Hoping for a Denver Comparison (Jacksonville, Jacksonville Beach: for sale, real estate, rent)

[cblythe319]

Hello, I am in the position to take a job with the option to relocate to either Atlanta or Jacksonville. We have spent the last 17 years in Denver and I am hoping there might be a former Denver dweller, or someone familiar with the city that can help me with comparable areas in Jacksonville.

The 2 areas we most liked in Denver were the Wash Park/DU area and the Highlands area, if you aren't familiar with Denver, we are a new family with a 1 year old and like to be in walking distance of shops and restaurants with the usual safety concerns that come with having a new family.

We hoping to rent for a year before buying, our range for rent would be up to 1800/month and 350k would be our max when buying.

Thanks for any help, we are planning on visiting at the end of April but given Jacksonville's area we are hoping to target certain areas to check out when we are there.

[CaryNC]

I lived outside Atlanta for almost a year, and have now been in Jax for the past 6+. I would select Atlanta in a heartbeat, with traffic being the only significant downside. Jacksonville is more South-Georgia than it is Florida. Schools are regressive, large areas are not family friendly, and 'nicer' areas aren't actually Jacksonville at all - they're St. John's county. The northern or southern suburbs of Atlanta would be a better choice for a young family imo.

Think of the city as a larger and more spread out version of Aurora.

[Florida2014]

I have lived in Denver for many years and am now calling St Johns home. I actually lived in the Wash Park neighborhood for a while as well. I would say Denver and Jacksonville are not alike at all, you will not find Wash Park/DU/Highlands here in NE FL, it is a vastly different area in many ways.

1) Denver has far more culture than Jax and it was never difficult to find a good show or festival in Denver in the spring/summer, I feel like I'm always searching here for similar things to do. I'm not saying there aren't things to do here, I just feel like it's more of an effort to locate them. That may be due to me living south of the city in the burbs.
2) Downtown Denver, especially Lodo, blows downtown Jax away in terms of restaurants/bars/people. I feel like downtown Jax is simply a place where people work and not a destination for weekend entertainment.
3) Traffic is probably equally bad in both places, but you can get from one end of Denver to the other in 30 minutes, you can barely get from St Johns Co to downtown Jax in that time as this city is something like 900+ square miles.
4) If you can stand the heat and humidity from May through September, I give NE FL the edge over Denver for weather. Winters in Denver were quite mild but those snowstorms could get pretty bad.
5) Cost of living is significantly less down here, no state income taxes as well. Denver's cost of living was/is ridiculous. A 3/1 old brick house in the Wash Park area would run you in the $400 - $600K range, here something comparable would be 1/3 as much.
6) Lots of current and former military here. That could be a positive or negative depending on your point of view.
7) I feel like NE FL in general has a more laid back attitude and nicer people. Just my impression thus far.

I can't speak to individual neighborhoods in the greater Jacksonville area as I'm still somewhat new and have only lived in St Johns, but with some searching I think you could find information on the bigger neighborhoods here on this forum. We're south in St Johns Co and while the schools and neighborhoods are great, you can feel a bit isolated from the rest of the city as we're a 30 minute ride to either Jacksonville or St Augustine.

I would agree with the poster above, Jacksonville to me is much more like Aurora than Denver.

In terms of rent, $1,800 and/or $350k (purchase) would get you into a good neighborhood and a good house. With kids you'd really want to be in St Johns County if you could.

Happy to help answer any other questions you might have.

[StreetSmarts]

ATL over Jax. That's an easy one. The ATL northern burbs are fantastic. Hills, scenery, etc. But I do like Jax, I just dont think it compares to ATL.

[canajo]

I also had a choice between Atlanta and Jacksonville for job relocation this summer and picked Jacksonville due to the traffic in Atlanta. It was a tough decision as I have a lot of family in Atlanta but just don't have patience for traffic. I was born and raised in Atlanta and even 30 years ago traffic on the interstate was a nightmare. Going home for a visits later on showed traffic that was getting progressively worst. I did take a trip to Jacksonville to get a feel for it before I made the decision on which place to relocate to. Good luck!

[projectmaximus]

Atlanta would undoubtedly have more to offer. Moreso than even Denver. I am worried about some of these suburban folks though who don't seem to know much about urban Jax. In Atlanta I would definitely look in the perimeter where there are plenty of walkable, historic areas with decent transit access. I don't know much about the schools though but I'd imagine you will have options. A lot will depend on your work location too. Just ask the Atlanta forum.

In Jax, your best bets are riverside, Avondale, Brooklyn or San Marco for walkability. But in each instance you are taking a risk with public schools. As alluded to above, people flock to the outer counties, most commonly st johns, for better schools. In San Marco you will be fine for elementary though, and the middle school is actually a magnet feeder to one of the top public schools in the country. So it's not all doom and gloom.

