Family neighborhoods near job (Fort Worth, Arlington: houses, buy, YMCA)

[PinkLight]

We're looking to move into a neighborhood that's closer to my job. If anyone has any suggestions, please help.

1. I currently work in the 76116 and the 76104 area.
2. Schools are very important to us. We have a 6 year old and a 3 year old.
3. We're looking for a family friendly neighborhood where we can find nearby parks, skate park, nice library, pools and maybe even a rec center.
4. I would like for my drive to be 35 mins max.
5. Our comfortable budget is $400,000.

Is there a neighborhood/ community for us in DFW? We drove around many area's but it just feels like we're going in circles. I thought Tanglewood and the Summer Creek area were beautiful but not too sure about the schools. We also like the Mansfield area.

Thank you for all your help.

[abelinkkin]

Benbrook has a mix of nice and not so nice areas. The farther south you go on 377 the more rural it gets. Bella Ranch is expensive but in Aledo ISD which is considered the best ISD in Fort Worth by many. Benbrook has some of the nicer schools in the Fort Worth ISD system and i believe they are in the process of building a new high school or middle school.

Dutch Branch Park has a really nice playground and the lake is nearby. There is also a nice YMCA facility next to the park. The Benbrook library is also very nice. My wife takes our 2 kids there multiple times a week for their Story Time activities. If you care about Golf there are several really nice courses nearby as well.

[tcualum]

If you're considering Mansfield what about the Martin High school/Lake Arlington area? You will have everything you want close by. Randoll Mill Park which isn't too far has a half pipe and a really fun pool (splash pad, water slide and lazy river) plus Veterans Park with its nature trails is nearby. You also have a nice library branch (Lake Arlington branch) in the area. I'm not sure where the nearest rec center is though because we belong to the Arlington YMCA. The schools zoned to Martin also have a good reputation. There are some lovely neighborhoods in the area with mature trees.

There are some beautiful neighborhoods near your work but a lot of the people who buy homes at your purchase price go for private schools for a reason.

[jbb303]

$400,000 is going to be pretty tough in Tanglewood.

[bmlx]

Originally Posted by abelinkkin

Benbrook has a mix of nice and not so nice areas. The farther south you go on 377 the more rural it gets. Bella Ranch is expensive but in Aledo ISD which is considered the best ISD in Fort Worth by many. Benbrook has some of the nicer schools in the Fort Worth ISD system and i believe they are in the process of building a new high school or middle school.

Dutch Branch Park has a really nice playground and the lake is nearby. There is also a nice YMCA facility next to the park. The Benbrook library is also very nice. My wife takes our 2 kids there multiple times a week for their Story Time activities. If you care about Golf there are several really nice courses nearby as well.

I do like portions of Benbrook myself. The Whitestone Ranch / Rolling Hills area might be worth considering. Adjacent to Benbrook, but in the city of Fort Worth, is Ventana, a brand new subdivision.

With regards to the schools in Benbrook, they do have a new elementary school (Westpark) and a relatively new combined middle and high school (Benbrook Middle-High School; BMHS). Benbrook Elementary is an older facility, and is not as strong academically (but is slightly above average for FWISD). Stay west of 377 and south of I-20 if you want Westpark Elementary. Here is a map displaying the FWISD attendance zones.

That said, I've heard of some challenges with overcrowding at Westpark and BMHS due to all of the growth starting to occur in that area. On another note, Tanglewood Elementary is severely overcrowded, though FWISD will be building a new elementary school to relieve Tanglewood soon.

Closer in to Fort Worth, and between the 76116 and 76104 zip codes, the elementary schools in the Stripling MS feeder pattern (South Hi Mount, North Hi Mount, and especially Burton Hill) are also pretty good for FWISD, though the middle and high schools can leave much to be desired. Burton Hill Elementary is in fact the second best elementary in FWISD (after Tanglewood). That said, Stripling MS does seem alright, although Arlington Heights HS has its problems and does get the HS kids from Como (a nearby lower-income neighborhood). Overall this seems to be a nice quiet area composed of mostly-older homes, if you're into that thing, although a few neighborhoods in this area (Monticello and Rivercrest) are expensive and a lot of people there do use private schools.

In the TCU area, Lily B Clayton and Westcliff are also decently good elementary schools, plus they come with the benefit of being in the McLean and Paschal zones for middle and high school respectively (probably the best MS-HS pattern in FWISD). These areas might be worth looking into if you can't find something you can afford in the Tanglewood zone but want to be close in to Fort Worth.

