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Limestone's district is actually very large and diverse. It goes from $20,000 houses in South Peoria to $400,000+ houses in other areas.
Bartonville and Peoria are also separated by I474 and a mile or so of land.
You can also gain a lot of knowledge by going to realtor.com and typing in a zip code. The real estate for sale on there will generally tell you what an area is like.
Wow Arizonaram, that's a pretty tall order for info. But anyway, I'll try to answer as best I can. I've lived in Peoria for 10 years (and Central, IL for an additional 20) so I'm pretty famililar with the surroundings.
As far as where you should live: If you live in the city limits of Peoria, then get a place to live either north of Northmore Rd or West of Sterling Ave (N of I-74). Everywhere else (about 2/3 of the city) is hit and miss, and if you don't know the city very well, you're more likely to miss. Also the schools in these areas are the best of Peoria's district 150 schools. Richwoods is really the only Peoria public high school you'd want to send your kids too (don't even bother with the other 3 public high schools).
Many of of the towns or "suburbs" of Peoria are nice places to live. Dunlap is the most affluent and is where many former residents of Peoria with a bit of money are moving too. Dunlap also has a good school district. Washington, Morton, Germantown Hills & East Peoria are also good places with good schools and targets of the continued outflux from Peoria. I wouldn't bother with Mapleton, it's too far away and not really a great place.
As far as the weather, generally there are three weeks of really fantastic weather during spring around late Apirl - early May and then three more fatastic weeks of weather during fall around late Sept. - early Oct. The rest of the year is either cool - cold or hot & humid. Summers (late May to late Sept.) can get pretty hot and humid (80's - high 90's with high humidity). Winters have changed the past 10 years (due to Global Warming) and have tended to be either mild (50's with little snow) or harsh (teens and single digits with heavy snow and several snowstorms). Overall we have a saying in Central Illinois, "if you don't like the weather, just wait a minute and it will change".
As far as Peoria: Peoria has some really neat gems and interesting things to do, but they're not immediately obvious and you have to turn over a few rocks to find them. Also as a plus, no matter where you live the in the Peoria metro area (Peoria, East Peoria, Dunlap, Morton, Washington, West Peoria, Bartonville, Pekin) you're never really more than a 30 minute commute from anywhere else in the metro area. However, Peoria is an old industrial town that the 1980's took a baseball bat to. Unfortunatly, despite the city really trying to geniunely improve itself (& making some progress), it just has never fully recovered from huge outflux of industry that started in the early 80's. In recent years, there's also been a outflow of Peoria residents to the metro communities (Dunlap, East Peoria, Morton, Washingotn, Germantown Hills, Pekin, Metamora).
I was born in Peoria. I've been going there for 50 years. One of the nicest moderately priced areas is Rolling Acres. It is nearly in the backyard of Richwollds HS which does have a good football team and a good education. There is also a Catholic highschool in Peoria Heights. Rolling Acres is tucked in between Allen Road, Glen, War Memorial (US 150) and University. It's an ideal location for getting student to Washington because it can be accessed off Univerrsity or Sterling/150. Some of the areas in Peorria are a holy mess to enter or exit during peak trarffic.l Not so Rolling Acres. Any area North of War Memorial is nice. beware of any area that does not have access at a traffic light. Rolling Acres has three access points.
The Knolls is another nice area. It's near Lake and Knoxville, but access may be a problem. Dunlap is at least 25 minutes from Washington School depending upon traffic and road connditions. Farmington is further and there is only one road to the school. Mapleton is not where you want to live. Neither is West Peoria. It isn't what it used to be. Traffic is horrendous. I used to go to the Coffehaus every morning for breakfast.
Peoria Heights north of War Memorial is still a very nice area, and Grandview Drive is still an impressive address. President Roosevelt called Grandview the World's Most Beautiful Drive. The main N/S street is Prospect between War Memorial and Knoxville. Glen and Lake are between Prospect and Knoxvile. There is a lot of access in and out of this area. South on Prospect will take you to one of the best bakeries in the midwest and also Glen Oak Park, zoo and botanical gardens. The Peoria Park Distrct manages 68 parks and offers activites year round.
BEWARE of anyone who wants to sell you property facing or abutting or adjoining any park. Those who live there pay a PAEK tax for the privilege.
When you visit, and until you know the streest and understand the demographics, DO NOT go any further south downtown than Fulton and SW Jefferspn Street a one-way street. NE Adams is a one-way too. University and Sheridan stop at Main. Main/Western makes a big horseshoe Main either goes to downtown and the RiverFront, or it becomes Westerm which then goes to West Peoria, crossing Farminton Road and down into south Peoria, a place you do not want to be at any time. Do not go past MOSS and Western. Right near this intersection is the Marriott Hotel. Moss Avenue is lined with stately old homes from the early turn of the century. It eventually works its way back to Main.
