East Cobb/Marietta from Orlando (Atlanta, Sandy Springs: 2015, apartment, renting)
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Hi - we just found out last week that we are unexpectedly moving from Orlando, FL to Atlanta for a job opportunity for my husband. We have a 17mo and another baby on the way. We will be renting the first year and want some more yard and green space around us than what we currently have in Orlando. I'm tired of the concrete, small yards, and close neighbors. We've narrowed our search down to some homes in East Cobb; they have large (1+ acre) yards, homes are large (3500+sqft) and seem to be close to some great nature like the riverfront and lots of parks. My worry is that we're going to be bored, I'm seeing conflicting things - is East Cobb close to a little "downtown" area with restaurants/bars/breweries at all? We don't need something like downtown ATL close by, we're in our early 30s and don't need to party, but would like a fun/cute area for date night away from the babies. Or is it pretty removed from anything cohesive like a main street?
Also - is the commute to midtown really terrible? My husband was used to an hour commute when we lived in Raleigh, is it going to be worse than that? Better? About the same? Some people have said NO WAY could we live in East Cobb, but whenever I search commutes it looks like the average is 30-40 mins. Living in Orlando, that's nothing special.
A lot of the answers regarding your husbands commute depend on what times he will be commuting and where in East Cobb you are at as the top end vs the bottom end can be 30 mins apart. We are at the top end (literally) where Roswell, East Cobb and Woodstock meet and my wife drives to Emory midtown every morning. As long as she leaves by 6:45, it takes her about 1 hour. If she leaves by 7.... There is plenty to do in east Cobb for younger people. All the areas- Marietta, Woodstock, Roswell have cute downtown with good restaurants, several microbreweries in the area, etc. We are in our mid 30's and frequent Canton st in Roswell all the time.
Hi - we just found out last week that we are unexpectedly moving from Orlando, FL to Atlanta for a job opportunity for my husband. We have a 17mo and another baby on the way. We will be renting the first year and want some more yard and green space around us than what we currently have in Orlando. I'm tired of the concrete, small yards, and close neighbors. We've narrowed our search down to some homes in East Cobb; they have large (1+ acre) yards, homes are large (3500+sqft) and seem to be close to some great nature like the riverfront and lots of parks. My worry is that we're going to be bored, I'm seeing conflicting things - is East Cobb close to a little "downtown" area with restaurants/bars/breweries at all? We don't need something like downtown ATL close by, we're in our early 30s and don't need to party, but would like a fun/cute area for date night away from the babies. Or is it pretty removed from anything cohesive like a main street?
East Cobb is an excellent (if not exceptional) location to consider relocating to because of the exceptionally high quality of the schools in the area, particularly in the Walton, Pope and Lassiter clusters of the Cobb County School District.
Some of the absolute best public schools in the entire Southeastern U.S. are to be found in the clusters of schools anchored by Walton, Pope and Lassiter high schools while Wheeler High School has one of the absolute best STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) public magnet programs in the nation.
You will not be bored while living in East Cobb. While East Cobb itself may not have the type of main street downtown area you desire, nearby areas like Marietta, Roswell, Woodstock and Smyrna do have the type of main street downtown areas you desire to be near.
Quote:
Originally Posted by rcascaddan
Also - is the commute to midtown really terrible? My husband was used to an hour commute when we lived in Raleigh, is it going to be worse than that? Better? About the same? Some people have said NO WAY could we live in East Cobb, but whenever I search commutes it looks like the average is 30-40 mins. Living in Orlando, that's nothing special.
Thanks!
The commute between East Cobb and Midtown Atlanta is fairly good by Atlanta metro standards.
The commutes between East Cobb and Midtown Atlanta will range up to 1 hour, 30 minutes or so each way during the worst of the rush hour.
...The rush hour commutes will be lighter when conditions are better (like with dry pavement, no major traffic incidents and when the schools are out of session during the summer) and heavier when conditions are not so favorable (like when there is wet and/or inclement weather, when the schools are in session and around vacation and holiday periods when people are traveling to and from resort areas in Florida in large numbers along major transcontinental thoroughfares like I-75).
