Grain Valley and Blue Springs (Kansas City, Independence: apartment complexes, homes, safe area)

[gunsyd]

I found some homes I really like in these two areas. Could anyone tell me in positives or negatives about them? The schools seem to be good. What about the traffic headed into Kansas City? I'm coming to MO in a few days to check it out?

[kcmo]

Great area with a very wide variety of housing options.

I would say that Blue Springs is the most affordable suburb in the metro while still having great schools and a very good quality of life (parks, shopping, dining etc).

You can get a very nice home in Blue Springs for 130k. But you can also get into the millions. Some of the biggest homes in the metro are in Blue Springs.

Grain Valley is very new and has a lot of growing pains. The schools don't offer near what the Blue Springs schools offer, but I'm sure the basic education is fine. Grain Valley has grown to 10-15k, but it's still basically a suburb of Blue Springs. GV residents depend on Blue Springs for nearly all their retail etc.

Blue Springs and Grain Valley are very close to shopping and other entertainment in Independence and Lee's Summit. Blue Springs is building a new major shopping mall (Adams Dairy Landing) which is between BS and GV.

The drive into the city is not bad at all. It's about a half hour to downtown during rush hour. Evening commutes tend to be a bit longer, but still not bad. Midtown or the Plaza is about 40 minutes.

You can add another 10 minutes if you live in Grain Valley. In both cities, it also depends on where you live. Development in both cities, especially Blue Springs, gets very far from I-70. Parts of Blue Springs are actually closer to US-50 than I-70!

If you work downtown, Blue Springs has a very popular and convenient commuter bus route into downtown that is just as fast as driving. Many GV residents also use the route. The buses typically are standing room only, but if you get on at Route 7, you will get a seat.

If you are commuting to other major office districts like Overland Park, Lenexa or Tiffany Springs, you could get into some nasty commutes and you may want to consider a different part of town.

In general, Blue Springs is a bit "blue collar" has a higher percentage of modest housing than Lee's Summit or Platte County, but it's a nice, safe area. Just stay away from some of the apartment complexes.