[Sophie's Mom]

My husband and I will be visiting Omaha next week for a house hunting trip. He has accepted a job with the government and will be working downtown. We have no children, but two dogs. Based on our initial research, we are interested in the Bellevue area, specifically the older section near Fontanelle forest. Anyone live in this area or have thoughts about quality of life, shopping, commute to downtown, etc. Thanks!

[star_gazer]

Fontenelle is a beautiful area... as you probably already know. The commute downtown would be an easy one (I'd probably just go straight up 13th street... rather than take Kennedy to 480), compared to those of us in the suburbs. However, as with many older parts of town... you won't find quite the same shopping/services in the immediate area of this part of town... which you'll find out west/southwest. That said... it's still a relatively small metro... and you could drive to all of these amenities within 15 minutes (Shadow Lake probably your closest option for shopping)... another 15 minutes to west Omaha.

[Dave1215]

That is a very natural and beautiful area. If you love nature and trees its a great place (be warned, the deer will eat your garden).

The only real negative is that taxes in Bellevue are a little higher than a couple of the neighboring towns (Papillion/LaVista) becuase of financial problems the town has. There were not a lot of fiscal controls the last couple of decades, so cash reserves that should be there aren't and a restricted fund was borrowed from for general fund purposes when that's not allowed. The general fund now must repay that restricted fund so that will cost the taxpayers.

If you do look outside of Bellevue when you get here I would make Papillion the 2nd choice followed by LaVista and then either Gretna/Ralston/Plattsmouth.

Papillion was named the 6th Best Place to Live in the US in 2007 by CNN/Money Magazine. Its where Shadow Lake is located which the previous poster mentioned. For city taxes it is the lowest in the metro area.

Both Bellevue and Papillion/LaVista schools are very good, so no worries there if you happen to have kids while here.

Welcome to the area - Sarpy County is a great place to live. Here is a link to Sarpy Tourism, nice overview of the area.

Best of luck with the move.

[Sophie's Mom]

Thanks so much for the helpful information. We are very excited about the move and this feedback is very useful.