019. Every studio comes fully furnished with a full kitchen. WiFi, all utilities, heat and laundry are included. There is no contract — you can book a night, a week or a month, and extend when the schedule moves.
There are three tiers, so a crew can put people where the budget lands: the Good studio, the Better studio and the Best studio. Some units are pet friendly, which matters more often than people expect.
The location, honestly described
215 South 9th Street is in the middle of downtown. Target on Nicollet Mall, the Armory, Target Center, U.S. Bank Stadium, Target Field and Orchestra Hall are all walkable. Hennepin Healthcare and the University of Minnesota Medical Center are close by — which is why we host a lot of travel nurses as well as trades.
One thing we will not oversell: we are not connected to the skyway. You walk about a block to reach it. In January that block is real, and we would rather you knew now than found out at 6 a.m. on a Monday.
If your crew is driving in with trucks and gear, read our parking page before you arrive — downtown parking rules are not intuitive and the wrong space overnight is an expensive lesson. If people are flying in, MSP ground transportation lays out the options, and Metro Transit’s trip planner covers everything else.
A note on the 30-day line
This matters more than most people realise. The City of Minneapolis requires a licence for most rentals of 30 days or less, and it caps how many short-term rental units a building can have. A crew booking a string of short-stay listings is buying into that regime and its uncertainty. Month-to-month stays sit outside it entirely — which is one reason project managers stop rolling the dice on listings after the first cancelled reservation.
If you want the fuller comparison, we wrote one: furnished month-to-month vs. Airbnb in downtown Minneapolis.
Booking more than one studio
If you need several studios for the same dates, the fastest route is to call us at (612) 314-5124 or email info@oaklandson9th.com and tell us the dates and headcount. We will tell you straight away what is available and what is not — no forms, no waiting on a portal.
Ready to get your crew off the hotel carousel?
Check dates and rates on our booking page, or call (612) 314-5124. If it turns out you need something for a client or a visiting executive instead, our partner properties — the Pillsbury Club and 300 Clifton — are worth a look too.
Keep reading: What Is It Like to Live in a Building From 1889? An Honest Answer From Downtown Minneapolis