Mount Juliet for family with kids? (Murfreesboro, Franklin: best neighborhoods, townhome, safe area)

[jlud]

Good morning,

We have been looking primarily in the Franklin/Brentwood area in relocation for work but have seen some nice listings in Mount Juliet. We don’t have to commute, and I will go to the airport occasionally. We are looking to get the kids and ourselves immersed in the community we live in as much as possible. Looking for safe areas and good schools, ok with a bit rural feel as long as amenities are near.

What does one give up in Mount Juliet? Prices seem quite a bit more reasonable..schools score nearly as well. Any downsides or concerns we should be aware of? We looked at shopping center there and distance to Whole Foods/Costco.

Thanks!

[JMT]

Originally Posted by jlud

Good morning,

We have been looking primarily in the Franklin/Brentwood area in relocation for work but have seen some nice listings in Mount Juliet. We don’t have to commute, and I will go to the airport occasionally. We are looking to get the kids and ourselves immersed in the community we live in as much as possible. Looking for safe areas and good schools, ok with a bit rural feel as long as amenities are near.

What does one give up in Mount Juliet? Prices seem quite a bit more reasonable..schools score nearly as well. Any downsides or concerns we should be aware of? We looked at shopping center there and distance to Whole Foods/Costco.

Thanks!

In MJ, stick to areas north of I-40. Schools in MJ are generally top notch, but parts of MJ, particularly south of I-40, are zoned for more mediocre schools. If you can stick to the areas zoned for Green Hill HS, you'll do just fine. Most of the areas zoned for MJHS are also good, but a few can be a little iffy ever since GHHS opened and siphoned off many of the best neighborhoods from MJHS. And that is a big difference between MJ and Brentwood/Franklin; Williamson County has excellent schools across the board, while Wilson County's best schools are concentrated in certain areas of MJ.

Shopping is also much better in Brentwood/Franklin. BJ's Wholesale Club is building a store in MJ, otherwise you'll be going to Murfreesboro for Costco and Sam's Club. No Whole Foods anywhere around MJ, either. But MJ is much more convenient to the airport.

[jlud]

Thank you. What about Gladeville middle and Wilson Central High School? These are the schools for one I was looking at and it’s just south of 40 near the Providence shopping area.

[GWoodle]

Originally Posted by jlud

Good morning,

We have been looking primarily in the Franklin/Brentwood area in relocation for work but have seen some nice listings in Mount Juliet. We don’t have to commute, and I will go to the airport occasionally. We are looking to get the kids and ourselves immersed in the community we live in as much as possible. Looking for safe areas and good schools, ok with a bit rural feel as long as amenities are near.

What does one give up in Mount Juliet? Prices seem quite a bit more reasonable.. schools score nearly as well. Any downsides or concerns we should be aware of? We looked at shopping center there and distance to Whole Foods/Costco.

Thanks!

From Mount Juliet you will have to drive some for Costco, Sam's Club, grocery at Whole Foods or Trader Joe. For your basic Target, Kroger, Best Buy go to Providence. For school Gladeville appears too new to rate, but Wilson Central while fine rates in the middle of Wilson County 3 high schools. You will have to look into progress in restoration from tornadoes.

From Franklin/Brentwood what you may be giving up is easy access to your make's car dealership. Not sure what you may need for car service.

What you gain is access to downtown by WeGo Star train or via I-40. I-40 allows easy access to BNA even if there is some construction there.

[MTFan]

You may want to look into Murfreesboro as well. Especially if commute is not an issue. It's a little further from Nashville but closer to Franklin/Brentwood compared to Mt Juliet. It is also larger and offers a more amenities than Mt Juliet.

[Lexusof5]

I'll give a perspective of somebody who moved to Mt. Juliet:

Mt. Juliet is a very nice town of about 40,000. The Providence area is where most of the shopping is located. Most people living here commute into Nashville from Mt. Juliet and the Music City Star is very handy too. Mt. Juliet is known as the "city between the lakes" as it has two large lakes to the north and south of city. Many very nice homes can be found in and around the lake in Mt. Juliet.
It is true that Green Hill HS (e.g. Mt. Juliet North) is probably the best high school to attend followed closely behind Mt. Juliet HS, which is actually only located about 3 miles from Green Hill High School. The southern portion of Mt. Juliet attends Rutland Elementary School or Gladeville Elementary School for grades K-5 - both are safe and TN reward schools based on academics and progress. I would have absolutely no problem sending either of my two children to these schools. Those two schools either feed into West Wilson Middle or Gladeville Middle. I would also have no problem sending my kids to either one of these schools. Gladeville Middle was built a few years ago and West Wilson had a portion hit by tornado so it was be completely new when construction is completed in 1-2 years. The present zoning for high schoolers in the Providence area is Wilson Central in Lebanon. Why Providence students go all the way out to I-840 is anybody's guess but I would guess that a new high school will someday be built in Providence area or Providence students will go to MJHS. In the future.

Mt. Juliet is much smaller than Franklin (80,000) or Murfreesboro (150,000) so it simply won't feature the amount of shopping those two have due to it's smaller size. However, it does have a more small town vibe than either of those two do.

Mt. Juliet certainly also getting a more upscale vibe and it's median household income will probably hit $100,000 in the next few years. Presently the median household income is about $93,000.. Home prices in Mt. Juliet range from $300,000 to several million dollars. The $300,000 houses are getting very tough to find and will typically be very small houses built in the 1970's or a townhome. Mt. Juliet is probably the closest thing to Williamson County without being Williamson County. The median household income, home prices and school rankings all back this up. Mt. Juliet was also featured in Money Magazines Top 25 best towns in America (along with Franklin).

Mt. Juliet has small but emerging downtown area that features The Incredible Christmas Place and will soon will have the Charlie Daniels Museum and more boutiques surrounding it.

It's a good place to live with similarities to Franklin but not all the ritzy yet although it's certainly trending in that direction.

[Lexusof5]

Originally Posted by MTFan

You may want to look into Murfreesboro as well. Especially if commute is not an issue. It's a little further from Nashville but closer to Franklin/Brentwood compared to Mt Juliet. It is also larger and offers a more amenities than Mt Juliet.

This is actually only partly true. Murfreesboro is closer to Franklin only. Mt. Juliet is closer to Brentwood.

Mt. Juliet is roughly half the size of Franklin. Franklin is roughly half the size of Murfreesboro. Murfreesboro is 4x larger than Mt. Juliet.

[jlud]

Thank you so much for all the feedback! We didn’t like the area the house was in so held off, actually looking hard at Gallatin…going to start another three so sorry if that’s bad…

[Lexusof5]

Originally Posted by jlud

Thank you so much for all the feedback! We didn’t like the area the house was in so held off, actually looking hard at Gallatin…going to start another three so sorry if that’s bad…

Just curious...what neighborhood/area was the house in?

[jlud]

South of 40. Was on the edge of a nice area, house was underwhelming as well.