Is Stapleton our only option coming from England?

[Katarina Witt]

Originally Posted by denverian

Once complete, most any home in Stapleton will be within walking distance of some sort of retail. I find it very walkable (I walk 2 mi. per day) because there are sidewalks everywhere and a great network of trails and sidewalks throughout all the parks.

The key words are "once complete". As for the sidewalks, there are very few places even in the farthest out suburbs that don't have sidewalks and bike/hiking trails in the parks.

Originally Posted by denverian

Oh, as for the retail, I'm not sure what's going in on south Central Park Blvd. other than a couple coffee shops and a Vietnamese restaurant - I think it's open now and I plan on trying it this weekend. For the Eastbridge town center, a grocery store is going in and supposedly they're close to signing a deal on it. Once that deal is signed, they said they'll start building the rest of the center and signing tennants. From what I gather, the grocery store will probably be the smaller "healthy" King Soopers (City Market?) and then I would guess a coffee shop, several restaurants, both local and chain, and they they do reserve stores for small businesses, as in the 29th Ave. town center. They have a liquor store, dry cleaner, local book store, a couple non-chain restaurants, mixed with the chain stuff. I expect it to be similar.

Which is the same type of retail all over the metro. Who does all this dry cleaning, anyway? I don't dry clean more than a few items per year, and I do all my own laundry.

Before you put all your eggs in the Stapleton basket (and I think it's find for those who want to live there BTW), keep in mind there are other areas that are also social and friendly. Here is a quote from a post of mine on another thread:

Originally Posted by Katiana

When it came time to buy, we looked around our neighborhood, but most of the homes for sale needed a lot of work. We found for the same price we could buy an almost-new house in Louisville in move-in condition. We didn't want to live in the burbs, but Louisville was an old coal mining town turned 'burb. We loved it! We got to know our neighbors, were invited to their homes for dinner and invited them in return. It just felt more "homey". Louisville is walkable, depending on where you live and your tolerance for hills. We live on top of S. Boulder Rd. hill, so it's fun to walk downtown, not so much fun to walk back up. Before we had kids, we did it a lot. If you live on the flats in Lsvl, there is a lot to walk to: grocery store, downtown restaurants, library, pool, parks, rec center. Louisville isn't very big, so you can live a little farther away and bike to all the above. Louisville does a lot of the little "small-town" ish things like an annual Pet Parade in conjunction with its Labor Day festival; free hot-dogs and chips cooked by the City Council on the 4th of July, etc. My kids got to march in the Labor Day Parade with their gymnastics team and the December Parade of Lights with their Girl Scout troops. One of my daughters got a small college scholarship that was for city employees/volunteers (she coached gymnastics for the rec center.) She got to go to a City Council meeting to receive it. You just don't get that kind of stuff in the city.

While I know Louisville is too far for you, given the job location, Stapleton is not the only option for this type of living. You can find a nice, friendly, walkable neighborhood in many parts of the metro area.

[denverian]

Originally Posted by Katiana

The key words are "once complete". As for the sidewalks, there are very few places even in the farthest out suburbs that don't have sidewalks and bike/hiking trails in the parks.



Which is the same type of retail all over the metro. Who does all this dry cleaning, anyway? I don't dry clean more than a few items per year, and I do all my own laundry.

Before you put all your eggs in the Stapleton basket (and I think it's find for those who want to live there BTW), keep in mind there are other areas that are also social and friendly. Here is a quote from a post of mine on another thread:



While I know Louisville is too far for you, given the job location, Stapleton is not the only option for this type of living. You can find a nice, friendly, walkable neighborhood in many parts of the metro area.

I would never say Stapleton is the only place you can find social, walkable neighborhoods! I would hope there are many throughout the metro area. I've never been to Louisville but someplace like Golden strikes me as a nice setting where you could walk downtown to stores, etc. Same with parts of Boulder, and many older neighborhoods throughout Denver. Maybe we should compile a list of neighborhoods like this for people who are looking for something other than culdesacs and Applebees.

[Katarina Witt]

That would be a good idea.

[blvamiv]

Hello all,
I'm finally a Denverite (in the making) and am writing this very belated update on our decision. In the end it was easiest to arrange a rental in Stapleton over the internet so we moved into that neighborhood. Once here I quickly found three or four other Denver neighborhoods I prefer but they are either out of our price range, schools are not quite as good as Stapleton or it was an unacceptably long commute to work.

Surprisingly, I've met a number of people here who feel the same way - they would really rather be living in an older more established neighborhood with more character (like South Pearl or City Park) but because of relocation ease and children they came to Stapleton. Now that we're here we'll stay as it is a just such an "easy" place to live and it has some lovely benefits with the pools and bike trails.

I know there's not a lot of detail around about Stapleton schools so let me say that Bill Roberts is nice. A bit bland, boring and regimented without the spark of inspired intellectual camaraderie we were used to in our previous school but it's characterless is balanced by generally well-adjusted kids, involved parents and hands-on principal. It's only 2 years old so I'm sure a personality and school culture will eventually develop and in the meantime you at least know that nothing bad will happen there.

Our only bad experience here has been with KB homes. PLEASE, if you're considering building with the current group of sales agents (Theresa and Kevin) and their see-no-evil boss Linda, think twice. With us they seemed to consistently work in that grey area of not-explicitly-illegal but not-quite right either.

So thank you to all city data posters who helped with advice. I hope some of my comments will aid other newbies as well.

[denverian]

Originally Posted by blvamiv

Hello all,
I'm finally a Denverite (in the making) and am writing this very belated update on our decision. In the end it was easiest to arrange a rental in Stapleton over the internet so we moved into that neighborhood. Once here I quickly found three or four other Denver neighborhoods I prefer but they are either out of our price range, schools are not quite as good as Stapleton or it was an unacceptably long commute to work.

Surprisingly, I've met a number of people here who feel the same way - they would really rather be living in an older more established neighborhood with more character (like South Pearl or City Park) but because of relocation ease and children they came to Stapleton. Now that we're here we'll stay as it is a just such an "easy" place to live and it has some lovely benefits with the pools and bike trails.

I know there's not a lot of detail around about Stapleton schools so let me say that Bill Roberts is nice. A bit bland, boring and regimented without the spark of inspired intellectual camaraderie we were used to in our previous school but it's characterless is balanced by generally well-adjusted kids, involved parents and hands-on principal. It's only 2 years old so I'm sure a personality and school culture will eventually develop and in the meantime you at least know that nothing bad will happen there.

Our only bad experience here has been with KB homes. PLEASE, if you're considering building with the current group of sales agents (Theresa and Kevin) and their see-no-evil boss Linda, think twice. With us they seemed to consistently work in that grey area of not-explicitly-illegal but not-quite right either.

So thank you to all city data posters who helped with advice. I hope some of my comments will aid other newbies as well.

Welcome to Stapleton! I went to the town hall meeting last night at Bill Roberts where the mayor spoke. (BTW, our rec center is on track to break ground early next year) and it is a bit bland, but probably typical of newer schools. I'm not too concerned about the architecture of the school, just that it provides a great education for my kids.

The best thing about Stapleton is the people - you'll probably soon get to know your neighbors and find out how friendly everyone is.

I've heard the same thing about KB sales people. I don't know what their problem is!

[art student]

im not sure of the prices in schools but theres a good school near cherry park..or in cherry park, that if you live in thornton is a great school to go to.

my girlfriends 4 yr old jus started 2 mornings of pre-school but her 6 and 8 yr old have been attending school fulltime since 5 i believe.. starting at 7:45am finishing 2:45 i think.