The beaches are a wildcard too, offering nice charming streetscapes, decent walkability, and obviously the ocean.

In summary, Atlanta is the bigger city with more options. But I wouldn't totally discount Jax. Schools will be your primary concern. Fwiw, I know two friends who are from Denver and while they really only have good things to say about their hometowns, they actually are huge proponents of Jax and have been fully committed to this city. One is the chair for the young professional arm of the chamber of commerce, and the other is the co-founder of the we are straight allies campaign. So they're both very involved in the community and actively working to make Jax a better place to live.

[sidewinder103]

You will get all kinds of opinions on this I'm sure and it really depends on what you're looking for.

Lived in Aurora Co for awhile and moved all over the country and finally my job brought me here to Jacksonville. Also travel to Atlanta from time to time as we have an office there.

The Jacksonville area is not the best place in the world to live but I would take it over many other places including Atlanta.

As mentioned above, traffic in Atlanta is horrendous compared to Jacksonville. Given a choice of the same job here or Atlanta would definitely take Jax due to no state tax and no Atlanta traffic nitemare. Also Jacksonville has a beach which Atlanta doesn't.

The NE Florida area is slow paced and has less action but that's what we wanted when we moved here and were raising a family. St John's County is a very nice area and is one of the fastest growing counties in the US for a reason. I would recommend you come to Jacksonville area and check it out.

[904jax]

I grew up in Denver and have lived in the Jacksonville Metro for a significant amount of time. The two cities are yin and yang in relationship to each other, so they are not that comparable. You're looking at two lifestyles and ways of life. In terms of overall development and size, Jacksonville is where Denver was in the late 1970s.

Jacksonville offers a low cost coastal, laid back lifestyle.

Here are some pros of Jacksonville:

1) A warm year year climate. Jacksonville has three "northern" seasons. Spring in Feb, March and April, a Long summer from May through October and a Fall in November, December and January. Late July, August, September and Early October can have oppressive heat and humility, while the rest of year is nice.

2) You can purchase a decent house for $300,000.00 in Jacksonville and St. Johns County. In Wash Park and Highlands, you'd struggle to find anything in that price range.

3) If you like water, Jacksonville has it all. I enjoy living ten minutes from the Ocean. It's awesome.

4) Jacksonville is really green; whereas, you really only see green in Central Denver (due to the man made forest) in the Summer months. The rest of the year it's brown.

5) The people in JAX are really nice, but as a group, not has active as folks in Denver. However, people tend to be more active at the beaches communities.

Denver offers a progressive, cultured, physically active lifestyle which is enhanced by it's proximity to the Rocky Mountain Front. There is little like Denver in the rest of the United States, but you probably know that.

The only place in Jacksonville, Florida that is close to Wash Park and Highlands is a small neighborhood in San Marco west of Hendrix Avenue and South of Landon Avenue where the children attend Hendrix Elementary. It's walking distance to shops and restaurants and the elementary school is highly rated. San Marco Jacksonville Real Estate - 32 Homes For Sale | Zillow Of course, the home prices in this area approach Wash Park and Highlands. In contrast to Wash Park and the Highlands, this neighborhood is an island surrounded by mediocre neighborhoods in every direction except South.

IMO, if you elect to move to the Jacksonville area, it's best to embrace the full coastal lifestyle and move to either the Jacksonville Beaches or Ponte Vedra Beach, FL.

[BabyBoomers2]

We lived in two areas of Denver metro south (Englewood and Parker) for 5 1/2 years (6/02 to 10/08). We absolutely loved it, but a hip replacement and rotator cuff surgery made us leave. The RC surgery was due to a fall in ice/snow at the house we had in Parker.

We've been living here in Jax now for 7 years and there's no way that we can see a similarity of Denver to Jax. We've had our "fun times" since living here in Jax, but not nearly as many as we did while living in Colorado. Two main differences that we can see is........
Boating is much more difficult here than it was on three lakes we went on in CO (Chatfield, CC and Horseshoe). We didn't have to take a class (USCGAX) to boat in CO, but we sure did here! And, we still don't know enough about navigation stuff here.
No pro-rodeo in Jax. Plenty of it in CO and we went to a lot of them! IOW, much more "Western/cowboy" in Denver area than here, and we loved that!
Don't get me wrong, Jax can be/is really great for some folks, but for us, it just hasn't been that much.

In fact, when my wife retires in a few years, we are giving it serious consideration about moving back to south Denver area. One good thing about living there during their winter months, we will both be retired and NOT have to get out in a snowstorm/blizzard to go to work or come home!

[StreetSmarts]

Hi Love boating,

i remember when you were talking about moving from charlotte to jax. i;m sorry you dont like jax as much as you had thought, but you had lived in charlotte and also denver, and i just thought jax was kind of a step down from those 2 areas. so i'm not surprised you ar ethinking about leaving jax.