Chicago to MN- need help (Minneapolis, St. Paul: best neighborhoods, real estate, co-ops)

[Mac521]

Hello, We are looking at moving from the western suburbs of Chicago (Hinsdale) to the Eden Prairie, MN area. We are a young family with 2 small children (under age 5) and we are looking for a town that is family friendly, has excellent schools, has easy access to the airport. Our house budget is between $600K-$800K and we love going for walks and water activities in the summer (think, building sand castles). I would love to hear your thoughts on which towns to focus our house search on.

[golfgal]

Chaska! Easy commute to EP and the airport, very family friendly, lots of great outdoor things to do in town and around town. Great schools, cute downtown but also all of the normal shopping stuff-Target, Home Depot, etc. Your budget would go very far there for a house--probably could scale back easily and still have a very nice house there.

[MnMomma]

The beauty of the Minneapolis metro is that there are quite a few areas that meet your needs--including Eden Prairie itself. A lot depends on the style of housing and community that you prefer. If you use Eden Prairie as your center point, you have a breadth of areas to select from while still having an easy commute.

The suburbs of Chicago are quite different than the suburbs of Minneapolis. We moved to Southwest Minneapolis from Chicago and it was initially a bit of a shock to us--felt like we'd been transported to a remote suburb. We've been here for more than a decade now and love it (although we just lost some great neighbors to Hinsdale).

Are you interested in planned communities or a more style-diverse neighborhood? Would a small yard be fine (with access to great parks) or do you need a half acre of more? Centralized shopping or small shopping nodes? I'd recommend doing a radius search on one of the local real estate web sites. I prefer Edina Realty's searches, but Coldwell Banker's is good too. (I'm not a realtor). That will give you an idea of what the homes/lots are like in variety of areas

I'll message you with some links since I don't think they are allowed on the forum.

[Mac521]

Thank you for the info. We are looking for newer home, planned communities, smaller yard (.25 acre) is fine. Centralized shopping with "healthier" food supermarkets like "Whole Foods" (not sure what you have there). Easy walk to a park for the kids would be bonus. The commute and access to airport is a big deal for us. Not sure what traffic flow is like there during rush hour.

[golfgal]

Originally Posted by Mac521

Thank you for the info. We are looking for newer home, planned communities, smaller yard (.25 acre) is fine. Centralized shopping with "healthier" food supermarkets like "Whole Foods" (not sure what you have there). Easy walk to a park for the kids would be bonus. The commute and access to airport is a big deal for us. Not sure what traffic flow is like there during rush hour.

You won't even notice traffic here . Commute from areas west of EP will be simple, pretty much free flowing. If you try to commute along 494, not so good.

[pete6032]

Both Chaska and EP are a lot like Hinsdale.

[Minntoaz]

Why not Edina? You could afford a nice house there! Great schools. Nice neighborhoods. Close to everything.

[katmu]

I agree with the previous recs of Edina, Chaska and EP. We do have Whole Foods here plus Trader Joes and lots of co-ops for healthier food options.

As another Chicago area native, the traffic here doesn't really compare. 494 can be slow during rush hour but it's not nearly as bad as Chicago.

[Min-Chi-Cbus]

Originally Posted by MnMomma

The beauty of the Minneapolis metro is that there are quite a few areas that meet your needs--including Eden Prairie itself. A lot depends on the style of housing and community that you prefer. If you use Eden Prairie as your center point, you have a breadth of areas to select from while still having an easy commute.

The suburbs of Chicago are quite different than the suburbs of Minneapolis. We moved to Southwest Minneapolis from Chicago and it was initially a bit of a shock to us--felt like we'd been transported to a remote suburb. We've been here for more than a decade now and love it (although we just lost some great neighbors to Hinsdale).

Are you interested in planned communities or a more style-diverse neighborhood? Would a small yard be fine (with access to great parks) or do you need a half acre of more? Centralized shopping or small shopping nodes? I'd recommend doing a radius search on one of the local real estate web sites. I prefer Edina Realty's searches, but Coldwell Banker's is good too. (I'm not a realtor). That will give you an idea of what the homes/lots are like in variety of areas

I'll message you with some links since I don't think they are allowed on the forum.

The major difference I notice personally between Chicago suburbs and Twin Cities suburbs are the # of trees and water features. The exception are suburbs like Cicero or Oak Park, which are inherently more urban in form than anything in the Twin Cities. Even suburbs like Naperville or Schaumburg are somewhat replicated here (i.e. Bloomington or Maple Grove), albeit to a smaller scale perhaps.

To the OP: If you are working in Eden Prairie but want to live in the parts of the Twin Cities that people come to know and love about the region, I'd personally recommend places like Southwest Minneapolis, St. Louis Park, Edina, Hopkins, and perhaps Eden Prairie itself, if you like more suburban-feeling places. These suburbs have walkable features, lakes, parks, great schools, solid neighborhoods, and plenty of entertainment amenities (or at least accessibility to them). I REALLY like the Minnekhada Vista area of St. Louis Park, which is near: Edina's 50th & France, St. Louis Park's Excelsior & Grand, and Minneapolis' Lake Calhoun and Uptown area. The location is top-notch IMO, AND you are within the St. Louis Park school district, which is top 5 in the state!

ALL of the locations I mentioned are within a 20 minute commute to the airport, and in some cases 10-15 minutes. The only exception is Eden Prairie, which -- depending on the time of the day and traffic -- could be 30-45 minutes away. Eden Prairie is ideally situated in the job-and-money-rich section of the metro area and is the gateway between the city and inner-ring suburbs and the more typical cul de sac suburban areas. Traffic, therefore, can be nightmarish, but maybe not compared to Chicagoland.


P.S. DO NOT rule out Minneapolis (or St. Paul) itself just because it's "inner-city", otherwise you'd be doing yourself a major disfavor! Some of THE best neighborhoods and schools are in the cities themselves, and unlike Chicago you can afford to live in these parts of town, especially with a $600K-$800K budget. Try neighborhoods like Fulton or Linden Hills (esp. LH), or even areas downtown, if that interests you (apparently DT residents are assigned to Southwest Mpls school district, tops in the city and state).

[Min-Chi-Cbus]

For those remarking that traffic in this part of town is nothing compared to Chicago, I wouldn't be so sure. It's maybe not as bad, but it's pretty bad, and it'd be very misleading to pretend like the OP would simply breeze through to and from work without any issues. Eden Prairie, in particular, is one of the worst places in the metro area for traffic congestion, whether it's I-494, Hwy 212, Hwy 5, Hwy 169 or trying to get onto any of these larger roads.

Is there such a thing as a traffic "trip estimator" that will tell you about how long a commute would be from point A to point B during a given time of the day/week/year? That'd be awesome, btw!

In lieu of that (fantasy) application, check this one frequently to get a feel (and look) for what traffic might be like, especially around 5:00 CST (Toggle back and forth between the "Traffic" and "Cameras" tabs at the top to see both congestion maps and traffic cams. Eden Prairie is at the Southwest corner of the "loop" interstate on the map -- I-494):

http://www.dot.state.mn.us/tmc/trafficinfo/traffic.html