Can you beat Downingtown/Chester Springs? (Norristown, Phoenixville: transplants, townhouses, YMCA)

[lhfranklin]

Basically I want to know if there are any other areas we should consider.

What we like about this area:

• Commutable to Collegeville, where my husband will work.
• Good school district.
• New constructions on larger plots of land (have lived in a 40 year old house for the last 5 years, we'd like to do something newer with potentially less maintenance.)
• A more rural setting with access to shopping. Best of both worlds in our eyes.
• Seemingly active recreational department with lots to offer our small kids.

So knowing that, is there anywhere else you recommend we look?

[LPCJr]

Originally Posted by lhfranklin

Basically I want to know if there are any other areas we should consider.

What we like about this area:

• Commutable to Collegeville, where my husband will work.
• Good school district.
• New constructions on larger plots of land (have lived in a 40 year old house for the last 5 years, we'd like to do something newer with potentially less maintenance.)
• A more rural setting with access to shopping. Best of both worlds in our eyes.
• Seemingly active recreational department with lots to offer our small kids.

So knowing that, is there anywhere else you recommend we look?

I could see Collegeville being at least a 45 minute commute, maybe an hour with traffic.

I agree that D'Town and Chester Springs are great areas, but that commute could be tough. If you really do like ths area, I'd also look at Exton/Lionville. Some of the construction is not quite as new, but also a very good area.

[lhfranklin]

I think we'd probably stay on the northern part of Downingtown. I'd like to stay in Downingtown East High School, if possible. A lot of the houses I was preliminarily looking at were closer to 30-40 minutes. Is that not realistic in traffic?

[LPCJr]

Originally Posted by lhfranklin

I think we'd probably stay on the northern part of Downingtown. I'd like to stay in Downingtown East High School, if possible. A lot of the houses I was preliminarily looking at were closer to 30-40 minutes. Is that not realistic in traffic?

I think that 30-40 minutes at off peak times is realistic. Probably not at rush hour. Part of the problem is that there is no great route from D'Town up to Collegeville. You either take 113 through Phoenixville and then 29 - which are both local roads with lights, lots of local traffic, etc. OR you take 30 to 202 to 422, which is significantly longer mileagewise. All three of these highways are heavily traveled. 422 is often a parking lot during rush hour.

[lhfranklin]

So good to know. This is the kind of information that is impossible to realize when planning a move from three states away. Thank you!

[southernNE]

Schwenksville is full of transplants, and lots of new houses and townhouses with good amounts of land, very quick to Collegeville, and certainly less expensive then Chester County.

Only about 45 min to Philly (no traffic) and very easy access to the Western parts of PA.

[southernNE]

There is a gigantic YMCA, and a few little shopping plazas in Royersford, restaurants-some upscale stuff near Skippack-a very quaint little expensive town, like 5 minutes away with cute stone stores and sidewalks. I'd live in Skippack if I could afford it I would rather live in that area than that South end, only b/c my husband has been working down there on a job the past few weeks and the traffic he hits (through Norristown/Pheonixville and a little West of there) is horrendous, they are always doing some work on the highway, or have been lately and it's congested. I thin a lot of people commute through there to get to work in Philly. But if you lived and worked in Chester, that area is really nice too, I just wouldn't want to cross through all that junk there.

Schwenksville is only the next town above Collegeville, I used to live there. There are a few developments that have like a 100 kids and sit outside and the kids all play and the watch the game outdoors or what not. I was only there for 6 months, so I don't know about the schools, but I met a lot of people there.