moving to lacey/olympia/TUMWATER AREA (Yelm: rent, house, neighborhood)

[pbrking]

Hi just a few questions. We are a military family looking moving to Ft Lewis, and we have narrowed down our search to lacey, olympia/Tumwater. We found a great house on the outskirts of Tumwater.
does anyone know about the neighborhood "sunwood lakes". The house seems awesome and the neighbor hood seems quiet. just wondering if anyone out there has any knowledge of the area! Is the traffic on I-5 really as bad as I hear? is tumwater to far to commute to Lewis? How are the schools? thanks in Advance!!!!

[marita]

A 30 minute drive will get you to fort Lewis.
The fort Lewis main gate is right on I-5 that is what causes so much traffic congestion.Plus I-5 dips down and climbs up between fort Lewis and Lacey which is no fun on black ice in the am.

[Sandy Nelson]

Pbrking,

Sunwood Lakes is not in Tumwater. It's between East Olympia and Lacey. Neither Tumwater, nor Sunwood Lakes would be a long commute to Ft. Lewis. The Sunwood Lakes community is a bit remote from I-5, which means more traffic through Lacey to get to the Interstate. The town of Tumwater is on either side of I-5, so the commute would be easier. Tumwater has many shopping and restaurant venues, whereas Sunwood Lakes is more remote and will require about a 10-15 minute drive to major conveniences. If you have school aged children, they would have to be bussed to the Yelm schools. You can compare the different school districts with each other here:
Washington State Report Card
The community of Sunwood Lakes features a community pool and clubhouse. Home prices start under $200K, and can go to the high $400K for lake front properties.

Good Luck with your move to Washington.

Sandy

[pbrking]

Wow, thanks for the replys! So is there major conjestion/delays on I-5 between Olympia and Ft Lewis in the morning/evening? I hear all these terrible things about the traffic but what are we really talking about? I am just trying to get in a good school district and be close to Ft. lewis. Dupont is close but, I don't think we can afford anything in there with out sacrificing lot size and so far it seems the dupont area is very "cookie cutter", nice but not really our style. We have heard great things about gig harbor but again, not sure of the traffic??? What to do!!!!!!!

[Sandy Nelson]

Pbrking,

My husband commutes to Ft. Lewis from Olympia every morning. He takes the Dupont gate and it takes him 20 minutes.
Black ice on I-5 is not a common occurrence. I know there are some more people on this forum who commute from Olympia to Ft. Lewis. I hope you'll get some additional feedback on commute times. Driving from Tumwater, you'll likely have to add another 5 minutes to the commute time from Olympia.

Cheers,

Sandy

[Marilynnanne]

Pbrking;

Military people often rent one of my furnished homes as temporary housing and report that the commute is not at all a problem from the South Capitol neighborhood in Olympia. As Sandy stated, Tumwater is just another five minutes.

Marilynn