Quote:
Originally Posted by hammockbrain
Tomocox, I see you're a real estate agent. Wherever we decide to move, we don't plan on buying and don't want to rent anything fancy, just something with air, washer/dryer hookups and a little storage. Anything to be had like that, preferably outside the city limits?
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We normally do not allow realtors to give specific advice here on the chance that they are soliciting business for themselves. However, your situation is unique enough and you are wanting apartments, so tomocox, if you know of any suburban complexes please speak up. Tomocox is our NE suburban expert here.
With that said, I have been doing some exploring of Oldham County and am impressed with parts and not so impressed with others. There doesn't seem to be too many apartment complexes or retail for that matter. The most picturesque part of Oldham is on US 42 from Prospect to Goshen where many nice subdivisions, new schools, and developments go all the way to the river down to KY393. It also seems pristine and well kept with white picket fences and horse farms between subdivisions. I think this is the Oldham everyone "buzzes" about.
Exit 14 off I-71 is the KY 393 bypass and with the four lanes and all the develoment is the closest thing I have seen in the county to an upscale sprawlburbia suburb. It hosts the county's only Starbucks if that tells you anything. Other parts of the county really have turned me off, especially KY 22 and KY 146 heading out of Jefferson County into La Grange. This area is really dumpy and country looking, and IMO looks worse than the ghetto in west louisville in its own way, with intermittent shacks selling random goods along train tracks, ugly factories around Buckner, and some odd looking vacant country shacks with litter, old cars, and toys in the yard. Parts of this area are stereotypically "Kentucky." (which is ashame because KY is really more the beautiful horse farms and river like around US 42). KY 146 in Oldham looks like Dixie highway in south Louisville in parts, which has a reputation for clutter and haphazard development, plus horrific one lane travel with lots of congestion that will only get worse. Crestwood Station is a ghostown shopping center that must be an embarrassment to the county. All in all, La Grange has a cute downtown that is only about 3 blocks of shops but has massive trailer parks on all edges on KY 53, and this is just a huge turn off for an urbanite like me (sorry to be blunt). ironically, a very nice subdivison (L'espirit) lies on the edge of this trailer park park, but to me this is worse than living in urban luxury condos next to projects...why be all the way out there and live like that, paying so much for a high end home so far out only to live next to a trailer that costs less than your car? To me this premise is no different than living in the city in gentrifying area, but at least in the city you are close to everything.
Oldham still offers no large edge suburb feeling like other areas I have lived, including the north side of Indy around Carmel or Naperville, IL. This is my honest assesment of Oldham thus far. I think the best chance for the county is a large scale mixed use development with upscale hotels, condos around a lake, and lifestyle village setting retail....something like Norton Commons with national retailers. This would be best suited around the Buckner Exit as it was planned for Buckner Crossings, which I have not heard anymore about. I do know LaGrange has a mixed use proposal that may be years away but that is the type of development the county needs.
For now, the sum of the county is a mostly rural area with no retail, some bucolic horse farms interspersed with upscale subdivisions by the river, and some pretty crappy looking old country homes and factories connecting the historic population centers of the county. For some reason, urban decay doesn't bother me nearly as much as a country shack with toys and old cars in the yard.
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04-09-2008, 07:42 PM
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