Trying to sort out Cities close to Tampa & the Beach (St. Petersburg: homes, good schools)

[Meatball3]

This morning I was looking up cities in the Central West part of Florida, and Sarasota was mentioned on several occasions. Any opinions on how Sarasota compares to St. Petersburg and Palm Harbor? I don't find much info. talking about Palm Harbor beaches. Are there any beaches in Palm Harbor?? Is St. Petersburg just a good bit larger than Palm Harbor, or are there other major differences?

[Meatball3]

Beaches?? Well that's a good point. I apologize for not detailing what I think a beach is. I just mean a mile or two at least of decent sand. Please no rocks or pebbles to where you cant really walk barefoot. Just what I would call a normal beach with families. I would like however, the beach and the city to be one in the same. (obviously I don't mean the name) If its sugary white sand great, if not that's fine too. The color of the sand doesn't matter really. What matters most is the city itself. Just don't want the masses that come with a big city like Tampa, yet being close enough (30 min max) to go there should we want to. So looking for a great city that has everything, beaches included, but not a ton of people.(under 100k pop.) Where's this little mythical city??

[techie_g]

I don't think what you prescribe actually exists in the strictest terms

[Meatball3]

I didn't realize how big St. Petersburg actually is. I see there's over a quarter of a million people in that city. All cities irrelevant of size have good and bad areas. What parts of St. Petersburg are the best ( meaning housing market is really good where properties actually appreciate in value, safe, and businesses are flourishing?

[gypsychic]

Originally Posted by Meatball3

This morning I was looking up cities in the Central West part of Florida, and Sarasota was mentioned on several occasions. Any opinions on how Sarasota compares to St. Petersburg and Palm Harbor? I don't find much info. talking about Palm Harbor beaches. Are there any beaches in Palm Harbor?? Is St. Petersburg just a good bit larger than Palm Harbor, or are there other major differences?

Palm Harbor I hear has good schools, but you won't find that much historic there, mostly cookie cutter and lots of traffic. Nice clean place, however.

Sarasota has fantastic beaches and some of the best public schools in the state. There are also 3 colleges here. There are both older neighborhoods and plenty of newer cookie-cutter communities. This is a small city with a lot of big-city amenities, heavy on the arts and foodie dining/shopping. It is much smaller than St. Petersburg and has a much more upscale feel. It is not however, that "all-American" type place, as nowhere is, as has been stated.

If you are commuting to Tampa, it is far in distance but easy in driving - my husband drives from the north end of Sarasota to downtown Tampa every day, and traffic from the south flows very smoothly - FAR more smoothly than the shorter distances but horrific traffic from cities north, east or west of Tampa.

[wsamon]

Sarasota is a long commute to Tampa at over an hour each way.

Palm Harbor itself doesn't have any beaches that I know of, but Clearwater Beach - pretty famous, touristy, big with lots of white fine-grain sand - is about 20 - 30 minutes away depending on your exact spot. Honeymoon Island is even closer. Tampa is also around 30-35 minutes away I believe. Unfortunately, as one poster pointed out, I think it's low on the "old charm" homes and is more modern and generic.

Now we also need you to define what a city is to you Many areas have one major city / downtown and a hub of smaller satellite suburban cities around it. Tampa Bay is not like that. Physically, Tampa Bay is structured more like the San Francisco Bay area, with 3 main cities surrounding the bay (St. Petersburg, Tampa, and Clearwater instead of San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose) and a bunch of smaller cities that have all grown together into a large connected metropolis. Take a look at Google maps with the satellite turned on to see what I mean. FWIW, you can also see the nice white sand beaches that way

There is no central downtown that is the main hub for the entire region. Tampa has one, St Petersburg has one, and Clearwater has a much smaller one. Additionally, many of the little cities like Largo, Safety Harbor, Seminole, Palm Harbor, Dunedin, and the various beach towns each have their own "downtown" or "town center" areas of a more suburban scale with appropriate activities.

St. Petersburg only being 250k or so people is a technicality. Much of what you would probably consider St. Petersburg are technically other cities but they have all grown together so that you can't tell where one starts and the other ends. You almost might as well consider all of Pinellas County, at least through Palm Harbor to be one city (that includes St Petersburg, all the beach towns, Clearwater, Palm Harbor, and everything in between).

