Moving to Fort Collins for CSU, What area to live in?? (Loveland: apartment complexes, homes)

[mrsmcgaugh88]

Hi,

My husband and I are planning to move to Fort Collins so that I can attend Colorado State University this fall 2016. We have a very active husky/shepherd pup that needs lots of walks. We are wondering if there is anyone in the area that can help us pick out an area close to school, but away from the crazy college party crowd, and near parks for the pup. My husband is in grad school now, so we are on a bit of a "college student" budget, but don't want to be in too run down of a neighborhood. Also, if there are any other living day to day tips that anyone could add in, liking good hiking spots, shopping centers nearby, and things to do in Fort Collins, please feel free to add them. I will appreciate any new knowledge. Neither one of us has lived there before.

Thank you!!

[mandolinman]

Hello! No one has responded in three days so I'll give it a shot.

Housing: First off there really are no "run down neighborhoods" in Fort Collins. Everything is new and nice. The closest thing we have to a bad area is one tiny trailer park and the neighborhood north of LaPorte which would be considered average in most other parts of the country. College students, partying, and noise is mostly concentrated around three areas: City Park and Plum and the three huge apartment complexes (District, Lokal, and Ram's Village) there are hands down the worst. Ram's Pointe off of Elizabeth and Taft and the neighborhoods behind it. And some areas north of campus off of Laurel to a less extreme degree. Due west of campus is where you will not want to be for sure. HOWEVER housing is crazy competitive and hard to come by in Fort Collins due to its popularity so you may not have much of a choice. The further south you go the less collegiate it gets.

Parks: Fort Collins has awesome parks!! City Park is super popular but kind of in an inconvenient spot, with the crazy college part crowd on one side and super rich 1%ers on the other. There are tons of other parks dotted around town, with Edora being one of my favorites.

Hiking: Most of the good hiking spots that everyone knows about are Arthur's Rock, Horsetooth Mountain, and Greyrock. These will all be absurdly crowded on the weekends on a nice day. And I mean literally waiting in line to cross rivers, etc. Drive up the Poudre canyon a ways and hike near Pingree Park, or head to Rocky Mountain NP and do a less popular trail to escape the crowds. You're moving to an area where literally everyone likes hiking so its a bit of a pain to find some solitude. If you can hike during the week though you are golden, the areas to the west of town are super gorgeous and the weather here is awesome.

Things to Do: I'm not much of a shopper, can't help you there :/ Fort Collins has amazing breweries! Odell has better beer but New Belgium has a way better brew tour! Quality of beer is my opinion but NB's brew tour is objectively more awesome. Fort Collins Brewery is kind of forgettable but has good food. Old town is nice but avoid it on weekend nights, it is the party spot for older college kids. People in their mid 20's or older tend to stick to a few bars: Drunken Monkey, Tony's, and Social, as well as the breweries.

Hopefully that helps, let me know if you have any more questions! I am a senior at CSU and its a wonderful place, you'll love it.

Cheers!

[Sunderpig2]

I didn't originally respond to this because it looks like a duplicate of the post by Garrettm112 (couple moving to FC, planning to attend CSU this fall, having a german shepherd, looking for location/neighborhoods). He also did a first post on the same day, around the same time (6 minutes earlier).

Anyway, to comment on a few things above: "Everything is nice and new" is definitely not correct. There may not be slums here, but there are lots of older homes (including 1930s-1970s), as well as semi-rundown spots (especially on the NW and N side). If you don't believe me, go out and take a good look around.

The weather here being "awesome" is also debatable, but it will vary from person to person. As far as shopping goes, I'm not a big shopper, but am of the opinion that there's not a ton of shopping here. The updated mall is trying to fix that, and they've done a good job, but there are better places for shopping in Loveland. It's still so expensive in this area that it's hard to get motivated to spend on top of an already pricey environment. However, there are plenty of people in town that love to spend money. Also lots of Joneses keeping up with the Joneses, looking like they've got everything together, being seen, etc.

Beer, hiking, and snow skiing are a big deal here too, so be prepared to embrace the CO culture.