Coming to KC (Kansas City, Lee's Summit, Overland: credit, houses, neighborhoods)

[nabster]

Hi all, later this summer my family and I will be moving to KC from the east coast for a new job near the Plaza district. Could you please help us figure out neighborhoods we should include in our search?

My wife and I are in our mid 30s and would be looking for a tight knit community with hopefully with some diversity and easy access (~10 mins) to restaurants, doctors, shopping, etc. We prefer newer houses (<10 years old), 1/4-1/2 acre back yard, 3000-3500 sq ft, and are fairly flexible on budget

Our number 1 criteria is school quality. We have one preschool child and another who will be entering Kindergarten this fall. We are also open to non-faith based Private schools, however I believe the application deadlines for fall entry into private school kindergarten is in the next month or two ... i.e., much earlier than we would have moved.

Welcome all suggestions and advice

thank you in advance!

[zach_33]

Howdy and welcome. I just moved here to the KC area last summer. We ended up targeting Blue Valley North high school and it's feeder elementary schools because it seemed well-funded and had some of the highest standardized test scores in the area (the highest if I am not mistaken). It's very plain vanilla suburbs, great access to shopping, not diverse at all, tight-knit factor probably varies by subdivision but my experience has been that people keep to themselves a lot (I happen to be surrounded by empty nesters and that may be why it seems this way to me). It has no soul, but it works for raising kids I guess. You would find an awesome house exactly to your liking here for half million or more.

There are other good public school districts outside Blue Valley, and many people will argue that Blue Valley is no better than Shawnee Mission, or Lee's Summit, or Parkville. I don't really have a horse in that race to be honest; I just picked the district that had the best overall reputation among the faculty at KU medical school.

I share your misgivings with faith based schooling. If I could afford it I would send my kids to Pembroke Hill and live somewhere walking distance to Loose Park and/or Country Club Plaza. You'd have a harder time finding a new build down in that area, but most of the homes have been gutted to the studs and remodeled to perfection at some point in the past 20 years down there. It is a very expensive part of town.

Good luck on your search!

[TabulaRasa]

Newer construction is going to be less available than vintage in the neighborhoods immediately adjacent to where you will be working...it's a part of the city that sprang up considerably in the Arts and Crafts era, architecturally speaking.

Schooling in this part of town is not going to be what you are looking for, particularly, as a great many of the private options are parochial (a number of Catholic schools, Episcopal day schools, etc.). There are some private options that are not affiliated with any particular faith system, but they are far fewer in number, as well as being quite costly, if that is remotely a concern. We have friends who school their son at The Barstow School, which is a secular preparatory school, and pre-K through grade 12. The tuition for the preschool program there is over $10k a year, and it goes up from there. The school was founded by Wellesly graduates who sought to provide an east-coast style prep school, relatively uncommon in the Midwest, in KC.

There are also a number of charters and magnet programs in this part of town. I'm sure you have done your research and discovered that public schooling is a poor option in this part of Kansas City, as it falls under the jurisdiction of a district that has been working on getting its accreditation fully reinstated since being stripped of it three years ago.

My gut reaction to your post is that you are most likely going to be seeking out a suburban locale with decent commuting proximity to the Plaza area. The urban neighborhoods in the vicinity are most likely not going to meet your criteria as described. Various close-in Johnson Co., KS suburbs, as long as you don't venture too far south, are going to be most expedient in terms of travel to and from the Plaza.

[luzianne]

I don't really know where to suggest given your criteria unless you can afford to live in Mission Hills, where a lot of the houses have been completely redone, and send your kids to good public schools in the Shawnee Mission district, or can afford to live along Ward Parkway and send your kids to Pembroke Hill. I would say Barstow but that would be going out of your way and then back to the Plaza area.

Another option is Prairie Village. Town & Country Estates would have the larger lots, but they are going to be older houses. I live in Prairie Village and worked right next to the Plaza for years. Going through Mission Hills via Tomahawk, I can be on the Plaza in 15 minutes.

[nabster]

Originally Posted by zach_33

Howdy and welcome. I just moved here to the KC area last summer. We ended up targeting Blue Valley North high school and it's feeder elementary schools because it seemed well-funded and had some of the highest standardized test scores in the area (the highest if I am not mistaken). It's very plain vanilla suburbs, great access to shopping, not diverse at all, tight-knit factor probably varies by subdivision but my experience has been that people keep to themselves a lot (I happen to be surrounded by empty nesters and that may be why it seems this way to me). It has no soul, but it works for raising kids I guess. You would find an awesome house exactly to your liking here for half million or more.

