relocating need some direction (Denver, Aurora: house, neighborhoods, school district)

[cindi sosa]

relocating to the area and need advice on best communities with great schools, prefer views and hills, neighbors that enjoy occasional cookouts and a glass of wine, no snobbery please :-) and 30-40 minutes commute to downtown Denver or Tech Center I think is what it is called.
Please help

[Nav]

Do you want the Tech Center or Downtown? They are about 20 minutes apart in good traffic.

If the tech center, I'd look at down in Castle Rock. DTC is about a 20 minute drive in traffic from Castle Rock, (10 in light traffic). Avoid Castle Pines if you want to avoid the snobbery factor. Castle Pines residents are not all that bad, but they do have a small portion of residents who give the rest a bad name.
Castle Rock also has homes in a variety of price ranges and was voted one of the top 10 places for families a few years back. You get the closeness of Denver and the excellent schools of Douglas County without all the horrid traffic. I-25 south of town is a very smooth, uncongested commute.

If you prefer to be in the middle of suburbia, then you might want to look at highlands ranch. Its just south of 470, west of I-25 and within easy commuting distance to DTC and Down town. Its pretty much a cookie cutter community that is 2 miles deep and 10 miles long. The population of the subdivision is over 70 thousand residents. But, because of this density, they have rec centers, restaurants and every store you can think of at their door steps. It really depends of what you are looking for.

Nav

[2bindenver]

Cheesmen Park, Congress Park, Belcaro, Bonnie Brae, Hilltop. Hale, Hilltop, Corey-Merril, University Park....

[the3Ds]

Originally Posted by cindi sosa

relocating to the area and need advice on best communities with great schools, prefer views and hills, neighbors that enjoy occasional cookouts and a glass of wine, no snobbery please :-) and 30-40 minutes commute to downtown Denver or Tech Center I think is what it is called.
Please help

The Tech Center is more south than downtown Denver and is much closer to Cherry Creek School District (the one I'm in and would highly recommend) than if you needed to be downtown. I have quite a few neighbors who work at the Tech Center and we live in SE Aurora. You can't get much further east than this (though Denver isn't THAT big of a city so even our location is no big deal when you want to go downtown occassionally).

You didn't mention your price range. The upper price range will probably give you more "snobs" than the middle income neighborhoods. Our neighborhood is in the $200,000-$350,000 price range. If my budget was larger and I needed to be at the Tech Center, I would probably head for Centennial. Still in the Cherry Creek School District, but a little fancier and closer to work. Nice homes in the Tuscany development, the Farm, Piney Creek, etc.

Most of Denver has great views. I live in SE Aurora/Centennial area and that is considered WAY OUT there yet I can sit on my deck and look at the gorgeous Rocky Mountains and from my daughter's school (just up the street) I have a great view of downtown. On 4th of July, we sat on our deck and could see the fireworks from Coors Field.

You can find good and bad in all neighborhoods. My neighborhood just had a neighborhood block party a few weeks ago and we all had a great time. That may just be something unique to my particular block, however. Sometimes YOU have to make the effort to invite people over for some wine or a BBQ. And you can live in the so-called friendliest area of Denver but find that you have the only two neighbors on both sides of your house who don't socialize at all. A lot of that is the research you do. We drove by our house at all times of the day and week when we first found it and were contemplating offering for it. See what your neighbors are doing on a Sunday afternoon. We chose our neighborhood because we noticed tons of kids in the street, a few neighbors talking on the sidewalk and lots of garage doors opened while the yards were being mowed.

[jl_duncan82]

Try Greenwood Village or Castle Rock