There is plenty of time to be curious. There are some nice homes off Sterling behind the Northwoods Mall. But, the traffic can be a problem.
You can also live out toward the airport, but then you are in a different sfhool district - Limestone - AND it will still take 30 minutes or longer to the Washington School. There is no ideal location until your daughter goes to high school. Germantwon, East Peoria, Morton, Bartonville, Farmington are not going to work for either school at this ppint in time.
Montessori Scnool has been in Peoria for many years. .
http://www.peoriamontessori.org/index.htm (broken link)
I second West Peoria. Nice town and close to everything.
West Peoria is also small bungalows on small lots. Trying to get onto Western is a nightmare if you don't catch a light. There just isn't anyway in or out that is very convenient. She certainly does not want her child anywhere near Manual. Regardless of where they live, someone will be inconvenienced.
Wow Arizonaram, that's a pretty tall order for info. But anyway, I'll try to answer as best I can. I've lived in Peoria for 10 years (and Central, IL for an additional 20) so I'm pretty famililar with the surroundings.
As far as where you should live: If you live in the city limits of Peoria, then get a place to live either north of Northmore Rd or West of Sterling Ave (N of I-74). Everywhere else (about 2/3 of the city) is hit and miss, and if you don't know the city very well, you're more likely to miss. Also the schools in these areas are the best of Peoria's district 150 schools. Richwoods is really the only Peoria public high school you'd want to send your kids too (don't even bother with the other 3 public high schools).
Many of of the towns or "suburbs" of Peoria are nice places to live. Dunlap is the most affluent and is where many former residents of Peoria with a bit of money are moving too. Dunlap also has a good school district. Washington, Morton, Germantown Hills & East Peoria are also good places with good schools and targets of the continued outflux from Peoria. I wouldn't bother with Mapleton, it's too far away and not really a great place.
As far as the weather, generally there are three weeks of really fantastic weather during spring around late Apirl - early May and then three more fatastic weeks of weather during fall around late Sept. - early Oct. The rest of the year is either cool - cold or hot & humid. Summers (late May to late Sept.) can get pretty hot and humid (80's - high 90's with high humidity). Winters have changed the past 10 years (due to Global Warming) and have tended to be either mild (50's with little snow) or harsh (teens and single digits with heavy snow and several snowstorms). Overall we have a saying in Central Illinois, "if you don't like the weather, just wait a minute and it will change".
As far as Peoria: Peoria has some really neat gems and interesting things to do, but they're not immediately obvious and you have to turn over a few rocks to find them. Also as a plus, no matter where you live the in the Peoria metro area (Peoria, East Peoria, Dunlap, Morton, Washington, West Peoria, Bartonville, Pekin) you're never really more than a 30 minute commute from anywhere else in the metro area. However, Peoria is an old industrial town that the 1980's took a baseball bat to. Unfortunatly, despite the city really trying to geniunely improve itself (& making some progress), it just has never fully recovered from huge outflux of industry that started in the early 80's. In recent years, there's also been a outflow of Peoria residents to the metro communities (Dunlap, East Peoria, Morton, Washingotn, Germantown Hills, Pekin, Metamora).
Excellent description of Peoria. Positive rep points coming your way.
Most of the area north of US-150 (War Memorial Drive) has low crime and good schools. Go south of US-150, and the schools are very sketchy. The South Side of Peoria has a reputation for high crime and drug activity.
I was born and raised in Peoria and just recently moved. First to address your issue of locations in peoria to live. The area around Richwoods high school is very nice. Anything in the north end of peoria is nice- there are few bad neighborhoods that way. If you were to look on a map, anything north of war memorial drive is safe. If you go really far northern, there are many new nice subdivisions but of course they are more expensive.
Next, the issue of schools in peoria and the surrounding area. Many of the public schools in peoria are poor, lots of problems with attendance,poverty,behavioral issues. I went to catholic schools up until 8th grade and they were great academically, but if you are not catholic, they are expensive. There are some middle schools that do well though, you would be wise to look at the statistics of each one to check out the good ones. Washington gifted school, kellers are a few good public ones. Dunlap does have excellent school systems, thats why its becoming crowded. I think they are some of the best in the state. Many of the people that are moving out there tend to be upper middle class to wealthy. You husband would have to commute farther, but the traffic everywhere is minimal. As far as high schools, Richwoods and Notre Dame are two of the best (I graduated from notre dame) They offer many extracurriculars and are solid academically. Manual and woodruff are the two worst, having problems with crime,poverty.