There are other good public school districts outside Blue Valley, and many people will argue that Blue Valley is no better than Shawnee Mission, or Lee's Summit, or Parkville. I don't really have a horse in that race to be honest; I just picked the district that had the best overall reputation among the faculty at KU medical school.

this is very helpful ... thank you. The idea of being surrounded by empty nesters in a town where we don't know anybody, sounds downright scary. We are really hoping to come in and quickly start making friends with other neighbors / families / couples in our age group so as to ease the stress of the relocation away from family

[nabster]

all, thanks for the tips and advice.

I checked out Barstow and Pembroke Hill including the reviews on Greatschools.net ... my general takeaway from reading all the reviews for these schools (more Pembroke than Barstow) seems to be that most kids there have been born with a silver spoon in their mouth. And unless you are wearing / driving a high end brand you will be marked as a social outcast by your friends ... worse, unless your parents are big donors, you will be ignored by the faculty. Not the kind of environment I'd want my kids to grow up in. A review for Barstow that I found interesting was that while the Middle and High Schools are top notch, the elementary school doesnt do much to deserve the high tuition it demands.

Not sure if there are particular parts of Mission Hills or Ward Parkway I should focus on, but will definitely add them and Praire Village to the tour route

[TabulaRasa]

The Barstow School and Pembroke Hill ARE very consciously upper crust preparatory academies, no doubt about it. The vast majority of other private school options, though, are parochial, which you indicated was not something you were okay with. Many of those are quality schools, however.

If you do a search for private schools in the KC area, most are affiliated with churches or synagogues, a handful are behavioral/therapeutic schools for students with special needs/behavioral disorders, and the only one I can think of off the top of my head other the two prep schools previously mentioned that falls into the secular category is The Kansas City Academy. It's a small expeditionary learning academy, and it only serves middle school and high school.

[luzianne]

Originally Posted by nabster

Not sure if there are particular parts of Mission Hills or Ward Parkway I should focus on, but will definitely add them and Praire Village to the tour route

Mission Hills isn't that big, so no particular area; I'd say all of it. Homes along Ward Parkway just east of Mission Hills - from the Plaza up to Meyer Circle or so - would all be a short drive to the Plaza. Both of those locations, though, you are going to find kids born with a silver spoon in their mouth.

[kcmo]

If you want newer construction in a very good public school district that is close to the city, then you should really look at southern platte county. For new construction, I don't think you will find much else without going way out and getting into the very flat/barren parts of the metro (southern Johnson County etc).

It would be about a 25-30 minute commute to the plaza area, but the location is really nice. 10-15 minutes to downtown, same to all the new shopping up in the Tiffany Springs area. KCI Airport is close and you are in really in the part of KC where the topography is closest to east coast topography (more trees, hills/cliffs etc). Schools are some of best in the region and the area is a bit more diverse than many newer areas of Overland Park etc. So while you have excelent schools, the entire area is not super affluent, it's a good mix of middle class to affluent. Plus you have charming walkable places nearby like Downtown Parkville, Downtown NKC, Lake communities, the river and some of the metro's more interesting shopping centers like Zona Rosa and Briarcliff.

Here is a random subdivision of the area I'm talking about:

https://www.google.com/maps/@39.2063.../data=!3m1!1e3

[zach_33]

Originally Posted by nabster

this is very helpful ... thank you. The idea of being surrounded by empty nesters in a town where we don't know anybody, sounds downright scary. We are really hoping to come in and quickly start making friends with other neighbors / families / couples in our age group so as to ease the stress of the relocation away from family

For the record, even though I have empty nesters on 3 sides of me, there is not a shortage of families with young kids in the general vicinity. They seem to love hanging out in my house, actually. It's just that certain subdivisions are more popular for families with kids due to the age of the housing and price point. Willshire Place seems to be the subdivision (at least serving my local middle school) that is most in demand for people who want 4000 square feet for their spawn to run free. But my commute is sort of a drag at 35-40 minutes during rush hour, probably 25-30 to the plaza.

You should check out Westwood, Westwood Hills. I really like that area. The houses are older and the lots are postage stamp, but if you could find one in well remodeled in your price range... the schools are great from top to bottom - Westwood Elementary, Indian Hill MS and Shawnee Mission East HS. Fairway triangle and Mission Woods would also be good bets, and there they have a few new builds (although they run 700-800k+, ouch). Mission Woods lots are a tad larger. These are all a mile or two from the Plaza and very solid public schools.