Given everything said above, it's important to remember that not everyone wants to take a chance with FWISD outside of Tanglewood. You can get many areas where you have a great elementary school but things start to fall apart at the middle and high school levels. This is more likely to be magnified outside of the McLean-Paschal pattern, and for Benbrook, BHMS seems only "average" at best, although a lot can change between now and when your children get to middle school.

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If you can get into Bella Ranch, I'd probably go with that for the Aledo schools (be careful as a small portion of the SE corner of Bella is in FWISD [Westpark-BMHS], not Aledo ISD). You might look elsewhere around the Aledo area for less expensive homes. Some of the homes in Walsh Ranch might also be within your budget, but until Walsh develops more the number of nearby family-friendly amenities is going to be few.

[PinkLight]

Thank you everyone for the replies. tcualum I will check out the area this weekend! abelinkkin & bmlx I will look into the Benbrook area as well. I don't think I've ever been in that specific area. You all are awesome!

[tcualum]

Good luck with your search. If you have time take a walk at Veterans Park (They have nature trails and you can watch people playing disc golf, feed ducks, and sometimes see people riding horses.) and check out the fish tank at the Lake Arlington branch of Arlington Public Library. It's full of fish native to Lake Arlington. Arlington also has huge nature park and nature center in north Arlington called River Legacy and is building a brand new central library in downtown Arlington. There's also a lot more family friendly amenities in Arlington but these are some of my favorite.

[bmlx]

Originally Posted by tcualum

Good luck with your search. If you have time take a walk at Veterans Park (They have nature trails and you can watch people playing disc golf, feed ducks, and sometimes see people riding horses.) and check out the fish tank at the Lake Arlington branch of Arlington Public Library. It's full of fish native to Lake Arlington. Arlington also has huge nature park and nature center in north Arlington called River Legacy and is building a brand new central library in downtown Arlington. There's also a lot more family friendly amenities in Arlington but these are some of my favorite.

I am a big fan of River Legacy park myself. If you and your kids like to ride bikes they have a very long paved trail (7 miles) for biking (and jogging/running), though the easternmost 4 miles is a long dead-end. I used to go there to go running after I got off from working at a summer day camp program in far east Fort Worth, as it is one of the few shady trails in the region (and running out in the sun on a hot summer day is not pleasant).

The trail from Pecan Valley to Oakmont Park, which is adjacent to Benbrook, is similar in the respect that it follows a shady river bottom, but is much shorter and doesn't have a huge park with amenities built around it. It's also closer to where I live so that's where like to go for my summer runs.

The Viridian development is close to River Legacy (and actually has trail access to the park, but it's a 1.5-2 mile bike ride to the main area of the park). Viridian is part of Arlington but gets HEBISD schools; that said, there are a few problems with Viridian in that it is next to the Arlington landfill and is near or on the Trinity floodplain. That said I think HEBISD will have the better middle and high schools for when that time comes (Arlington ISD seems to have some of the same problems as FWISD does concerning the elementary-to-middle school transition, though middle school starts in 7th grade in both Arlington and HEB ISDs; there are no intermediate schools in both ISDs so elementary goes to 6th grade). Another issue is that Viridian is removed from the freeway system (about midway between 30 and 183), so that a commute to west Fort Worth could get a little dicey.

Commutes will definitely be an issue with regards to the Mansfield area, along with any of the other highly reputable school districts (Grapevine-Colleyville, Carroll, Keller ISDs) except for Aledo ISD. Given your situation I'd either go for Aledo ISD or find somewhere in the FWISD (including Benbrook and the other areas I previously outlined) that has good schools.

The DFW area just continues to grow so I only expect that commute times will get worse over time. I've even noticed that the I-30 West Freeway in Fort Worth now gets congested almost every day during rush hour when it didn't used to only a few years ago. If everyone in the suburbs decided to move closer to their jobs in the city, then the city schools would improve as they bring their children with them and get involved on PTAs and the like... but at the same time, I understand the present reality and don't see a mass exodus from the suburbs occurring anytime soon.

Best of luck on your search!

[TheProtege]

Would definitely look at the Benbrook, SW Fort Worth, or possibly Burleson area. The Mansfield area would put you at the top of your commute time, so would a good chuck of Arlington. That being said near Lake Arlington might work. Mansfield has one library and rec center which happen to be next to each other. There's also a park trail system, but its only 2 miles long. They've also recently opened up a park near the Arlington city border that has a small skate park, tennis, volleyball, playgrounds, and a large splash pad. The houses near the new park on walnut creek or the Nature park attend the better schools in Mansfield.
I personally like the area north of Benbrook lake or near the TCU area.