Best places to live near Minneapolis? (St. Paul, Eden Prairie: apartment, homes, neighborhood)

[CamiloRonin]

Hi! I will relocate in Minneapolis from Madrid. Early forties, married, no children. We are used to urban life, walking every where and "real coffee" with newspaper for Sunday breakfasts... We look for an apartment in a nice-European-urban neighborhood in Minneapolis. Can anyone recommend a district where we could fit and a real estate website to search apartments?

Thanks!

[TheMathematician]

Originally Posted by WriterDude

Oh, it was a win-win, because it gave me a chance to get all of that out and organized.



Definitely look for the individual web pages for the suburbs. Here are a few that might be useful:

St. Louis Park: City of St. Louis Park, Minnesota

Edina: City of Edina, Minnesota

Hopkins: City of Hopkins, Minnesota

Eden Prairie: City of Eden Prairie, Minnesota : Home



I'm happy to help, and glad you found it useful. Here are a couple more pages that I found useful:

Minnesota salary information: MNDEED - LMI - OES
Pro Tip: Choose "Metropolitan Statistical Areas" and click through Minneapolis St. Paul. This will show you average salary information for various job titles.

I like this property search page (even though their result pages aren't as pretty as Zillow or Trulia). TheMLSonline.com - Minnesota Real Estate, Top Minnesota Real Estate Search - Call 763-576-8286

Oh, and the City-Data forum.

Good luck!

Okay then, thanks again!

[unnativeelpasoan]

Originally Posted by Pisces69

Actually many of the suburbs have much worse crime than most neighborhoods in the twin cities.

No, Minneapolis has the highest crime rate of any city/town/suburb in the Twin Cities area.

And I have lived in both Mpls. and the burbs. Believe me, the burbs (at least overall) are safer!

[AlpineLakes]

To CamiloRonin:

If you want to live downtown Minneapolis, where you are in walking distance or at least near a skyway (Minneapolis has an extensive network of skyways so you are spared the pain of walking outside in January) then you have a few options: The Mill City District is very nice with the river right next to it. The Stone Arch Bridge also connects the Mill District to the St. Anthony Falls area on the other side, which has cute cafes and restaurants. The Mill District probably has the most European vibe downtown, old buildings, cobble stone street near the river, walking distance to cafes, ice cream and gelato shops, and restaurants. Mill City is where I would personally recommend.

There's also Loring Park, the North Loop (Warehouse) District, Central Business District, and Elliot Park. Loring has a lot of old apartment buildings with new buildings being built. The park is nice, and it's a close distance to the very nice neighborhood of Kenwood, which is filled with beautiful, old homes, not too mention the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden and Modern Art Museum.

The North Loop (Warehouse District) has some great cafes, and is experiencing a lot of renovation and new construction, it also just touches where the new Whole Foods (grocery store) was put up. Elliot Park is more run down with the exception of two very nice condo buildings, it is probably the least European. However, it is quite diverse and there is a good coffee shop in the neighborhood. The downside is that the crime rate is slightly higher and it's a good nine to ten blocks from any restaurants or venues. The Central Business District will put you the closest to a large selection of coffee shops, restaurants, and venues. There's a lot of building that's going on downtown in regards to apartment buildings, and you'll be connected via skyway without even having to walk outside which can be a plus in the winter.

To see most apartment buildings here you usually just call the leasing agent or the number on the apartment website and they set up an appointment to let you see a model. If you're more interested in buying then you'll want a real estate agent.

Some apartment websites:
Mill District City Apartments in Minneapolis | Minneapolis Apartments Mill District
Soo Line Building City Apartments Apartment Rentals Central Business District
430 Oak Grove Apartments | 430 Oak Grove Loring Park
https://millandmain.com/ St. Anthony Falls Area
North Loop | Solhavn North Loop/Warehouse District

[Glenfield]

Originally Posted by CamiloRonin

Hi! I will relocate in Minneapolis from Madrid. Early forties, married, no children. We are used to urban life, walking every where and "real coffee" with newspaper for Sunday breakfasts... We look for an apartment in a nice-European-urban neighborhood in Minneapolis. Can anyone recommend a district where we could fit and a real estate website to search apartments?

Thanks!

In addition to the downtown areas mentioned above, I would suggest you look at one of the south Minneapolis neighborhoods, East Calhoun, CARAG, Linden Hills, East Lake Harriet Farmstead, or Kingfield. You have some very nice pre-war apartment buildings in those areas and they would all seem to fit your needs. The downtown apartment buildings are newer and there are more high rises.

[Mplsite]

Minneapolis, Minneapolis, oh, and Minneapolis.

[Mplsite]

Originally Posted by Glenfield

In addition to the downtown areas mentioned above, I would suggest you look at one of the south Minneapolis neighborhoods, East Calhoun, CARAG, Linden Hills, East Lake Harriet Farmstead, or Kingfield. You have some very nice pre-war apartment buildings in those areas and they would all seem to fit your needs. The downtown apartment buildings are newer and there are more high rises.