Outside of the worst of the morning and afternoon/rush hours and peak travel periods, the commutes between East Cobb and Midtown Atlanta will be about 30-40 minutes each way.
Check out areas of East Cobb near Canton St in Roswell or near Marietta square. We live in East Cobb near the Roswell line and it's great to have Canton st for quality local restaurants, bars, a brewery, etc. less than 10min drive or uber. You won't be bored.
Earlier post about north vs south part of east Cobb making a commute difference is spot on. When we looked we aimed to stay south of Post Oak Tritt road. Ended up well south of there. Commute seems to be about 40min in rush hour to midtown. Just based on a few trips, we don't work down there daily.
Thanks so much everyone! That's what I was hoping to hear. Hour and a half isn't ideal, but it's not awful. His work time is flexible; his boss mentioned he goes in early and leaves early to escape traffic, so it's likely my husband will have the same choice.
The place we're looking at right now I believe would be considered "the bottom"/southern part of East Cobb; it's a little south of Indian Hills country club. We have a few years before school with our kids, but I do really like that the schools are so great there, that way we could stay put if we love it and not be forced into another area for better schools. We live in the best school district in central Florida, yet the ratings are still higher for the schools we'll be near in East Cobb!
Glad to hear there are places close by for fun. 10-15 min Uber to restaurants or a few fun bars is all we need, we're ready to embrace suburban life
Thanks so much everyone! That's what I was hoping to hear. Hour and a half isn't ideal, but it's not awful. His work time is flexible; his boss mentioned he goes in early and leaves early to escape traffic, so it's likely my husband will have the same choice.
The place we're looking at right now I believe would be considered "the bottom"/southern part of East Cobb; it's a little south of Indian Hills country club. We have a few years before school with our kids, but I do really like that the schools are so great there, that way we could stay put if we love it and not be forced into another area for better schools. We live in the best school district in central Florida, yet the ratings are still higher for the schools we'll be near in East Cobb!
South of Indian Hills Country Club sounds like the feeder zone/cluster for Walton High School (east of Sope Creek)...West of Sope Creek is the feeder zone/cluster for Wheeler High School in that area.
Walton High School is arguably the best public school in the state of Georgia and all of Walton's feeder schools are also of exceptional quality. The schools west of Sope Creek in the Wheeler High School feeder zone/cluster are also of extremely/exceptionally high quality.
Walton High School in particular gets heavily academically recruited by some of the best colleges and universities in the nation, including many Ivy League and Ivy League-caliber schools.
Wheeler High School has one of the best STEM magnet programs in the nation and a pretty good regular non-magnet curriculum as well. Though because of the extremely large amount of apartment housing inhabited by lower-income transient families with children, the Wheeler cluster is not as highly regarded as the Walton cluster.
Quote:
Originally Posted by rcascaddan
Glad to hear there are places close by for fun. 10-15 min Uber to restaurants or a few fun bars is all we need, we're ready to embrace suburban life
In addition to the downtown main street areas of Marietta, Woodstock, Smyrna and Roswell, there are other nearby outdoor entertainment options like The Battery Atlanta (an outdoor nightlife and entertainment area at the Atlanta Braves new Major League Baseball stadium, an area that is an option both during the baseball off-season and during the season on days/nights when the Braves are not playing at home).
Other Intown outdoor entertainment areas like Buckhead (The Shops Buckhead Atlanta is Atlanta's impersonation of retail/entertainment areas like Beverly Hills' Rodeo Drive and West Palm Beach), Brookhaven, Atlantic Station/Midtown, Virginia Highland, Old Fourth Ward, Little Five Points, East Atlanta Village, Downtown Decatur, etc, are also not too far away, particularly on good traffic days.
There are also plenty of outdoor recreational activities available around the region, including Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park and lookout area; the Chattahoochee River outdoor recreational area (which is only about 10 minutes away from the Indian Hills area); Lake Allatoona; Lake Lanier; the Blue Ridge/Southern Appalachian Mountains (including Chattahoochee National Forest) of North Georgia, Western North Carolina and Eastern Tennessee, etc.
