southside best subdivision (Jacksonville, Country Club, Twin Lakes: fit in, home builder, neighborhoods)

[kerryfsu]

Hello,
We are thinking about moving to Jacksonville Florida. Most likely the southside area. We have 2 young children and would like to find a really good school district. We would also like to find a subdivision with a big pool, play ground, and lots of activities. We are looking in the $300,000.00 to $400,000 range.
Any ideas?
Thanks!

[pvpb]

Originally Posted by kerryfsu

Hello,
We are thinking about moving to Jacksonville Florida. Most likely the southside area. We have 2 young children and would like to find a really good school district. We would also like to find a subdivision with a big pool, play ground, and lots of activities. We are looking in the $300,000.00 to $400,000 range.
Any ideas?
Thanks!

if good schools are important consider places outside of JAX/Duval, some schools there are ok but some are not very good and after the lower levels if your child doesn't get into the magnet schools the other HS can be real bad

[riveree]

If the children are young, as in elementary level, then it should be fairly easy to find a good school.

The thing with Jax is that we have enough good elementary and middle schools, but very few good high schools. So finding a neighborhood with an A-rated elementary or an A-rated middle is easy, but as of right now, your well-rated high school choices are limited.

So I'd think of it this way, if you take the chance, the high school level schools in Jax might improve in future years (we're building a new one now to help with the overcrowding) OR you might have to turn to a private/parochial high school down the line.

There's no perfect place, and the schools are not a selling point of Jacksonville, for the most part.

It sounds like you've already weighed the pros and cons though since you are focusing in on the Southside.

Just another point, the type of subdivision you're describing is a master-planned community. We have those in Jacksonville, but the bulk of them lie outside of Jacksonville is the surrounding counties. The reason for this being that by the time these communities became popular for builders to build, the only large areas of cheap land left were well outside of Jacksonville, so that's where most of the master-planned communites will be found.

Which is not to say we don't have any here in Jax, we do. Here are a few for you to consider in the Southside/Intracoastal West area that might fit into your price point (there are others, but the entry is much higher):

Queen's Harbour
Queens Harbour Owners Association - Home Page

Jacksonville Golf & Country Club
Jacksonville Golf and Country Club - Home Page

Highland Glen
ICI Homes - Florida's Home Builder - Highland Glen

Pablo Bay
Pablo Bay Website Home

The Woods
THE WOODS- A beautiful community in Jacksonville's ICW area

There's also Julington Creek which is at the southernmost point of Duval county:

Julington Creek (http://www.julingtoncreek.com/ - broken link)

If I've forgotten any that might have homes in the $300k-$400k range, please feel free to add them on this thread .

[FLPL75]

You can also look into James Island(gated) right off of Gate Parkway, a friend of mine just bought a 5 bd for $355

There is also Hampton Glen on Baymeadows right before 9A it is right across the street from Deerwood
Both of these neighborhoods would go to Twin Lakes elementary & middle(both grade A) and the new high school that is suppose to open 2010

[ShakenStirred]

Originally Posted by Karla with a K

You can also look into James Island(gated) right off of Gate Parkway, a friend of mine just bought a 5 bd for $355

There is also Hampton Glen on Baymeadows right before 9A it is right across the street from Deerwood
Both of these neighborhoods would go to Twin Lakes elementary & middle(both grade A) and the new high school that is suppose to open 2010

James Island is cheap for a reason. Arvida built those homes and many of them didn't get housewrap and window flashing to prevent moisture intrusion, and now have mold and moisture problems. There is a class action lawsuit regarding these homes:

HOA - Arvida letter tells of possible code violations

HOA - Arvida letter tells of possible code violations

Some of the people that worked for Arvida realized the importance of a good Weatherization System as a secondary line of defense against water and air infiltration and in fact had contracted my company to install these for Arvida in James Island. When we got out there to start doing the first houses, the Construction Manager at the time was very apologetic, saying that the bean counters at corporate had decided that the system was "too expensive" and therefore nixed the contract. We're talking about a $2-3000 system vs. some of the home repairs I've seen of around $50-100,000 on homes with similar problems.

I think later on that when these systems became a code requirement, they eventually did start installing them (by force of code, though, not by choice). I don't know this for sure in this neighborhood, but what may have happened is that when they did start using a housewrap, they may have applied the stucco directly to the housewrap without using a felt paper lathe over top of it. Stucco contains surfactants that will destroy most housewraps in a short amount of time, which is why the code today required 2 layers of a WRB (weather resistive barrier) in ALL stucco application. That can be 2 layers of housewrap, but the most effective application is one layer of housewrap with a layer of felt paper over it.

There have been Arvida homes with similar problems in St. Johns Golf and Country Club as well, so I'd research the construction of the home as fully as possible before you buy anything. There have been a lot of corners cut in the past here in Jacksonville, and I've done innumerable repairs on homes where they either left this system out entirely (anything built after 2005 should have one, unless you're buying in Clay County, which ignores the State Code altogether and doesn't require nor inspect these systems like the rest of the State) or they installed it improperly.

