Offering studio to four-bedroom apartments for University of Minnesota students, Hub Minneapolis is located in the heart of campus and a short walk from Stadium Village. The project by student housing developer Core Spaces features 407 units with 707 beds and 10,658 square feet of retail.
While many of Core Spaces’ projects feature bright colors and unique details, the Minneapolis property is an ode to the city being known as one of the nation’s best for cycling. As a result, the developer enhanced the building with cyclist-oriented art installations, including a bike wheel chandelier in the clubhouse, city map walls in the elevator lobby, and even a real-life taxi coming out of the ceiling in the reception area.
Mitch Dalton, chief design director at Core Spaces, says taxis are often the bane of a cyclist’s existence. “For some, it isn’t an obvious connection, but the cyclist and the taxi community are intertwined in this city, and we really wanted to showcase the parallels in a creative and visual way,” he says.
To get the taxi into the building, team members used a plasma torch to cut the car in half and stripped it from everything besides the chassis. From there, they welded a custom frame to the bottom of the chassis and hoisted it up to steel embeds in the concrete. Finally, they were able to weld and assemble the two chassis together to create the final showcase piece, which greets residents as soon as they enter the building.
