Fort Collins to Denver Advice (rental, housing, university)

[toletum]

Hi,

My wife and I -- along with are 5 month old baby- are considering a move to the DU area. We're not quite 100% convinced, but are very seriously considering it. Ideally, we would like to have a very short(10-15) minute commute to the University and pay somewhere between 300-350k for a 3+br house. I know that this is possible, but I was hoping that some of you may be willing to offer some helpful advice to us. We would like to live somewhere in a safe neighborhood that has decent schools and access to decent restaurants and parks. Which neighborhoods/areas would you focus on?

Thanks!

[tfox]

Originally Posted by toletum

Hi,

My wife and I -- along with are 5 month old baby- are considering a move to the DU area. We're not quite 100% convinced, but are very seriously considering it. Ideally, we would like to have a very short(10-15) minute commute to the University and pay somewhere between 300-350k for a 3+br house. I know that this is possible, but I was hoping that some of you may be willing to offer some helpful advice to us. We would like to live somewhere in a safe neighborhood that has decent schools and access to decent restaurants and parks. Which neighborhoods/areas would you focus on?

Thanks!

The area immediately around DU is officially called the "University" neighborhood, and it's an excellent area -- it's far from the wild student scene that you might imagine around a campus, but there will of course be a lot of student rentals. Just west of there is Platt Park, which is often considered to be the "next" Wash Park, also good. East of DU is an area officially called "University Park" but also referred to sometimes as Observatory Park. It's also an up and coming area and is considered highly desirable. Further east, across Colo Blvd extending to both sides of I-25, there's an area called "University Hills" which is a nice up-and-coming area though the housing is mostly post-war in that area. From the schools side, some of that area is in Cherry Creek Schools rather than DPS, and it is also convenient to I-25. North of DU, of course, is Wash Park, one of Denver's gems, but in your price range I think you're better off in one of the aforementioned neighborhoods.

All of these neighborhoods are probably within a 10 minute drive of DU campus, except possibly University Hills. Some of the closer in areas would be easily walkable or bikable to campus. All of these areas are either in Denver proper, although part of the University Hills neighborhood has a Denver address but is in unincorporated Arapahoe county.

I would definitely stay east of the S. Platte River and Santa Fe Dr, though. If you cross the River in that part of town the neighborhoods make a change for the worse.

As for schools, check out an earlier thread about DPS -- that's a topic in and of itself.