If anyone needs it, I have a lot of info on a large amount of homebuilders going back about 8 years or so and can probably tell you whether they installed a good system or even installed one at all.

[riveree]

Originally Posted by ShakenStirred

There have been Arvida homes with similar problems in St. Johns Golf and Country Club as well, so I'd research the construction of the home as fully as possible before you buy anything. There have been a lot of corners cut in the past here in Jacksonville, and I've done innumerable repairs on homes where they either left this system out entirely (anything built after 2005 should have one, unless you're buying in Clay County, which ignores the State Code altogether and doesn't require nor inspect these systems like the rest of the State) or they installed it improperly.

If anyone needs it, I have a lot of info on a large amount of homebuilders going back about 8 years or so and can probably tell you whether they installed a good system or even installed one at all.

I knew of the mold issues in James Island, but I had no idea that Arvida was still building in NorthEast Florida - I thought they left. St. John's Golf & Country Club (in St. John's County) is a fairly new development, isn't it? How are they still getting away with this?? I know Clay County goes by a completely different idea of building codes, but I thought St. Johns was similar to Duval's?

I watched as my house was built (out there every day) and it was wrapped in the proper way as you described and it was built in '02-'03. I say that because I don't want anyone reading this thread to misunderstand and think they can't buy a home pre-2005, there were homes being built in accordance to code and good building practices before 2005.

[REKA210]

We have couple of friends who live in EAST HAMPTON. It's a good Neighborhood and falls in to Twin Lakes Academy elementary school.

[tinaatron01]

Originally Posted by kerryfsu

Hello,
We are thinking about moving to Jacksonville Florida. Most likely the southside area. We have 2 young children and would like to find a really good school district. We would also like to find a subdivision with a big pool, play ground, and lots of activities. We are looking in the $300,000.00 to $400,000 range.
Any ideas?
Thanks!

As a student; I'm telling you- Mandarin High School is a GOOD place. I go there and I'm in the marching band so we go to every other highschool during football season and I interact with a lot of the students from the other schools and as far as highschools go, the one I want to warn you about is Sandlewood High School. I hear HORROR stories about this school daily and other schools as well, but I hear a lot of stories about fights, drugs, bringing weapons to school... I had a best friend who went there for four months-- she said the school was constantly on lockdown.

Anyway, I'm not sure the truth to these, but I hear a lot of bad stuff about sandlewood, and some about englewood.

I'm not saying the mandarin area is great, but the schools are amazing. My mom magnetted me over to the highschool but we ended up moving here as well. I think you could find houses in your pricerange easily in the 32258 zipcode and theres some really nice houses there.

Good luck!

[riveree]

Originally Posted by tinaatron01

As a student; I'm telling you- Mandarin High School is a GOOD place. I go there and I'm in the marching band so we go to every other highschool during football season and I interact with a lot of the students from the other schools and as far as highschools go, the one I want to warn you about is Sandlewood High School. I hear HORROR stories about this school daily and other schools as well, but I hear a lot of stories about fights, drugs, bringing weapons to school... I had a best friend who went there for four months-- she said the school was constantly on lockdown.

Anyway, I'm not sure the truth to these, but I hear a lot of bad stuff about sandlewood, and some about englewood.

I'm not saying the mandarin area is great, but the schools are amazing. My mom magnetted me over to the highschool but we ended up moving here as well. I think you could find houses in your pricerange easily in the 32258 zipcode and theres some really nice houses there.

Good luck!

Sandalwood is Duval's county's largest high school, so many, many neighborhoods feed into it. If you don't want Sandalwood High school, you're cutting out a huge portion of the Southside.

Sandalwood is not constantly on lock-down, I can assure you. The stories do get very exaggerated. It's not unusual for the school to be on "lock-down" for the first couple of weeks of school to set the zero-tolerance tone with the students, but they allow the students to come and go most of the year after that. "Lock-down" only means that the gates are locked and the kids can't go out for lunch - they're stuck at the school all day. Going off-campus for lunch is a privilege and the school will take that privilege away when it's warranted.

Sandalwood does not receive a high FCAT rating, it rates very low. The school is overcrowded and it's a shame that a former National Model school has come to this, but it is what it is until they can turn it around. There is a new high school opening soon, as pointed out in the threads above, and some of the students from Sandalwood will be redirected into the new high school when it opens. Relieving the overcrowding should help.

Mandarin High School is at the opposite end of the spectrum - it is a very highly rated high school. Mandarin is also a nice place to live. I don't know of any communities that fit into the OP's description, but maybe someone else will.

[jcs2000]

Sandalwood aka Scandal-wood is definitively a high school to avoid. Unfortunately, it captures a large portion of Southside including rather pricey areas like Queen's Harbor, Glen Kernan, and Pablo Creek Reserve, as well as the more modest Woods and Pablo Bay. The bottom line, if you buy in area that feeds into Sandalwood, budget for the cost of a private school. The elementary and middle schools are OK but not exceptional. A new high school is scheduled to be constructed, but the revised boundaries are kept under wraps by the district. You cannot go wrong with any school in St. John's County.