Best choice of Madison apartments? (apartment complex, condos, house)

[newtomad]

We will be temporarily living in corporate housing in the Madison area in the fall, and there are a couple of locations to choose from. We'd love to walk to a fun neighborhood with coffeeshops and restaurants with playgrounds for our toddler. Do any of these locations below fit the bill, if you know the area well enough to tell locations by address (I don't)? Afterward we are going to settle more permanently, so the corporate housing is a chance to get to know Madison.

On southwest side of town:
251 South Yellowstone Drive
Madison, WI 53705-4318

802 Harbor House Road
Madison, WI 53719

508 Plaza Drive
Madison, WI 53719-3820

On southeast:
5440 Congress
Madison, WI 53718

[tchemgrrl]

I can't tell just by the street addresses, but mapquest is helping me identify the neighborhood area at least. All four are on the rapidly-developing edges of town, where there are lots of very recent condos, construction, etc. Honestly I find a lot of the areas to be kind of soul-less, but that's the kind of area where you typically find short-term corporate housing, I think. I do think of them all as being quite safe.

S. Yellowstone is very close to the big mall on the west side. Lots of chains and strip malls in the area surrounding (which includes the next two options, though they're a *bit* further out), well away from downtown, not much of a neighborhood-feel. I don't drive and find the area pretty ped-unfriendly compared to the center of town. The condos/apartments in that area are pretty nice, though, I've had some friends live within a few blocks of that address.

Harbor House Road: A friend of mine lives pretty close to this location in a single-family house. There's very little just over the beltline here in the way of shops etc. I know her street is very quiet and residential, but I think of it as being rather a "bedroom neighborhood", if that makes any sense.

Plaza Dr., pretty similar to harbor house though it looks like to leave that apartment complex at all you'd have to go on Watts Rd., which is pretty busy. I'd consider this the least, er, neighborhoody of the options, you'd need to get in a car and go someplace else for any of the amenities you're looking for.

5440 Congress: Way into the east/north corner of the city, directly opposite from the previous three (whoever told you "southeast side" isn't paying attention). This is *right* on the edge of the developed parts of town, so you might be either surrounded by woods or earth-moving equipment, I don't know the area well enough to say for sure. Pretty close to the east side multiplex, but not much else.

If you're working downtown, they'd all be the same distance, but you might want to check on that too. I'd go with Yellowstone if I wanted slightly more access to shops and restaurants (there are some kind of sports fields just across the street, too), and Harbor House if I was looking to get to know some neighbors, set up playdates for your child, that sort of thing.

[Chelito23]

I am not familiar with all of the locations, only the Yellowstone Drive one. My parents live in that neighborhood (they are in their early 60's) and they love it, they go walking around the neighbohood, there are several parks, they can walk to coffee shops, the movies, the mall and any other such place. It is a suburban type environmnet, so it is not old town sqauare, but this is an example of a NICE suburban area, that has everything close enough that you can walk to if you choose so.