A skyway building has two front doors, and from November on both of them take in slush. Write the cleaning scope around the street entrance and the skyway-level entrance alike, around the hours the skyway is open to the public, and around building management’s rules for access, insurance and trash, all settled before the first night.
That’s the standard a building should be held to. If you’d rather have it in writing, tell us about the space — we walk it and come back with a scope of work and a price, usually within one business day.
Two skyway systems, two sets of hours
St. Paul’s skyway, in the words of a 2023 city ordinance, “was developed by the City and is governed by easements with building owners, who are responsible for maintenance and security.” The city’s Legislative Code (§140.10) requires every part of it to be open to the public every day from 6:00 a.m. to 12:00 a.m. (midnight) at a minimum, and exceptions need City Council approval. The same chapter counts a section of skyway left inaccessible during those hours as a “safety hazard,” and it requires owners to keep their segments free of “unsanitary elements,” a list that includes broken glass, rotting food and accumulated garbage.
In Minneapolis, skyway hours appear in the zoning code. A new skyway in the downtown system has standard hours of 6:30 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. on weekdays, 9:30 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. on Saturdays and noon to 6:00 p.m. on Sundays, and owners are encouraged to stay open longer (City Code §550.2040). That standard is written for new skyways, so for the bridge your building already has, ask management which hours apply.
Our St. Paul office cleaning page says: “Evening crews run 6pm–10pm, which is what most offices ask for. Earlier or overnight windows can be arranged where the building allows access at that hour.” In St. Paul, that window falls entirely inside the skyway’s required hours, and under Minneapolis’s standard for new skyways it does on weekdays too. So plan on cleaning the skyway level with people walking through it: wet-floor signs out, one side of the corridor at a time, nothing parked across the path.
The second front door
In a skyway building, plenty of winter traffic never touches the street door. People cross the bridges from a parking ramp or the next tower with slush still on their boots, and the first dry floor they reach is yours. Our St. Paul small-office page says it in one line: “In a skyway building, the upper-level bridge entrances need the same winter matting and floor care as the street doors.”
So the skyway entrance goes on the scope as its own line: walk-off mats at the bridge doors, a stated frequency for the hard floor between those doors and the elevators, and the elevator thresholds where salt collects. Our Minneapolis janitorial page lists “Entry glass, mats and thresholds” and “Hard-floor cleaning on a stated frequency”. In a skyway building, each of those lines exists twice.
The sidewalk clock behind the lobby floor
Each city also starts a clock outside. Minneapolis Ordinance 445.20 gives every property other than a single-family home or duplex four daytime hours, counted between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m., to clear its sidewalk after it stops snowing, and the city starts inspecting 24 hours after each snowfall. St. Paul’s ordinance gives owners 24 hours, and the city asks them to shovel first and to use salt or sand only where safety needs it. Either way, the salt spread on the walk that afternoon is in your lobby by evening.
By the Minnesota DNR’s 1981–2010 normals, the Twin Cities average 54 inches of snow a season, nearly all of it from November through March, with a little more in April. Write those months as their own scope, with heavier entry and hard-floor frequencies on both levels.
What building management asks for first
The certificate of insurance usually comes first. Our St. Paul office page answers with “a COI issued to your building or management company within two business hours of the request. A W-9 is available on request as well.” Keys, codes and the freight elevator come next, and we take those apart in how cleaning crews access a building after hours. A skyway building adds one question: once the bridge doors lock, which route does the crew use? St. Paul’s code requires skyway doors to be secured outside the general hours unless they’re monitored.
Suite or building: who owns the corridor
Settle early whose scope covers the skyway corridor outside the suite door. Our Minneapolis janitorial page draws the line: “Scope, not skill. Office cleaning is a tenant suite; janitorial is the property — common areas, circulation and shared facilities on a nightly or set weekly rhythm.” A skyway corridor, its entrance and its elevators are circulation, so they belong on the building’s janitorial scope, and in St. Paul the code puts their upkeep on the owner. A tenant’s office scope starts at the suite door. The full split is in janitorial vs. commercial cleaning.
Recycling streams, each to its own container
Minnesota law (Minn. Stat. §115A.151) requires owners of commercial buildings in the seven-county metro that contract for four or more cubic yards of trash collection a week to collect at least three recyclable materials and send them to a recycler. In Minneapolis, Hennepin County’s Ordinance 13 adds a recycling bin next to every trash container and labels color-coded blue for recycling and red, gray or black for trash; businesses covered by its food-waste rules, office buildings with dining services among them, add green labels for organics. Our St. Paul office page lists “Trash and recycling collected to the dock or chute”, and in a covered building each stream has to reach its own container there. If the building runs organics, put that stream on the scope sheet too. St. Paul is in Ramsey County, so ask management which streams your building runs.
Beyond downtown: I-494 and Eagan
Along I-494 and at Eagan’s corporate campuses, the walk usually starts in a surface lot, not on a skyway, and the lot’s salt rides in on every shoe. The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency’s Smart Salting program certifies the crews who treat parking lots and sidewalks, and the property managers who oversee them; the agency says participating organizations have cut their salt use by 30 to 70 percent. That’s a conversation for your snow contractor, but less salt on the lot is less to mop up inside.
What we staff, and what we don’t
Day porter coverage isn’t on our list. Our Minneapolis janitorial page answers it plainly: “Not as a standing service today. If your building needs one we will say so plainly and scope what we can actually staff, rather than promising coverage we cannot hold.” We don’t staff day porters, so midday mopping at a slushy entrance stays with building staff.
Nor is restorative floor work. From our post on crew versus specialist floor work: “JAS does not strip and wax, screen or refinish floors: that’s a flooring contractor’s job, scheduled separately, and our crew works around it.” The same post adds: “JAS does not shampoo carpet or run hot-water extraction.” Snow clearing, salting and exterior window washing aren’t on the office or janitorial scopes we publish. In Minneapolis, window cleaning done while suspended or from a lift more than 24 feet above grade, skyways included, takes a city license (City Code chapter 354).
The ordinances above are summarized as general information, not legal advice; your easement, lease and building rules govern, and no cleaning scope can promise how a sidewalk inspection or a city order turns out.
How the scope is priced
From our St. Paul office page: “A free walkthrough, then a written scope with frequencies and a price. Square footage, restroom count, floor type and how many nights a week drive the number more than anything else.” Billing, per our Minneapolis janitorial page, is “Per visit, after the visit, against the written scope. No long-term lock-in — the scope is the contract, and it is short enough to read.” On both pages, “eligible completed visits include a CleanCheck report with customer-safe photo proof.”
FAQ
Can a cleaning crew keep working after the skyway closes?
That depends on building management, not on the skyway. St. Paul requires skyway doors to be secured outside the general hours unless monitored, and in Minneapolis a new skyway only has to stay open until 10:00 p.m. on weekdays, so agree on the crew’s after-hours route at the walkthrough.
Who cleans the skyway-level entrance and corridor?
The building, through its janitorial scope, because they’re common area, not a tenant suite. In St. Paul, the city’s skyway policy and code put the upkeep of skyway segments inside a building on its owner.
Do you provide a day porter for midday slush?
No. We don’t staff day porters. Asked the same question, our janitorial page answers: “Not as a standing service today.” Midday mopping at a wet entrance stays with building staff unless management arranges daytime coverage.
How fast can our building get a certificate of insurance?
Our office page publishes it: “a COI issued to your building or management company within two business hours of the request. A W-9 is available on request as well.” Get the exact certificate-holder wording from your property manager first, so the certificate is right the first time.