Oye tío, son madrileños así que barrios como Linden Hills son unos gílipollezes. And I'm guessing they want to be surrounded by city-loving people rather than people watering their lawns and complaining about every new project that might add more people to the neighborhood, so some of the other suggestions close to Uptown are good and I'd recommend something in or near Whittier just south of Downtown (avoid the southeast corner next to Lake Street). Craigslist is great, but just follow common sense. Y si quieres conocer a otros hispanohablantes y españoles aquí te puedo decir dónde.

[Lafferty Daniel]

Originally Posted by WriterDude

Well, full disclosure, I'm in almost your position - living outside of the Twin Cities, trying to be diligent about my research, and working out the details. I don't consider anything I'm writing here to be 100% certain, and I don't mean to make it sound like I'm downing anyone's preferred area with these remarks.

We've decided on the southwest area of the city or the western suburbs, but we're struggling through the process of narrowing that decision.

In the southwest area of the city (the southwest portion of Police Precinct 5, west of Lake Harriet and Lake Calhoun), you find several neighborhoods that seem desirable: Armatage, Kenny, Fulton, Lynnhurst, Linden Hills. These areas are upscale and expensive, to the point where that might be a barrier for us.

I noted the crime statistics for District 5 here: Precinct 5 Crime Maps - City of Minneapolis

The neighborhood crime statistics are here: http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/www/...s1p-104212.pdf

The most crime in Minneapolis seems to be northwest and southeast of downtown. I think the southeast area (where the University of Minnesota Twin Cities campus is located) is more property crime, but that's a very rough approximation.

My family needs fairly close proximity to amenities, work, and entertainment, so we can't go to more distant areas. That leaves us with the suburbs or St. Paul. We absolutely *love* the St. Paul downtown area, but it seems most of the job concentrations in the TC are from Minneapolis toward the south/southwest. So for proximity to work, we'll go there, but I suspect that we'll visit St. Paul a lot, because it has a very vibrant city core.

When we think about the suburbs, we break them into north, northwest, west, southwest, and south.

North suburbs have a lot of new construction options (Blaine, Maple Grove, Plymouth), but we feel they're a little remote (and would be especially so in the winter). We really like Maple Grove.

South suburbs (Savage, Burnsville, Eagan, Apple Valley) are demographically younger, are much more affordable, and have new construction options. However, we decided we don't want to go south of the river. We noted the scour path of the Minnesota river, which cuts across the area west-to-east and creates a natural gap in settlement. That gap could add to transit/commute times. Bloomington (on the near side of the river) is a significant option, with its crime map concentrated near the Mall of America, as you might expect. Here's the Bloomington crime map, in case you're interested.

RAIDS Online: Regional Analysis and Information Sharing[1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,20,22 ,24,25]&startDate=30&endDate=1&zoom=9

In the west, we see two bands of suburbs. From north to south, the near band is Golden Valley, St. Louis Park, Hopkins, and Edina. We like this band a LOT. Home prices are variable, but there are solid housing options (as I mentioned, some of the properties are fully renovated and expensive, but many are just tired and could use reconditioning). They offer proximity to MPLS downtown, and the Southwest LRT will extend through SLP and Hopkins to Eden Prairie. These cities all have strong development/redevelopment plans.

The second band of suburbs, from north to south, is Wayzata, Minnetonka, Eden Prairie, and the river. Wayzata apparently has excellent schools (not a factor for us), and people seem to like the quality of life in Wayzata and Minnetonka a lot. I see it as a problem that they aren't in the light rail plan, and they're a little remote, so we're not strongly considering either of them. On the other hand, Eden Prairie is in the light rail plan, and has a ton of work options, so that's very desirable for us.

The southwest suburbs have sprawled a bit, so if you continue southwest from Eden Prairie, you run into Chanhassen, which routinely hits "top 10 cities in the US" lists. It's just a little isolated from the downtown areas for us. If you go further past Chanhassen, you see Chaska and Victoria, which are wonderful small cities (Victoria has a lot of affordable new housing), but we just can't imagine the transit times.

So what to choose? Our strongest preference is for SW Mpls, St. Louis Park, or Eden Prairie. However, we're running into a whole range of different what-about-this/what-about-that issues.

Great post!

[Glenfield]

Originally Posted by Mplsite

Oye tío, son madrileños así que barrios como Linden Hills son unos gílipollezes. And I'm guessing they want to be surrounded by city-loving people rather than people watering their lawns and complaining about every new project that might add more people to the neighborhood, so some of the other suggestions close to Uptown are good and I'd recommend something in or near Whittier just south of Downtown (avoid the southeast corner next to Lake Street). Craigslist is great, but just follow common sense. Y si quieres conocer a otros hispanohablantes y españoles aquí te puedo decir dónde.

Although I share your issues with the Linden Hills political scene, I focused on the OP's requirements and figured they can judge how they might fit it better than I can.

[Minntoaz]

Writer dude, I think you just wrote out the exact analysis and plan in moving to the twin cities we have haha. I couldn't agree more with everything you stated. I didn't know lrt was going to Eden prairie and such?! Again very valuable information, thank you!