Finally, your question about weather. Peoria has typical midwest weather- 4 seasons. Winters are cold but it rarely gets bitterly cold. Being south of chicago, there is considerably less wind and snow. Usually when it snows, its not more than 3 or 4 inches. Its typically in the 80's and 90's in the summer, with plenty of humidity. Fall and spring are nice with moderate temperatures, although it rains a far amount until the end of april.
Hope that helps, growing up in peoria I know a lot about it. It is a great place to live if you like a moderately sized typical midwest city.
I was born and raised in the Peoria area, and I have such fond memories of it! My parents still live in Chillicothe where I grew up. I highly recommend looking there. It is only about a 15-20 minute drive to Peoria from there. The school system is small, but good. The high school, Illinois Valley Central (IVC for short), is fantastic in sports! We are called the IVC Grey Ghosts. My kids just love that and wish that their school had such a unique name. No matter what, you will love Illinois! My family and I were moved to Minnesota in 2006 and thankfully were moved back to Illinois in November of 2007. We absolutely hated Minnesota! The people there are so unfriendly, very much unlike people from Illinois. By the way, I absolutely LOVE Arizona. You are a very lucky person to be able to experience living in both states! Good luck!
First, I haven't lived in Peoria for ~10 years, and my parents have been gone for ~4 years so I can't really speak to neighborhoods. However, I'm concerned about all these suggestions ignoring the GATE aspect of your daughter's education. I'm sure a lot of these bedroom communities have lovely, well rated school systems. However, I grew up in far north Peoria, not far from the Dunlap area. We attended a church in Mossville, and so knew kids from several different school districts. None of them at that time had gifted and talented programs, certainly not a dedicated middle school. Would your child be eligible to attend Washington if you live outside of district 150?
So that's my concern with the bedroom communities: do they have gifted and talented programs? All I can say, I attended Kellar elementary (which I believe is still an excellently rated school) and had a hard time there. Good school, just bored out of my mind and no challenge. And of course, you're labeled "the smart kid," which is not the worst label to have :-) but still, Washington was a great environment: everyone there is the smart kid with far more academic opportunities available. You spend less time on things you've mastered quickly and can move on.
The downside: my friends were spread across the city. Good in terms of not living in your insular little world (which in my case would have been WASPS exclusively :-) ) but bad for "play dates" and mom's car's odometer. The commute from North Peoria, as I recall, consisted of a 45 minute bus ride to Washington each way, I'm told that's been improved to no greater than 30 minutes each way for any child, but not sure about that.
Just keep that in mind, I had many many acquaintances in Dunlap and surrounding school districts. They received a fine education, but if your daughter is in a GATE program, you probably realize that so-called "gifted and talented" kids (as if ALL kids were gifted and talented, I hate that label, but don't really have a better one at the moment) really are just a portion of the special needs population, just like mentally or physically disabled students, and without a proper program, either a) don't reach their true potential, or b) can get into real trouble with poor study habits or poor behavior due to boredom.
I attended Richwoods for high school and at that level, you can tailor your education a bit easier, so there was some challenge, but honestly, it's possible to skate by after the curriculum offered at Washington. However, safe (at that time) with an excellent swim and football (American) and soccer program, so might fit the bill for both of your children. Tons of AP classes to get the extra challenge and get undergrad requirements out of the way.
i would check out the town of Morton if you dont want to live in a bigger city. Morton is ab out 25,000 people and about 10 minutes from the city of Peoria. The taxes are kind of high there but it is a really nice town. Good schools also.
We just relocated to Germantown Hills. Lots of people love the North Peoria area, but it wasn't for us. Some of the outlying schools in North Peoria had combined sports programs with other high schools and not all schools had all sports. Dunlap has good schools and I have several nieces and nephews in that school district - they have all the sports there. Metamora High School (which Germantown feeds to) has an awesome football program and there is a swim team in the summer for younger kids and HS has swimming team. Germantown is an easy 4 miles from Metamora. If you are looking at Washington Gifted School in Peoria, it would actually take you less time to get there from Germantown Hills (10 min) than from Dunlap area (guessing 20 min). I don't know the rules on admission to Washington School, if you have to actually live in Peoria School District - that would make sense, but I thought a friend's son was selected to attend and they lived in East Peoria.
There are very few restaurants in Germantown Hills and I go to Washington for most shopping (10 minutes). We are only 15 minutes from theaters and about the same to downtown Peoria and lots of restaurants. It all depends on what you like. We have several acres of woods and a creek on our property...frogs, deer, bunnies, ect. We prefer that over being close to movie theaters, but every family is different.
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Peoria Info