Based on what you're looking for I think you are on the right track. Living near the southern part of East Cobb near or even south of Lower Roswell Rd and Johnson Ferry makes your husbands commute more bearable than say living north of Roswell Rd. I live in the area you are talking about and commute to downtown, which takes typically 35-45 minutes most days. You're also a 5-10 min ride to great outdoor areas like the Chattahoochee Recreation area and Sope Creek Park. Downtown Roswell is about a 10-15 drive up Lower Roswell Rd. Sandy Springs and Perimeter are about 15-20 min away. If I had a ton of money I'd live off of Paper Mill Rd in the Sope Creek Elementary zone. That area is zoned for Sope Creek>Dickerson>Walton, which is about as good of a combination of schools as it gets in GA. For how close you are to the city it feels about as close to the outdoors and nature as you can get, all while being a quick drive to entertainment and shopping areas. From my house I can drive 10 min for a nice 10+ mile trail run or hike in Sope Creek, 10 min from a Kayak ride down the Chattahoochee, 15 min ride to the breweries and restaurants of Roswell, 20 ride to Perimeter Mall, 10 min ride to the East Cobb shopping area, and on the weekends a 35 min ride to downtown Atlanta. All the while my kids will go to some of the best schools in the state. Also check out some of the neighborhoods off of Timber Ridge/Little Willeo/Lower Roswell Area. They are zoned for either Mount Bethel or Timber Ridge Elementary and Walton High. They are also a really short drive to Roswell. Good luck with your move!
I live in the "northern" part of East Cobb - very near Lassiter HS for which we're zoned. While it is true the commute gets longer as you go further north, by Atlanta standards it's still quite normal. My office is in Midtown, and without traffic it takes about 35 minutes, with traffic about an hour, and rarely more than that. I also work occasionally from home which makes it tolerable.
In terms of schools, the "Big 3" East Cobb schools (Walton/Pope/Lassiter) and feeder elementary/middle school are all pretty much great. That being said, I'd investigate the schools to see what best fits - talk to parents and drive around. We already had young kids in or near school-age, so when we moved in 2015 we rented for 8 months to get a feel for specific neighborhoods, schools, school zones, etc. For us, long story short, we felt the Lassiter area was the best fit, given house budget, culture, extracurricular strengths, etc. Yes, it's about 15-20 minutes longer to Midtown than, say, the stretch of Roswell Rd between Johnson Ferry & E. Piedmont, but for us it was well worth it. YMMV of course - you can do tons of searches on this forum and find a lot of good posts on East Cobb schools. Loosely speaking housing prices get cheaper as you go further north.
In terms of nightlife - rest assured you will not be bored as there are several nice "little downtown" areas within 15-20 minutes of any part of East Cobb. From my house I can get to downtown Roswell, downtown Woodstock, and Marietta Square in about 20 minutes or less. My wife and I just had a date night Saturday and we went to downtown Woodstock - it's a perfect area for 30-something parents filled with restaurants, bars, clubs, shops. Downtown Roswell is a bit more upscale but otherwise caters to a similar "grown up" scene.
If you're ok with more "mall-ish" areas, both Perimeter/Sandy Springs/Dunwoody and the Cumberland Mall/SunTrust Park areas are not that far either. You also have Alpharetta not too far away with the nice Avalon outdoor lifestyle center. And then you have decent access to Buckhead/Midtown/Downtown Atlanta via I-75, or if you are further south or east, via GA-400. The only areas which become a stretch are areas on the east side of Atlanta, like Decatur, which will be about 45 minutes or so away. But if you're going that far it's likely for something very unique anyways that would be worth the trip.
I was actually in the same situation as you over the summer! We are in the process of closing in the Walton cluster in just about the furthest south and west subdivision as you can go.
I will be commuting into Downtown. My hours will be somewhat flexible so I plan on leaving early (7) and then leaving at about 3:30 or so.
Obviously your commute will vary where exactly his office is, how far north you are, how close to a freeway you are etc.
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