Corvallis Neighboorhoods (Monroe: apartments, travel, campus)

[shvegan]

Hi. I'm moving to Corvallis next month to start a master's degree at OSU. I will not be making a visit before I move and am trying to get a sense of what part of town would be best for me to live in. I'd really like something that is quiet with character and central to any points of intrest(osu, food-coop, hiking, cafes etc etc)

what i don't want is to be in a huge complex, around lots of undergrad partying or in a part of town that is completly isolated from activity.

I see there are some nice apartments in the downtown area and some very cute looking cottages(not sure where those are)

Any suggestions on what part of town to look in, or any better sense of how the town is laid out neighborhood wise would be very helpful to me.

Thanks

[Larry Caldwell]

http://www.ci.corvallis.or.us/downloads/pw/CTS-04-17-06.pdf (broken link)

[shvegan]

thanks for the link.

does anyone know much about the downtown area? i've read that it is undergoing a revitalization, but not sure what that means.

i've also read that the se side is not the most desirable, that the north side is a bit nicer, but these designations seem kind of relative depending on what type of atmosphere you're looking for.

it doesn't seem like there is really an "bad" part of town. shrug. i don't know...

[Larry Caldwell]

Stay away from the area right around campus and you won't have to put up with a lot of partying. Fraternity Row is along Monroe St. just north of Campus. There really isn't a "bad" neighborhood, except the semi-slums right around campus. As a student, you ride free on city busses. Don't even think about driving to campus, you will end up parking so far away you will have to take a bus anyway.

[jjpop]

It's true, there really isn't a "bad" part of town--only some undesireable pockets within neighborhoods that are generally fine.

I agree with Larry--if you are a few blocks from campus you won't have the partying problem, which really is a problem here. There's a route along which drunken students travel from campus east to downtown--avoid that area unless you want 2am yelling, urine on the sidewalks and broken flower pots.

I think the area a couple blocks north of NW Monroe is pretty nice. If you are coming sometime between the middle of June and early September be aware that the students are mostly gone and the town is much quieter than it is during the regular school year.