I can't think of anything in this area that technically has both a big city downtown and a good beach in it. There is no Miami or Ft. Lauderdale here. St. Petersburg is probably the closest, but technically its real beaches are in the cities of St. Pete Beach, Treasure Island, Madeira Beach, etc. (yes those are each separate towns with their own governments). It is about a 20-25 minute trip from downtown St. Petersburg to St. Pete Beach. Likewise it's about a 30 minute trip from downtown St. Petersburg to Tampa that jumps to well over an hour during rush hour.

In St. Petersburg, businesses seem to be doing well in downtown and along the central avenue corridor. Others might be able to chime in with some more detailed information here. I don't have a lot of background on the real estate there as far as appreciation, etc., but I know that Pinellas county in general has been appreciating substantially in the last couple years. In theory at least, our house in Largo has appreciated about 33% in the 2 years since we purchased it. For St. Petersburg, the historic old northeast is considered one of the most desireable areas, as is Snell Isle. Historic Kenwood is more up-and-coming, and is close to the central avenue corridor. Pasadena is a good, under-appreciated area due to its proximity to beaches, downtown St. Petersburg, Gulfport, and 275 for access to other areas in the region. I don't know about its home values, schools, or commerce in the immediate vicinity though. As a general rule, anything in the city of St. Petersburg north of 5th ave south is good, as is anything along the bay waterfront (not little lakes). That does not necessarily mean they have good schools though. Anything in the beach towns is good too, but you'll be about 20-30 minutes from downtown St. Petersburg, and 40+ from Tampa

[Meatball3]

I'd really like to thank all of you for your replies. Tampa isn't a necessity, it would be more the icing on the cake should we ever need more than the city we decide on has shopping or healthcare wise, or if we wanted to go see the Bucs play football. We would prefer city around 50-75k population ideally, but we all cant have everything we want in life either. We'd like certain criteria, but are realize no city has going to have everything. So whatever is closest will be the target or targets of an upcoming visit and a much closer look. We, like most people don't like traffic at all. So a smaller city would hopefully have less traffic. I did say HOPEFULLY! Anyway, a slower pace of life with just overall good people where there's a beach and not more than about 30-40 min from a much larger city! Well i'm going to go do some research on Sarasota now! Thanks again!!

[Meatball3]

OH one last thing. Weather!!! I'll bet all these areas have the same weather, but Wikipedia says the daily high for this area of florida is 90 degrees summertime. Is this a bunch of crap or is that actually true? We would love to find a place on the east coast where the summers were maybe 80 and the cold of winter might get down to 55. I know I'm dreaming! If I could pick up SanDiego or santa Barbara weather and move it, I certainly would. I've heard it is the best! We're used to high humidity, but would be nice if all you florida folks informed me that there is no humidity there. Any chance on that being true??

[ChuteTheMall]

Originally Posted by Meatball3

We're used to high humidity, but would be nice if all you florida folks informed me that there is no humidity there. Any chance on that being true??

Yes, every winter there are several days with very little humidity, mostly during early January.

[gypsychic]

Originally Posted by Meatball3

OH one last thing. Weather!!! I'll bet all these areas have the same weather, but Wikipedia says the daily high for this area of florida is 90 degrees summertime. Is this a bunch of crap or is that actually true? We would love to find a place on the east coast where the summers were maybe 80 and the cold of winter might get down to 55. I know I'm dreaming! If I could pick up SanDiego or santa Barbara weather and move it, I certainly would. I've heard it is the best! We're used to high humidity, but would be nice if all you florida folks informed me that there is no humidity there. Any chance on that being true??

Summers here, are in the 90s with high humidity. However, we have beautiful weather with low to medium humidity several months of the year, during winter. Each year can vary depending on weather conditions.

FLORIDA IS HUMID - make no mistake, there will be many months of high humidity. Do NOT move here if you can't live with that. But I guarantee you, you can live a fabulous lifestyle for a fraction of the cost of San Diego or Santa Barbara.